Background
Fitch was born to Joseph Fitch and Sarah Shaler in Windsor, Connecticut, on January 21, 1743, on a farm that is part of present-day South Windsor, Connecticut.
engineer entrepreneur inventor clockmaker
Fitch was born to Joseph Fitch and Sarah Shaler in Windsor, Connecticut, on January 21, 1743, on a farm that is part of present-day South Windsor, Connecticut.
He received little formal schooling and eventually apprenticed himself to a clockmaker. During his apprenticeship, Fitch was not allowed to learn or even observe watchmaking (he later taught himself how to repair clocks and watches).
Following this apprenticeship in Hartford, he opened an unsuccessful brass foundry in East Windsor, Connecticut, and then a brass and silversmith business in Trenton, New Jersey, which succeeded for eight years but was destroyed by British troops during the American Revolution.
He served briefly during the Revolution, mostly as a gunsmith working for the New Jersey militia. He left his unit after a dispute over a promotion but continued his work repairing and refitting arms in Trenton. In the fall of 1777, Fitch provided beer and tobacco to the Continental Army in Philadelphia. During the following winter and spring, he provided beer, rum and other supplies to troops at Valley Forge.
In 1780, he began work as a surveyor in Kentucky where he recorded a land claim of 1, 600 acres (6. 5 km2) for himself.
On another trip west, in 1782, he was captured by Indians and turned over to their British allies.
After his imprisonment in Canada, he was released and continued his speculations in western lands.
Following his last trip in 1785, he drew and engraved a map of the Northwest Territory which brought him some fame and a small income. After 1785 Fitch devoted himself to developing the steamboat.
He first thought to apply steam power to driving wagons, but he soon turned to the problem of making a boat go by the force of steam.
By 1786 he was granted an exclusive privilege to employ steam on the waters of New Jersey, and in 1787 he received similar grants from Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and Virginia. Fitch worked with the clockmaker and master mechanic Henry Voight of Philadelphia to perfect his idea.
So he tried to make an engine himself—a task which detracted significantly from his chances for success.
One handicap was the method of propulsion—a row of steam-powered oars on each side of the boat.
His future boats used the paddle wheel.
He sought the patronage of the Federal government as well as of several states, and he even corresponded with the Spanish government over the possibility of operating boats on the Mississippi River.
He traveled to France looking for backing but failed there too.
He returned to the United States and in 1796 moved to Kentucky, where he hoped to sell some of the lands he had acquired there in the early 1780s, and use the proceeds to build a steamboat for use on the Ohio or Mississippi River. He arrived to find settlers occupying his properties, resulting in legal disputes that occupied him until his death on July 2, 1798 in Bardstown.
He married Lucy Roberts on December 29, 1767.