John Fitch (inventor)
The first successful trial run of his steamboat "Perseverance" was made on the Delaware River on August 22, 1787, in the presence of delegates from the Constitutional Convention. It was propelled by a bank of oars on either side of the boat. During the next few years, Fitch and Voigt worked to develop better designs, and in June 1790 launched a boat powered by a steam engine driving several stern-mounted oars. These oars paddled in a manner similar to the motion of a swimming duck's feet. With this boat, he carried up to 30 paying passengers on numerous round-trip voyages between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey during the summer of 1790. Estimates of miles traveled that summer range from 1,300 to 3,000, and Fitch claimed that the boat often went for 500 miles without mechanical problems. Estimated speeds were of a minimum 6 miles per hour under unfavorable conditions, to a maximum of 7 or 8 miles per hour.
Fitch was granted a U.S. patent on August 26, 1791, after a battle with James Rumsey, who had also invented a steam-powered boat. The newly created federal Patent Commission did not award the broad monopoly patent that Fitch had asked for, but rather a patent of the modern kind, for the new design of Fitch's steamboat. It also awarded steam-engine-related patents dated that same day to Rumsey, Nathan Read, and John Stevens. The loss of a monopoly due to these same-day patent awards led many of Fitch's investors to leave his company. While his boats were mechanically successful, Fitch no longer had the financial resources to carry on.
Steamboats of the Mississippi
The historical roots of the prototypical Mississippi steamboat, or Western Rivers steamboat, can be traced to designs by easterners like James Rumsey, John Fitch, John Stevens, Oliver Evans, Robert Fulton and Daniel French. In the span of just six years the evolution of the prototypical Mississippi steamboat would be well underway:In the 1810s there were 20 boats on the river; by the 1830s there were more than 1200. By the 1820s, with the southern states joining the Union and the land converted to cotton plantations so indicative of the Antebellum South, methods were needed to move the bales of cotton, rice, timber, tobacco and molasses. The steamboat was perfect. America boomed in the age of Jackson. Population moved west, and more farms were established. In the 1820s Steamers were fueled first by wood, then coal, which pushed barges of coal from
Pittsburgh to New Orleans. Regular steamboat commerce begun between Pittsburgh and Louisville.