January 19, 2024
John Fitch
(1743-1798) |
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Happy Birthday John Fitch!
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It is a common mistake that many people make, thinking Robert Fulton was the inventor of the steamboat. While Fulton can be credited with developing the first commercially successful steamship, it was in fact South Windsor native John Fitch who, in the 1780s, invented the first practical and successful, working steamboat. |
The Early Connecticut Years
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John Fitch memorial marker on King Street in South Windsor FWMLM Online Archives Object ID number 1994.05.042 |
| John Fitch was born on January 21, 1743, on the east side of the Connecticut River in what was known at the time as Windsor, Connecticut. A memorial marker is located only "a few rods" west of where the house stood, at what is now 454 King Street in South Windsor.
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According to Kim Sheridan, writing for Connecticuthistory.org, Fitch had several unsuccessful business ventures as a young man, the first being open-water navigation. He then apprenticed himself to two local clock makers but ended having to be bought out of his indenture by relatives. After a failed potash manufacturing business, among other futile business endeavors, Fitch was heavily in debt.
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Fitch had married Lucy Roberts in 1767 but by 1769, he was disillusioned with both his career prospects and marriage. He abandoned his pregnant wife and infant child and left Connecticut. |
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It wasn't until after the Revolutionary War, a move to Philadelphia, and several more unsuccessful career paths, that John Fitch turned his attention to working out how to successfully power boats with steam. |
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His design featured 12 mounted paddles, six to a side, moved by a large chain; it was first successfully demonstrated on the Delaware River in 1787 in the presence of delegates from the Constitutional Convention. |
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Though several different models were created and briefly used between Trenton and Philadelphia, it was never a commercial success due to continuing patent disputes with rivals and poor business management. |
After Fitch died in 1798, Fulton created a commercially successfully steamboat and thus, is credited with popularizing the use of steam propulsion. As pointed out on PBS's Who Made America? website, "Fulton's genius lay not in invention but in adaptation for the marketplace." |
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Despite Fitch's commercial failures and abandonment of his family in Connecticut, nearly 150 years after his death Route 5 in South Windsor and East Windsor would be named John Fitch Boulevard, recognizing his efforts as a colonial era inventor. |
He is even honored with a fresco in the Senate wing of the United States Capitol. |
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