Steamboat
Similar boats were made in 1785 by John Fitch in Philadelphia and William Symington in Dumfries, Scotland. Fitch successfully trialled his boat in 1787, and in 1788, he began operating a regular commercial service along the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey, carrying as many as 30 passengers. This boat could typically make and travelled more than during its short length of service. The Fitch steamboat was not a commercial success, as this travel route was adequately covered by relatively good wagon roads. The following year, a second boat made excursions, and in 1790, a third boat ran a series of trials on the Delaware River before patent disputes dissuaded Fitch from continuing.
Seine River Steamers
The Seine River was the scene of many early experiments with
steam navigation. The steamship has a long ancestry, dating back at least to 1783 when the Marquis de Jouffray d'Abbans steamed his little boat, the Pyroscaphe, across the Seine. Robert Fulton even exhibited one to
Napoleon's regime. With the success of the steam engine by the
1820s, the Second Republic embarked on a series of navigation
improvements to raise weirs and locks with which to deepen the navigation channel. By the 1860s improvements had changed the riverbed from low-lying sand banks and trickle to a series of cascading
ponds with a depth of 6 and a half feet.