Ships Through the Ages: Robert Fulton's "Clermont"

In the year 1807, the "Clermont," named after the country home of a friend of Fulton's, proceeded from New York to Albany under its own steam, a distance of 130 miles in 30 hours. Fulton's "Clermont" was not the first steamboat. In 1785, John Fitch of South Windsor, Connecticut, completed a small steamboat, which made a successful trip on the Delaware River in 1787. He also built several larger steamships, one of which ran as a passenger boat between Philadelphia and Trenton in the summer of 1790. The United States Congress officially recognized Fitch in 1926 when it appropriated $15,000 to build a small memorial to him at Bardstown, Kentucky, where he died in 1798.
Courtesy of Boston Public Library