In 1803 Oliver Evans had begun to build

steam-engines in Philadelphia, and in 1813 published an article in which he claimed that in 1773 he had suggested steam as a motor on land, and in 1778 had proposed its application to boats. In 1804 he built a machine for cleaning docks, and propelled it by its own engine overland to the Schuylkill River, where he launched it into the stream, fixed a paddle-wheel to it and navigated it around to the Delaware. He proposed to construct a steam road carriage for freight, at a cost of two thousand five hundred dollars, that would transport one hundred barrels of flour, at the speed of two miles an hour, and successfully endeavored to enlist the Philadelphia and Columbia Turnpike Company in his project. He unquestionably had worked out the idea of the steamboat and locomotive in his mind, but the world laughed at him when he predicted that " The time will come when people

will travel in stages moved by steam-engines from one city to another almost as fast as the birds can fly -- fifteen or twenty miles an hour."

Soon after the close of the Revolution James Rumsey propelled a boat by steam on the Potomac River in the presence of a party of observers, one of whom was Washington, who certified to what Rumsey had accomplished. The Rumsey Society, of which Benjamin Franklin was president, was formed to aid him, and there ensued a sharp controversy for priority of invention between Rumsey and John Fitch. The latter had, in July, 1786, experimented on the Delaware with a steamer moved by upright paddles, fitted at the gunwales, but his first successful boat was operated in July, 1788. He changed the paddles to the stem of the craft, where they worked nearly as well as a wheel.