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.
Canemah (sidewheeler)
Canemah was one of the first steamboats to run on the Willamette River above Willamette Falls. "Canemah" was the first steamboat to load grain at Corvallis, the first to carry the mail on the Willamette River, and the first steamboat in Oregon to suffer a fatal boiler explosion.