engrossing but discouraging work, there is one whom the world is
coming to honor more highly than in previous years--John Fitch,
of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. As early as August,
1785, Fitch launched on a rivulet in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,
a boat propelled by an engine which moved an endless chain to
which little paddles were attached. The next year, Fitch's second
boat, operated by twelve paddles, six on a side--an arrangement
suggesting the "side-wheeler" of the future--successfully plied
the Delaware off "Conjuror's Point," as the scene of Fitch's
labors was dubbed in whimsical amusement and derision. In 1787
Rumsey, encouraged by Franklin, fashioned a boat propelled by a
stream of water taken in at the prow and ejected at the stern. In
1788 Fitch's third boat traversed the distance from Philadelphia
to Burlington on numerous occasions and ran as a regular packet
in 1790, covering over a thousand miles. In this model Fitch
shifted the paddles from the sides to the rear, thus anticipating
in principle the modern stern-wheeler.

It was doubtless Fitch's experiments in 1785 that led to the
first plan in America to operate a land vehicle by steam. Oliver
Evans, a neighbor and acquaintance of Fitch's, petitioned the
Pennsylvania Legislature in 1786 for the right of operating
wagons propelled by steam on the highways of that State. This
petition was derisively rejected; but a similar one made to the
Legislature of Maryland was granted on the ground that such
action could hurt nobody. Evans in 1802 took fiery revenge on the
scoffers by actually running his little five-horse-power carriage
through Philadelphia. The rate of speed, however, was so slow
that the idea of moving vehicles by steam was still considered
useless for practical purposes. Eight years later, Evans offered