Let Us Examine Historical Data.
Colonel John Stevens, Of New York, Built The
Steamboat Phoenix About The Year 1808, And Was
Prevented From Using It Upon The Hudson River
By The Fulton And Livingston Monopoly Charter.
The Phoenix made an ocean voyage to the
Delaware River.
The first English venture was
that of the steamer Caledonia, which made a
passage to Holland in 1817. The London Times
of May 11, 1819, printed in its issue of that date
the following item:
"GREAT EXPERIMENT. - A new vessel of three hundred tons
has been built at New York for the express purpose of carrying
passengers across the Atlantic. She is to come to Liverpool
direct."
This ship-rigged steamer was the "Savannah,"
and the bold projector of this experiment of
sending a steamboat across the Atlantic was Daniel
Dodd. The Savannah was built in New York, by
Francis Ficket, for Mr. Dodd. Stephen Vail, of
Morristown, New Jersey, built her engines, and
on the 22d of August, 1818, she was launched,
gliding gracefully into the element which was to
bear her to foreign lands, there to be crowned
with the laurels of success. On May 25th this
purely American-built vessel left Savannah, and
glided out from this waste of marshes, under
the command of Captain Moses Rogers, with
Stephen Rogers as navigator. The port of New
London, Conn., had furnished these able seamen.
The steamer reached Liverpool June 20th, the
passage having occupied twenty-six days, upon
eighteen of which she had used her paddles.
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