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 of the Columbia River
In the 1840s and 1850s, ocean-going ships equipped with auxiliary steam engines were able to and did come up the lower river as far as Portland, Oregon and Fort Vancouver. However, no other riverine steamboat worked in the region until the side-wheeler "Columbia" was launched in early June 1850, at Astoria. "Columbia" was a basic vessel, built with no frills of any kind, not even a passenger cabin or a galley. Her dimensions were in length, beam, of draft and 75 gross tons. On July 3, 1850, "Columbia" began her first run from Astoria to Portland and Oregon City. "Columbia's" first captain was Jim Frost, who had been a pilot on the Mississippi river. It took two days to get to Portland, largely because of the captain's lack of familiarity with the river channel and his resulting caution. After that, "Columbia" made the Oregon City-Portland-Astoria run twice a month at four miles per hour, charging $25 per passenger and $25 per ton of freight.