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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
Steamboats:
In 1786 the State legislature granted to Fitch all rights to operate steam-propelled craft on the waters of the State. In the summer of that year,
Fitch made his first trial on the Delaware with a queer looking boat, having a row of paddles on each side. While no great success, it warranted
the construction of two more boats in 1787-8. Fitch's best work was his
commercial steamboat of 1790. Although it carried passengers and freight
between various points along the Delaware and the Schuylkill on a regular
schedule, it received so little patronage that it was abandoned. This was,
however, 17 years before Robert Fulton prospered with his larger
Clermont on the Hudson.
In 1791 Stevens obtained a patent on an engine for running a boat with
paddles, and seven years later he tested his own steamboat on a run down
the Passaic from Belleville to New York and back. In 1804 he tried again
with a steamboat, the Little Juliana, having the first screw propeller.
Finally in 1808 he applied for a license to run the Phoenix, his best boat,
as a steam ferry between Hoboken and New York. This was the first steam
ferry in the world, but its career was curtailed by the Hudson River
monopoly that Robert Fulton had obtained. Stevens then took his boat
around to the Delaware, and the Phoenix became the first steamboat to
sail the open sea.
To circumvent Fulton's hold on the Hudson, Stevens and others used the
ingenious "teamboat" ferry, twin boats with a wheel between the two
hulls. Power was furnished by eight horses walking in a circle on deck
and turning a crank. It required no royalty payment to Fulton and operated
successfully for some time.
While land routes were being speeded by simple expansion
and construction, water travel was improved by the inventive skill and
courage of men who saw the possibility of applying the principle of James
Watt's stationary steam engine to sailing vessels. John Fitch, a poor clockmender from Connecticut who lived for a time in Trenton, and Colonel
John Stevens, a rich Hoboken engineer, labored to make the steamboat a
reality on New Jersey waters.
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