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.
George Tromley Sr. House
Tromley sailed the Mississippi River before the advent of the steamboat. He began his career on the river floating log rafts, which were common before the Civil War, and he built the first raft boat on the river at Le Claire. Eventually he sailed the river as a captain. Tromley and Thomas Doughty, a local engineer, took the small steamer the "Le Claire" upriver where they conducted an experiment to use a steamboat to push a log raft. The "Le Claire" was not powerful enough to control the raft, but the experiment led to a major development in being able to transport logs from the northern forests to the mills further south. Samuel Van Sant of Le Claire was able to use its results to build a boat that was large enough and had enough power to tow a log raft in 1870. George Tromley Sr. married Katherine McCaffrey and they raised three children. The house of their eldest son, George Tromley Jr., is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.