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.
Technological and industrial history of the United States
Despite the new efficiencies introduced by the turnpikes and canals, travel along these routes was still time-consuming and expensive. The idea of integrating a steam boiler and propulsion system can be first attributed to John Fitch and James Rumsey who both filed for patents or state monopolies on steamboats in the late 1780s. However, these first steamboats were complicated, heavy, and expensive. It would be almost 20 years until Robert R. Livingston contracted a civil engineer named Robert Fulton to develop an economical steamboat. Fulton's paddle steamer, "The North River Steamboat" (erroneously referred to as the "Clermont"), made its first trip from New York City north on the Hudson River to Albany on August 17, 1807. By 1820, steamboat services had been established on all the Atlantic tidal rivers and Chesapeake Bay. The shallow-bottomed boats were also ideally suited navigating the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and the number of boats on these rivers increased from 17 boats to 727 boats between 1817 and 1855. The speed of the steamboats decreased travel times between coastal ports and upstream cities by weeks and costs for transporting goods along these rivers by as much as 90%.