The steamboat was finally placed in working order, and was found capable, on trial, of making three or four miles an hour. But now the boiler proved to be too small to furnish steam steadily in sufficient quantity to sustain the higher speed. After some delay, and much distress on the part of the sanguine inventor, who feared that he might be at last defeated when on the very verge of success, the necessary changes were finally made, and a trial took place at Philadelphia, in presence of the members of the Convention—then in session at Philadelphia framing the Federal Constitution—August 22, 1787. Many of the distinguished spectators gave letters to Fitch certifying his success. Fitch now went to Virginia, where he succeeded in obtaining a patent, November 7, 1787, and then returned to ask a patent of the General Government.
A controversy with Rumsey now followed, in which Fitch asserted his claims to the invention of the steamboat, and denied that Rumsey had done more than to revive the scheme which Bernouilli, Franklin, Henry, Paine, and others, had previously proposed, and that Rumsey’s steamboat was not made until 1786.
Fig. 68.—Fitch and Voight’s Boiler, 1787.
The boiler adopted in Fitch’s boat of 1787 was a “pipe-boiler,” which he had described in a communication to the Philosophical Society, in September, 1785. It consisted ([Fig. 68]) of a small water-pipe, winding backward and forward in the furnace, and terminating at one end at the point at which the feed-water was introduced, and at the other uniting with the steam-pipe leading to the engine. Voight’s condenser was similarly constructed. Rumsey claimed that this boiler was copied from his designs. Fitch brought evidence to prove that Rumsey had not built such a boiler until after his own.
Fig. 69.—Fitch’s First Boat, 1787.
Fitch’s first boat-engine had a steam-cylinder 12 inches in diameter. A second engine was now built (1788) with a cylinder 18 inches in diameter, and a new boat. The first vessel was 45 feet long and 12 feet wide; the new boat was 60 feet long and of but 8 feet breadth of beam. The first boat ([Fig. 69]) had paddles worked at the sides, with the motion given the Indian paddle in propelling a canoe; in the second boat ([Fig. 70]) they were similarly worked, but were placed at the stern. There were three of these paddles. The boat was finally finished in July, 1788, and made a trip to Burlington, 20 miles from Philadelphia. When just reaching their destination, their boiler gave out, and they made their return-trip to Philadelphia floating with the tide. Subsequently, the boat made a number of excursions on the Delaware River, making three or four miles an hour.