James Rumsey tests his first steamboat on…
December 1787 CE
In September 1784, when George Washington was staying at Rumsey's inn, he contracted with Rumsey to build a house and stable on property he owned at Bath.
During this visit, Rumsey showed Washington a working model of a mechanical boat which he had designed.
It had a bow-mounted paddlewheel that worked poles to pull the boat upstream.
Washington had been making plans for making the Potomac river navigable since before the Revolution, and a company was soon to be formed for the purpose.
Rumsey's pole-boat promised to be able to ascend the river's chutes and swift currents.
Washington wrote a certificate of commendation for Rumsey and likely let him know of the river project.
Armed with the certificate, Rumsey obtained a patent from the Virginia legislature for "the use of mechanical boats of his model" and also gained an investor.
On December 3, 1787, the boat finally makes a very successful public demonstration on the Potomac at Shepherdstown.
The demonstration takes place twenty years before Robert Fulton constructs and demonstrates the Clermont.
The idea of jet propulsion is not Rumsey's alone.
Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) originated the idea of propelling watercraft in this way.
In the summer of 1785, while Rumsey and his assistant Joseph Barnes were in the process of assembling his boat, Benjamin Franklin, on board a ship from France, wrote of propelling a boat by water jet.
This coincidence has sometimes led people to believe Rumsey got the idea from Franklin.
Indeed, if Franklin had wanted to make such a claim it likely would have been accepted, but he did not, and becomes one of Rumsey's supporters.
Groups
Subjects
Regions
Northern North America
View →Subregions
