Robert Fulton
The first successful trial run of a steamboat had been made several years earlier in the United States by inventor John Fitch, on the Delaware River on August 22, 1787. Attendees included delegates from the Constitutional Convention, who were observing while taking a break from their summer-long sessions at Independence Hall. The steamboat was propelled by a bank of oars on either side of the boat. The following year Fitch 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 thirty passengers for hire on numerous round-trip voyages on the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey.
Maritime history
Steam was first applied to boats in the 1770s. With the advent of economical steam engines, efficient external combustion heat engines that makes use of the heat energy that exists in steam and converting it to mechanical work, the was steam for ships. The technology only became relevant to trans-oceanic travel after 1815, the year Pierre Andriel crossed the English Channel aboard the steamship "Élise".