On Aug. 26, 1791, John Fitch and James Rumsey, rivals battling over claims to the invention, were each granted a federal patent for the steamboat. They devised different systems for their steamboats.

IN the June issue of Mechanical Engineering, Mr. W. H. Richardson gives a sketch of the career of?John Fitch: Patriot, Martyr, Pioneer Steamboat Inventor?. Fitch was born in 1743 and died by his own ...

ALTON — The American Queen, said to be the largest river steamboat ever built, sits docked on the Alton Riverfront Monday, Aug. 22. The date seems fitting since, according to the Library of Congress, ...

For generations school children learned that Robert Fulton perfected the first steamboat in 1807 and that it changed America. Certainly, Fulton’s boat, originally called the “North River Steamboat” ...