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Patent Granted to John Fitch by Louis X\'I of France, November 29, 1791 (the original is in the Water- 

 craft Collection USNM 130032). Propulsion is by "duck leg" paddles from the stern. The paddles are 

 operated by cranks and pitman rods, driven by a chain, sprockets, and cranks from the steam engine. {Smit/i- 

 sonian photo ^4/gj-a.) 



American experimenters great difficulty in producing 

 suitable engines for steamers. Hence early engines 

 employed in steamboats were crude, of lovs' power, and 

 slow turning. Americans gave much atteition to 

 boilers; Fitch apparently had designed a water- tube 

 boiler in 1785 and others worked on this idea. 



John Stevens of Hoboken, New Jersey, probably 

 began experimenting about 1791; his first attempt 

 was with the hydraulic jet but he soon turned to a 

 screw propeller. Stevens was a very brilliant man 

 and invented, among other things, a tubular boiler 

 (patented in P91) and improvements (in 1805). In 

 1803-04 he built a twin-screw steamboat or rather, 

 launch, with which he made tests on the Hudson in 



the spring of 1804 and his boat reached a speed of 

 about 4 miles per hour. He apparently had trouble 

 with the engine and as a result, turned to side paddle 

 wheels in place of screws and in 1807-09 built 

 the steamboat Phoenix. While Stevens was still con- 

 structing his engine, Fulton and his backers obtained 

 a monopoly on the use of steamboats in New York 

 waters, and Stevens had no recourse but to send the 

 Phoenix to the Delaware River. This vessel in making 

 the passage by the coastal route, became the first 

 American steamer to venture on the open sea. In 

 spite of his own pioneering work Stevens gave full 

 credit to Fulton for ha\ing produced the first practical 

 paddlewheel steamboat. 



109 



