Born Nov 14 1765 - Died Feb 24 1815
Patented February 11 1809
Robert Fulton designed and operated the world’s first commercially
successful steamboat. Fulton’s Clermont made its historic first run in
August 1807 on the Hudson River.
One of many would-be steamboat inventors of his day, Fulton spent months
assessing existing ideas and finding the ideal combination that would
set his steamboat apart. His first prototype broke in half and sank in
1803. Numerous design changes and additional months’ work brought
success in 1807.
The Clermont carried sixty passengers who each paid five cents per mile.
It had a long and narrow hull, two paddle wheels twelve feet in
diameter, a twenty-four-horse power steam engine designed and built by
James Watt, and a twenty-foot copper boiler. Targeting customers willing
to pay a premium for speed, Fulton’s steamboat earned a handsome profit
in its first year and won public acceptance for steamboat travel.
Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Fulton was apprenticed to a jeweler at
age fifteen, and worked in England as a portraitist before turning to
inventing. In 1802, after a submarine he designed for France’s Napoleon
failed, Fulton met Robert R. Livingston, a wealthy American statesman
fascinated with steamboats. Fulton agreed to build a steamboat that
Livingston would finance.