On October 11, 1811, engineer and inventor Colonel John Stevens, began operating the first steam-powered ferry, taking passengers between New York City and Hoboken. The boat was named after Stevens’ daughter and was christened the Juliana.
Colonel Stevens earned his military rank as New Jersey’s treasurer during the American Revolution, collecting funds for colonial forces. His wealthy family already had their own barge for Hudson River crossings to their Manhattan church, but Stevens grew weary and frustrated at its lack of speed. In 1788, while out riding, he saw John Fitch’s experimental steamboat on the Delaware River, followed the boat to its dock, and thoroughly investigated the new technology.
Stevens conducted his own steamboat experiments. He corresponded with Fitch and with James Rumsey, both of whom had been experimenting with steam power for boats. In 1789, Stevens applied (unsuccessfully) for exclusive rights to operate steamboats in the state of New York. In 1790, he persuaded Congress to pass the first American patent law and on August 26, 1791, he received one of the first patents for an application of steam power.
Colonel John’s obsession with steam was reportedly a trial for friends and family—including his wife, who legend has it awakened one night to find her husband tracing a mechanical design between her shoulder blades when he could not locate any paper in the bedroom. But his experimental boats pioneered steam navigation in the United States, and they attracted significant attention.
In 1798, Stevens presented the Polacca, a steamboat that ran from Belleville, New Jersey, to New York City. Speed estimates ranged between 3 and 5.5 miles per hour. The experimental craft was driven by a wheel in the stern. Though the Polacca demonstrated the possibility of steam propulsion, its piping and seams were broken open from the vibration of the engine and it was not yet a practical means of transportation.
In 1804, Colonel Stevens’ sons Richard (then 17) and John assisted their father in creating the first boat propelled by twin screw propellers. The Little Juliana, a 32-foot boat with a boiler designed by Stevens, successfully navigated the Hudson River and amazed onlookers. However, screw propulsion would require high pressure steam to be efficient, and engineering methods of the day were not advanced enough to successfully craft high pressure boilers.
In 1805 Colonel John received a British patent for a new kind of boiler for steam engines. Unlike earlier models that contained one large tube for heating water, John’s design heated water in multiple smaller tubes. It was more expensive to produce than earlier models but was significantly more efficient.
The Stevenses built two more experimental steamboats in 1806 and 1807. The first, the Phoenix, would enter history as the first steam-powered vessel to complete an ocean voyage, and the first commercially successful steamboat built entirely in America. It would also launch a dispute with Robert Fulton and the Livingston family.
Robert R. Livingston, Colonel John’s brother-in-law, had worked with Stevens on his early steamboat experiments but had left for France on government business in 1801. There he met Robert Fulton, who was also interested in steamboats. Livingston gave financial and technical aid to Fulton, but more importantly he had legal knowledge and influence in New York politics. In 1798 Livingston had obtained a monopoly of the right to navigate steamboats in New York after his own experiments, a monopoly that he would soon exercise in partnership with Fulton.
Meanwhile the Stevens family continued their engineering work, and the Phoenix was launched in the spring of 1808. Propelled by paddlewheels on its sides, the Phoenix averaged over five miles per hour. Its 100-foot hull was designed by Robert Stevens, then twenty years old. The Phoenix was the first successful steamship to be entirely American in origin.
“In the first decade of the 1800s, large-scale transportation infrastructure, including major roads, was typically built by private partnerships who would then operate under grants of monopoly from state governments. Steamboat service to New York, despite the Stevens’ protests, would operate on the same principle.” And the monopoly went to Fulton and Livingston. Colonel Stevens tried his best to either ignore or outmaneuver this monopoly, including using the Phoenix to set up a passenger route from New York to New Jersey.. On September 11, 1811, a pier lease from the City of New York allowed the Stevens family to launch their steam-ferry service from Hoboken to Manhattan. This was shut down by pressure from Livingston in 1813, but the Juliana had made history.
(The Fulton-Livingston monopoly finally ended when it was declared unconstitutional in the landmark 1824 Supreme Court decision Gibbons v. Ogden. After this, states could no longer grant monopolies to steamship companies and the ports became free for competition.)
Your characters may have ridden in a steamship, especially later in the 1800s. They may even have recognized the name of Fulton in that sense. They probabably woud not have known Colonel John Stevens and his steam-ferry, but isn’t his story a stereotypical American one?
J.E.S. Hays
www.jeshays.com
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