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                                                                            Steamboats

           Paddlewheel, smoking stack, and noise!  A steamboat is coming.

            People or animals propelled the early boats of this country.  The steamboat was the first boat to have an engine on board.  The engine turned a huge wheel or wheels that were partly submerged.  Mounted on the back or side of the boat, the wheels had paddles that were positioned to push against the water to move the boat.   

            Pennsylvania played an important part in the advancement of the steamboat.  Many trials were made inside the state and many of the inventors were from Pennsylvania. 

            One of the earliest was William Henry who tried out a steamboat on the Conestoga Creek in 1763.  John Fitch was already experimenting with the steamboat when he stopped to see Mr. Henry and examined documents showing Mr. Henry’s plans. John Fitch’s trials were made in 1786 on the Delaware River.  Afterwards, he built two paddle-wheel steamboats to make regular runs between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey.  Interestingly, a later boat of Mr. Fitch’s company was called the Perseverance.  (To persevere means to keep going even when troubles arise.)  Persevering proved too difficult for John when he went bankrupt.  He quit working on the steamboat.

            Robert Fulton, who was from Pennsylvania, made the first commercially successful steamboat named the North River in 1807, using New York waters to conduct his trials.  North River was later known as the Clermont.  Mr. Fulton’s invention was the key to making the steamboat a main method of travel in the 1800s.  He as well as others built many more boats.  One of Mr. Fulton’s boat projects started in Pittsburgh in 1811. He and a partner built a boat called the New Orleans which became the first steamboat to travel the entire Mississippi River.

            After looking at the Fulton boats, engineer and inventor John Stevens from New Jersey built a steamboat in 1808 that ran a regular route between Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey.  His boat was the first to go into the ocean and is called the forerunner of steamboat commerce. 

            In 1818, Walk-in-in-Water, the first steamboat to run on Lake Erie, was designed by Noah Brown and Robert McQueen to make regular trips along the south shore. 

            Designed by Pennsylvanian John Elgar and run in Pennsylvania waters was a steamboat named Cordorus.  Made in York, Pennsylvania, in 1825, and run exclusively on the Susquehanna River, the Cordorus’ unique feature was that it was built of iron.  The idea was a predecessor of the gigantic steamships of today which are also metal.  The Cordorus, unfortunately, didn’t run long because it was too impractical for regular use.

            The height of steamboat travel occurred during the 1930s and 40s.  Although some steamboats were used after the 1940s, the majority of freight was transported by larger barges, faster trains and trucks. 

Fill in this chart about steamboat inventors:

       Inventor                            Date                      Place of Trial              Name of Boat                                                                                                                                (if given)

Challenge Question:  How could the quote, “standing on the shoulders of giants,” relate to the development of the steamboat in Pennsylvania?