Steam Power on the Water
1807 AD
1807 1807
74.00W41.30N
SCI

NEW YORK
	The Age of Steam had already come to the land, but on the sea the sailing ship was still supreme.  But American engineer Robert Fulton was soon to change that.
	Fulton had studied in Great Britain and was acquainted with steam-engine pioneer James Watt and William Symington, who had built a steam-powered canal tug boat.
	Upon returning to the United States, he and American statesman Robert Livingston built the steam-powered Clermont, which began sailing between New York and Albany on the Hudson River in 1807.
	While there had been earlier experiments using steam engines to propel boats, Fulton's Clermont was the first commercially successful steamship.
	In 1814-15, Fulton built the first steam-powered warship, called the Fulton, for the United States government.