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.
Steamboats on the Volga River
The first large steamers of the American type were built in 1872.
Thousands of steamers are now employed in the traffic, to say nothing of smaller boats and rafts. Many of the steamers use as fuel mazut or petroleum refuse. In 1870, the first Russian open hearth furnace was built in Nizhny Novgorod, followed by a two-decked steamship "Perevorot" just a year later. In 1913, it produced a dry bulk cargo ship "Danilikha". The shipyard built 489 ships between 1849 and 1918. In 1913 there were over 5,000 steamers on the Volga river system.