STEAM BOAT
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels.
The term steamboat is usually used to refer to smaller steam-powered boats working on lakes and rivers, particularly riverboats; steamship generally refers to larger steam-powered ships, usually ocean-going, capable of carrying a (ship's) boat. The term steamwheeler is archaic and rarely used.
Steamships gradually replaced sailing ships for commercial shipping through the 19th century and in turn were overtaken by diesel-driven ships in the second half of the twentieth century. Most warships used steam propulsion until the advent of the gas turbine. Today, nuclear-powered warships and submarines use steam to drive turbines, but are not referred to as steamships or steamboats.
Screw-driven steamships generally carry the ship prefix "SS" before their names, meaning 'Steam Ship' (or Screw Steamer, or 'screw-driven steamship'), paddle steamers usually carry the prefix "PS" and steamships powered by steam turbine may be prefixed "TS" (turbine ship). The term steamer is occasionally used, out of nostalgia, for diesel motor-driven vessels, prefixed "MV".
The French inventor Denis Papin, after inventing the steam digester (a type of pressure cooker) and experimenting with closed cylinders and pistons pushed in by atmospheric pressure, designed and built a steam pump analogous to the pump advertised by Thomas Savery in England during the same period. In his writings, including his correspondence with Gottfried Leibniz, Papin proposed applying this steam pump to the operation of a paddlewheel boat. During a stay in Kassel, Germany, in 1704, he completed a paddlewheel boat, probably pedal-powered. When he left for England in 1707, hoping to sell the British on his idea of steam-powered navigation, he used his paddlewheeler to navigate down the Fulda River as far as Münden. However, though he was probably the first to have a clear conception of a steamboat, he found no backers in London.
In 1736, Jonathan Hulls took out a patent in England for a Newcomen engine-powered steamboat, but it was the improvement in steam engines by James Watt that made the concept feasible. William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, having learned of Watt's engine on a visit to England, made his own engine. In 1763 he put it in a boat. The boat sank, and while Henry made an improved model, he did not appear to have much success, though he may have inspired others.
In France, by 1774 Marquis Claude de Jouffroy and his colleagues had made a 13 meter (42 ft 8 in) working steamboat with rotating paddles, the Palmipède. The ship sailed on the Doubs in June and July 1776, apparently the first steamship to sail successfully. In 1783 a new paddle steamer, Pyroscaphe, successfully steamed up the river Saône for fifteen minutes before the engine failed, but bureaucracy thwarted further progress.
From 1784 James Rumsey built a pump-driven (water jet) boat and successfully steamed upstream on the Potomac River in 1786; the following year he obtained a patent from the State of Virginia. In Pennsylvania, John Fitch, an acquaintance of Henry, made a model paddle steamer in 1785, and subsequently developed propulsion by floats on a chain, obtained a patent in 1786, then built a steamboat which underwent a successful trial in 1787. In 1788, a steamboat built by John Fitch operated in regular commercial service along the Delaware river between Philadelphia PA and Burlington NJ, carrying as many as 30 passengers. This boat could typically make 7 to 8 miles per hour, and traveled more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) during its short length of service. The Fitch steamboat was not a commercial success, as this travel route was adequately covered by relatively good wagon roads. The following year a second boat made 50 km (30 mile) excursions, and in 1790 a third boat ran a series of trials on the Delaware River before patent disputes dissuaded Fitch from continuing.
Meanwhile, Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, near Dumfries, Scotland, had developed double-hulled boats propelled by cranked paddlewheels placed between the hulls. He engaged engineer William Symington to build his patent steam engine into a boat which was successfully tried out on Dalswinton Loch in 1788, and followed by a larger steamboat the next year. Miller then abandoned the project. Ten years later Symington was engaged by Lord Dundas to build a steamboat. In March 1802, his Charlotte Dundas towed two 70-ton barges 30 km (19 miles) along the Forth and Clyde Canal to Glasgow. This vessel, the first tow boat, has been called the "first practical steamboat", and the first to be followed by continuous development of steamboats. Although plans to introduce boats on the Forth and Clyde canal were thwarted by fears of erosion of the banks, development was taken up both in Britain and abroad.
