User:Tim McNeil

John Fitch

Most people know Robert Fulton as the man who invented the steamboat. This is untrue. The real inventor was John Fitch.

He drew up designs for a "boat propelled by steam". In 1785 he built his first model. The following year, he successfully demonstrated a full-size model. In 1790, he used it to perform regularly scheduled services between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey. Over the years his debts piled up. Squatters took over his lands. In 1798, he died at the age of 55, sad and broke. This was five years before Fulton "invented" the steamboat.

The reason Fitch is still unknown to most people is because he never patented his designs. Fulton did. That's why Fulton gets all the credit, while Fitch stays in the dark.