" But in spite of all his difficulties Fitch produced a
steamboat, which plied regularly on the Delaware for several
years and carried passengers. "We reigned Lord High Admirals of
the Delaware; and no other boat in the River could hold its way
with us," he wrote. "Thus has been effected by little Johnny
Fitch and Harry Voight [one of his associates] one of the
greatest and most useful arts that has ever been introduced into
the world; and although the world and my country does not thank
me for it, yet it gives me heartfelt satisfaction." The "Lord
High Admirals of the Delaware," however, did not reign long. The
steamboat needed improvement to make it pay; its backers lost
patience and faith, and the inventor gave up the fight and
retired into the fastnesses of the Kentucky wilderness, where he
died.
The next inventor to struggle with the problem of the steamboat,
with any approach to success, was John Stevens of Hoboken. His
life was cast in a vastly different environment from that of John
Fitch. He was a rich man, a man of family and of influence. His
father's house--afterwards his own---at 7 Broadway, facing
Bowling Green--was one of the mansions of early New York, and his
own summer residence on Castle Point, Hoboken, just across the
Hudson, was one of the landmarks of the great river.
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