AMONG THE EARLY CX- ^ 



^ periments in the con- 

 struction of steamboats the 



American efforts were ^ ^ 



probably the most im- 

 portant and efl'ective. The _^ ^ 

 earUest known American 



experimenter was the gun- * -K 



smith Wilham Henry, of * * 



Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 



who in 1763 proposed a steamboat, though little is 

 known of the engine or of the method of propulsion 

 he planned, other than that he proposed using pad- 

 dle wheels. Apparently he accomplished little; at 

 least his efforts drew little attention. 



James Rumsey has usually been credited with being 

 the first successful experimenter in America, but this 

 is doubtful. A house-builder and miller at Berkeley 

 Springs, Virginia, he made a working model of a "me- 

 chanical boat" or "stream boat," about 1784, which 

 he showed to visitors; this was not a steamboat but, 

 rather, a mechanically driven craft employing setting 

 poles. In 1787 he was able to construct a steamboat: 

 the boiler and engine were built by the Catoctin Iron 

 Furnace in Frederick County, Virginia. 



Rumsey employed a pump, operated by a steam 

 engine, to propel the boat by means of a primitive 

 hydraulic jet which drew I'll water at the bow and 

 expelled it at the stern. He had some success and, 

 after dismantling his boat, he went to England to ob- 

 tain financial backing. Here he designed an im- 

 proved boat and started construction, but died before 

 the craft was completed. The boat, when finished, 

 was exhibited on the Thames and apparently was 

 considered successful, but nothing further de\'eloped 

 from this experiment. 



Thus it appears that not until 1787 did Rumsey pro- 

 duce a steamboat. But in 1785 John Fitch had de- 

 \eloped an idea for a steamboat and had built models. 

 as well as a manually operated boat employing paddle 

 wheels. Papers, including the specifications, and a 

 model of a steamboat were presented to the American 

 Philosophical Society in August of 1785. 



Fitch organized in 1786 a steamboat company and 

 in July of that year completed a skiff with a steam en- 

 gine operating a bank of oars on each side of the boat. 

 This boat he placed in operation to demonstrate the 

 invention, and in the following month jjegan a secoixi 

 boat, 45 feet long, which was demonstrated in August 

 1787, when a run was made in the presence of members 

 of Congress at Philadelphia. In 1788 a third boat, 60 



feet long and 12 feet beam, was built and fitted with 

 stern oars, as illustrated. She made 14 trips to Bur- 

 lington and back, from Philadelphia, covering between 

 2000 and 3000 miles, by the spring of 1790. A fourth 

 boat, about the same size as the third, was started in 

 the fall of 1790 but this boat was wrecked in a storm, 

 and never repaired. 



It is not clear that Fitch used the mechanical rowing 

 system of propulsion in all his boats, for he experi- 

 mented with endless-chain paddles and paddle 

 wheels, as well as with the mechanical oars usually 

 associated with his boats. In 1793 Fitch went to 

 France and left plans there which Robert Fulton later 

 saw. Fitch returned to the United States and died 

 in 1798. 



It will be seen that Fitch had a steamboat con- 

 structed a year before Rumsey, thus making him the 

 first American to produce an operating steamboat. 

 Others were interested in steamboats; Samuel Morey 

 about 1790 built a steamboat, with a paddle wheel at 

 the bow, that was tried out on the Connecticut River; 

 a few years later he built another steamboat with a 

 stern paddle wheel which made about 5 miles per 

 hour. This he showed to Chancellor Robert Liv- 

 ingston, who was later associated with Fulton. Morey 

 patented a steam engine in 1795 which was intended 

 to operate paddle wheels. In 1797 he built a boat 

 with two paddle wheels on each side. Nicholas J. 

 Roosevelt also experimented with paddle wheels; he 

 built a small boat, or large model, propelled by paddle 

 wheels operated by a spindle on the axle, which was 

 revolved by a cord attached to a wood-and-whalebone 

 spring. His experiment took place sometime prior 

 to 1798 and Roosevelt sho\ved this boat to Chancellor 

 Livingston. 



It should be noted that a number of other Ameri- 

 cans were active in steam engine construction and in 

 steam propulsion problems after 1800. Oliver E\-ans 

 built many experimental engines and finally produced 

 the "grasshopper" engine in some number after 1820. 

 It was employed in a couple of American steamboats 

 but did not become very popular in America, though 

 a number of early French steamboats were fitted with 

 this type of engine. Evans was the first American to 

 produce a standardized steam engine. The walking- 

 beam engine was tried in America, but the first suc- 

 cessful design was imported from England, and after 

 about 1832 this type of engine became very popular in 

 American steamers. 



The lack of proper tools and of facilities for working 

 large masses of metal appears to have caused the early 



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