Long before Robert Fulton became a household name, a lesser-known inventor was already churning up the Delaware River.
In 1787, John Fitch launched what is widely recognized as America’s first functioning passenger and freight steamboat right here in Philadelphia, writes Violet Comber-Wilen for Billy Penn at WHYY.
His original 45-foot vessel was a radical idea made real: a boat that moved entirely on its own power, no wind needed, no oarsmen required.
It was proof of concept that would reshape how Americans thought about moving people and goods across water.
“Steam, especially as early as this, is a rare thing,” Mike Madea, director of education at the Independence Seaport Museum, said. “Steam is about to burst onto the scene as a really viable means of transit, freight and shipping.”
Emboldened by that early success, Fitch went bigger. He launched a second vessel named “the Experiment” that ferried up to 30 paying passengers and cargo between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey, through the summer of 1790.
It was a working commercial route, not a demonstration.
The route blended Philadelphia’s bustling trade economy with something newer and more surprising: leisure.
People were getting on a steam-powered boat just to see what it felt like.
History, however, was not kind to Fitch.
He died in obscurity, broke and largely forgotten, while Fulton launched his famous steamboat two decades later and subsequently became the name everyone remembers.
Historians have since worked to set the record straight, crediting Fitch as a genuine pioneer of steam-powered transportation in America.
To learn more about John Fitch, Philadelphia’s first steamboat, and the Firstival celebration honoring his legacy, read the Billy Penn at WHYY.
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