12, 1864. One boat with $125,000 in gold coins and ingots was overturned and lost its contents in the water. (There is no evidence of this in the "Official Records.")3...

Known by numerous names such as riverboat, paddleboat, sternwheeler, ... St. Louis alone saw close to three thousand steamboat arrivals in 1850. ... Few escaped catastrophe as 44 collisions,

Fulton developed a hand-operated paddle wheel for use on a rowboat. He also built a rifle that had sight and bore ... Fulton had been interested for many years in the idea of steam propulsion for a boat.

In 1790, John Fitch, an American, operated a paddle-wheel boat on the Delaware River, and two years later a Rhode Islander, ... The first commercial Bay steamers, the Fulton and the Connecticut,

Robert Fulton (1765-1815) built his first boat after Fitch's death, and it was Fulton who became known as the "father of steam navigation."

John Stevens next built a boat which he named the "Phoenix," and made the first trial in 1807, just too late to anticipate Fulton. This boat was driven by paddle- wheels.

Demonstrated in Rouen with Fulton aboard, the Nautilus folded its mast and sails flat on the deck and, with three crew members cranking a screw, dove to a depth of 7.6 m (25 ft). The French and...

Fulton was entitled to any merit for the employment of paddle­wheels at the sides of his boat, and shows that Fulton was indebted to Fitch for the proportions of his vessels:

Robert Fulton from a self-portrait ... Amidships was her engine, a steam boiler that belched flame and smoke as it powered two paddle wheels placed on either side of the hull.

The outside bearing of the paddle-wheel shaft and the guard were invented by Fulton. The boat may be considered to have been about the sixteenth steamboat;