On Aug. 26, 1791, John Fitch and James Rumsey, rivals battling over claims to the invention, were each granted a federal patent for the steamboat. They devised different systems for their steamboats.

For generations school children learned that Robert Fulton perfected the first steamboat in 1807 and that it changed America. Certainly, Fulton’s boat, originally called the “North River Steamboat” ...

THREE YEARS BEFORE John Fitch began contemplating the absurd–a boat powered by steam, not wind or men with oars–a warring band of Delaware Indians seized his raft, which was heading up the Ohio River ...