North America
Robert Fulton, who may have become interested in steamboats when he visited William Henry in 1777 at the age of 12, visited Britain and France. He built and tested an experimental steamboat on the River Seine in 1803, and was aware of the success of Charlotte Dundas. Before returning to the United States, Fulton ordered a Boulton and Watt steam engine, and on return built what he called the North River Steamboat (often mistakenly described as Clermont). In 1807, she began a regular passenger service between New York City and Albany, New York, 240 km (150 miles) distant, which was a commercial success. She could make the trip in 32 hours. In 1808, John and James Winans built Vermont in Burlington, Vermont, the second steamboat to operate commercially.
In 1809, Accommodation, built by the Hon. John Molson at Montreal, and fitted with engines made at the Forges du Saint-Maurice, Trois-Rivières, was running successfully between Montreal and Quebec, being the first steamer on the St. Lawrence and in Canada; unlike Fulton, Molson did not show a profit. The experience of both vessels showed the new system of propulsion was commercially viable, and as a result its application to the more open waters of the Great Lakes was next considered. That idea went on hiatus due to the War of 1812.
In 1815, Pierre Andriel crossed the English Channel aboard Élise, marking the first sea-going use of a steam ship.
The use of steamboats on major American rivers soon followed Fulton's success. In 1811 the first in a continuous (still in commercial passenger operation as of 2007) line of river steamboats left the dock at Pittsburgh to steam down the Ohio River to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans. The river pilot and author Mark Twain, in his Life on the Mississippi, described much of the operation of these vessels.
For most of the 19th century and part of the early 20th century, trade on the Mississippi River was dominated by paddle-wheel steamboats. Their use generated rapid development of economies of port cities; the exploitation of agricultural and commodity products, which could be more easily transported to markets; and prosperity along the major rivers. Their success led to penetration deep into the continent, where Anson Northrup in 1859 became first steamer to cross the U.S.-Canadian border on the Red River. They would also be involved in major political events, as when Louis Riel seized International at Fort Garry, or Gabriel Dumont was engaged by Northcote at Batoche. Very few such craft survive to the present day.
At the same time, the expanding steamboat traffic had severe adverse environmental effects, in the Middle Mississippi Valley especially, between St. Louis and the river's confluence with the Ohio. The steamboats consumed much wood for fuel, and the river floodplain and banks became deforested. This led to instability in the banks, addition of silt to the water, making the river shallower and causing unpredictable, lateral movement of the river channel across the wide, ten-mile floodplain. The river became both wider and shallower, endangering navigation. Boats designated as snag pullers to keep the channels free had crews that sometimes cut remaining large trees 100-200 feet or more back from the banks, exacerbating the problems. In the 19th century, the flooding of the Mississippi became a more severe problem than when the floodplain was filled with trees and brush. Among other effects, changes in its channel meant the destruction of much of the archeology and historical remnants of early French colonial villages of the Illinois Country, such as Kaskaskia, St. Philippe, and Cahokia on the east side, and the original Ste. Genevieve, Missouri on the west side of the river.
Most steamboats were destroyed by boiler explosions or fires, and many sank in the river, some to be covered over by silt as the river changed course. From 1811-1899, 156 steamboats were lost to snags or rocks between St. Louis and the Ohio River. Another 411 were damaged by fire, explosions or ice during that period. One of the few surviving Mississippi sternwheelers from this period, Julius C. Wilkie, was operated as a museum ship at Winona, Minnesota until its destruction in a fire in 1981. The replacement, built in situ was not a steamboat. The replica was scrapped in 2008. For modern craft operated on rivers, see the Riverboat article.
The Belle of Louisville, out of Louisville, Kentucky is the oldest continually operating steamboat on the inland waterways of the United States. She was laid down as Idlewild in 1914.
Six major commercial steamboats currently operate on the inland waterways of the United States. They are the steamers Belle of Louisville, Delta Queen, Julia Belle Swain, Mississippi Queen, Natchez, and American Queen. Three of these boats are overnight passenger vessels operated by Majestic America Line, formerly the Delta Queen Steamboat Company of New Orleans, Louisiana.
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