John FitchBorn 21 Jan 1743; died 2 Jul 1798 at age 55. American pioneer of steamboat transportation who produced serviceable steamboats before Robert Fulton. Fitch found private support, then rapidly built an engine with features of both Watt's and Newcomen's steam engines. He moved from mistake to mistake until he'd made our first steamboat. It was an odd machine - driven by a rack of Indian-canoe paddles. Yet, by the summer of 1790, Fitch used it in a successful passenger line between Philadelphia and Trenton. On 26 Aug 1791, John Fitch was granted a U.S. patent for the steamboat. He logged thousands of miles at six to eight mph carrying passengers that summer. However, it was not a commercial success, and a few years later, broken by failure, an alcoholic, he turned to suicide with opium pills. |
