John Fitch is granted a U.S. patent…
August 1790 CE
The newly created federal Patent Commission does not award the broad monopoly patent that Fitch has asked for, but rather a patent of the modern kind, for the new design of Fitch's steamboat.
It also awards steam-engine-related patents dated this same day to Rumsey, Nathan Read, and John Stevens.
The loss of a monopoly due to these same-day patent awards leads many of Fitch's investors to leave his company.
While his boats are mechanically successful, Fitch no longer has the financial resources to carry on.
Fitch's idea will be turned profitable two decades later by Robert Fulton.
Nathan Read had built a multi-tubular boiler, a new kind of steam boiler.
He then made efforts to improve the function of the steam cylinder, and placed it in a horizontal position so the engine could sustain much higher pressure, that is to say, Read invented the high-pressure steam engine, a new kind of steam engine, different from James Watt's old engine.
Read has made the engine more convenient and portable, also much lighter and safer.
The most important innovation is that the new engine needs much less room and fuel than the old one.
Read had successfully reconstructed the steam engine; he modified the Watt engine to a high-pressure engine that could be widely used in new fields, such as steamboat and locomotive.
To prove the usefulness of the high-pressure steam engine, Read had made several models of steamcar and steamboat in 1790.
Read's experiment had been very successful; it proved that the engine he built functioned well.
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