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.
Arkansas River
On March 31, 1820, the "Comet" became the first steamboat to successfully navigate part of the Arkansas River, reaching a place called Arkansas Post, about above the confluence of the Arkansas and the Mississippi Rivers. In mid-April, 1822, the "Robert Thompson", towing a keelboat, was the first steamboat to navigate the Arkansas as far as Fort Smith. For five years, Fort Smith was known as the head of navigation for steamboats on the river. It lost the title to Fort Gibson in April, 1832, when three steamboats, "Velocipede", "Scioto" and "Catawba", all arrived at Fort Gibson later that month.