STEAMBOATS

Steamboats were first developed in the late 1700s and became commercially viable in the early 1800s. There were two types of steam-driven vessels—those designed for the deep coastal waters along the eastern seaboard of the United States and those designed to navigate the shallower inland rivers of the nation's interior. Steamboats are propelled by steam engines, which drive paddle wheels (either along the boat's side or stern) to move the vessel through water.

The first workable steamboat was demonstrated by Connecticut-born inventor John Fitch (1743–98) on August 22, 1787, on the Delaware River. He launched two larger vessels in 1788 and 1790, receiving a patent for his design in 1791. But Fitch's fourth boat was ruined by a storm in 1792 and the innovator lost the support of his backers.

The first commercially viable steamboat was designed by Pennsylvania engineer and inventor Robert Fulton (1765–1815); the Clermont made its maiden voyage on August 17-22, 1807, when it sailed up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany in thirty hours, and then returned. The vessel was 133 feet long and had only a seven-foot (considered shallow) draft. The Clermont was the forerunner of the "western" steamboats that would soon dominate the interior waterways and Gulf Coast. In 1817 the stern paddle steamboat the Washington completed the first round-trip voyage between Louisville, Kentucky, and New Orleans, Louisiana—traveling along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. By the end of that year dozens of steamboats were in operation on those two principle rivers and their tributaries; by 1840, there were more than two hundred on the Mississippi alone; by 1860, this number had swelled to more than one thousand. Mississippi steamboat traffic and trade had by 1850 pushed New Orleans to exceed New York City in volume of shipping, with New Orleans' outbound cargo accounting for more than half the nation's total exports.

Steamboat technology was put to use on many kinds of vessels. Packets were the most common kind of steamboat; they carried passengers and cargo from city to city. There were also towboats (which pushed cargo barges), showboats (outfitted for the entertainment of the paying public), ferries (which carried covered wagons and other vehicles across waterways in the absence of bridges), dredges (to deepen existing waterways), and light tenders (which conducted maintenance along rivers). This variety of steamboats made settlement possible by permitting travel from West Virginia in the East to the Rocky Mountains in the West, and from Minnesota in the North to Louisiana in the South.

The development of transcontinental railroads later in the 1800s caused steamboat use to decline. For decades more, however, they maintained a place in the nation's ever-expanding transportation network, particularly up and down the Mississippi River.