Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1893 — Genesis of the Steamboat. [ARTICLE]

Genesis of the Steamboat.

The first steamboat was built by Dennis Papin, who navigated it safely down the Fulda as long ago as 1707. Unfortunately, this pioneer craft was destroyed by jealous sailors, and even the very memory of it was lost for three quarters of a century. In 1775 Perrior, another Frenchman, built an experimental steam vessel at Paris. Eight years later, in 1783, Jouffroy took up the idea that has been evolved by Papin and Perrier and built a steamer which did good service for some time on the Saone. The first American to attempt to apply steam to navigation was John Fitch, a Connecticut mechanic, who made his initial experiments in the year 1785. To what extent Fitch was indebted to the three industrious French inventors named above we are not informed, but that his models weie original there is not the least doubt. In the first he employed a large pipe-ket-tle for generating the steam, the motive power being side paddles worked after the fashion of oars on a common rowboat. In the second Fitch craft the same mode of propulsion was adopted, with the exception that the paddles were made to imitate a revolving wheel and were affiexd to the stern—clearly forshadowing the present •‘stern-wheeler.’’ This last mentioned boat was the first American steam vessel that can be pionounced a success. It made its first trip to Burlington in July, 1788, But, after all, it was not until after the opening of the present century that steam navigation started into actual life. In 1807 Robert Fulton (whom every school child knows was an American), inconjuction with one Robert R. Livingston, built the Clermont, und established a regular packet servico between New York and Albany. The success of this undertaking was so satisfactory that four new boats were built before the end of 1811, at least two of them being designed for service in other rivers.—St. Louis Republic.