biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1765–1815)
|
| biography:
| Engineer, inventor, and artist, born in Lancaster Co, Pennsylvania, USA. He worked as a jeweller's apprentice, gunsmith, and painter in Philadelphia before he went to England (1786) to study under the artist Benjamin West. He remained abroad for the next 20 years, abandoning painting for his interest in mechanical and engineering inventions. Fascinated by water transport systems, he published A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation (1796). During a long stay in France (1797–1806), he received some encouragement from Napoleon and developed the Nautilus diving boat (1800). Failing to receive research funds from either the French or British governments, he returned to the USA, and with the support of Robert R Livingston he completed the steamboat Clermont, which made its first trial run on the Hudson R in August 1807. Although not really the inventor of the steamboat, his was the first to be commercially successful in America. He later developed the New Orleans, the first steamboat on the Mississippi R, and constructed a steam-powered warship to defend New York harbour during the War of 1812. |
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