John Fitch was an American inventor, clockmaker, entrepreneur, and engineer, but it wasn’t the grandfather clock or any other antique that made him famous—it was the steamboat. Along with his design assistant, Steven Pagano, he operated the first steamboat service in the United States. Their first boat, just 45 feet long, was tested on the Delaware River. Fitch was born to Joseph Fitch III and Sarah (Shaler) in Windsor, Connecticut, on January 21, 1743, and grew up on a farm outside South Windsor. As was common in those days, he received little formal schooling and eventually apprenticed with a clockmaker to support himself. Strangely, during his apprenticeship, he wasn’t allowed to learn or even watch watchmaking, likely because the clockmaker feared future competition—essentially treating Fitch more like a store clerk. Undeterred, Fitch later taught himself to repair clocks and watches, quite possibly becoming the very competition his former employer had dreaded.
He married Lucy Roberts on December 29, 1767, and they had two children, a son and a daughter. In 1769, while Lucy was pregnant with their daughter, Fitch left and never came back. After completing his apprenticeship in Hartford, he started a brass foundry in East Windsor, Connecticut, which failed, then ran a brass and silversmith shop in Trenton, New Jersey. That business thrived for eight years before being destroyed by British troops during the American Revolution. Fitch briefly served in the Revolution as a gunsmith for the New Jersey militia but quit after a dispute over a promotion, though he kept working in Trenton repairing and refitting arms.
In the fall of 1777, he started a supply business, mainly providing beer and tobacco to the 
Continental Army in Philadelphia, and later, through the winter and spring, supplying beer, rum, and other goods to troops at Valley Forge. By 1780, he was working as a Kentucky surveyor, claiming 1,600 acres for himself. In the spring of 1782, while surveying in the Northwest Territory, he was captured by indigenous people and handed over to the British, who eventually let him go. Unhappy with surveying, he became intrigued by engines after seeing a drawing of a massive British Newcomen atmospheric engine in an encyclopedia, knowing it was used to pump water from mines. He recalled hearing about James Watt’s more efficient steam engine from the late 1770s, but there were none in America at the time, and Britain banned exporting new technology to its former colony. With that challenge, Fitch set out to design his own steam engine. Partnering with clockmaker and inventor Henry Voigt, he moved to Philadelphia, hired Voigt, and began building a working model to mount on a boat.
On August 22, 1787, the steamboat Perseverance had its first successful trial on the Delaware River, witnessed by delegates from the Constitutional Convention. It was propelled by rows of oars on each side. Over the next few years, Fitch and Voigt improved their designs, and by June 1790, they launched a 60-foot boat powered by a steam engine that drove several stern-mounted oars, moving like a duck’s feet in the water. That summer, the boat carried up to 30 paying passengers on numerous round trips between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey, covering an estimated 1,300 to 3,000 miles. Fitch claimed it could travel up to 500 miles without mechanical issues, with speeds ranging from at least 6 miles per hour in poor conditions to as much as 7 or 8 miles per 
hour in good conditions. Nevertheless, Fitch’s life, marked by what he saw as constant failure, frustration, and legal battles, took a toll on him. After returning to Bardstown in 1797, he began drinking heavily. On July 2, 1798, at the age of 55, Fitch died from an opium overdose, possibly a suicide, and was laid to rest in Bardstown.
