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.
New Orleans (steamboat)
"New Orleans" was the first attempt in the rapid development of technology, which included more efficient steam engines, improvements in steamboat designed for western rivers, as well as lock and canal construction. After "New Orleans", several steamboats were quickly built at Pittsburgh over the next couple of years, including "Comet" (1813), "Vesuvius" (1814), and "Aetna". Around 1817, when there were twelve steamboats on the mid-western rivers, a skeptical public became convinced that steamboat navigation would work, and so within two years, there were over sixty steamboats on the western waters. By 1826, there were 143 steamboats on the river; a total of 233 had existed up to that time, despite the constant threat and dangers of overheated boiler explosions and wrecks from river obstructions.