Who is Robert Fulton?

Robert Fulton was an American engineer who invented the first successful steamboat. He also gained fame as the designer of canal locks that used inclined planes and as the author of a book on the improvement of canal travel. 

Robert Fulton was an American engineer who invented the first successful steamboat. He also gained fame as the designer of canal locks that used inclined planes and as the author of a book on the improvement of canal travel. Robert Fulton was a man of many interests. He  invented machines for spinning flax, for making ropes and for sawing and polishing marble.

Robert Fulton was born in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, now named Fulton in his honor. At a very early age, he was apprenticed to a jeweler in Philadelphia but he later used his artistic ability to do portrait and landscape painting. When he was twenty-two years old he went to England to study and there he became extremely interested in the field of engineering. After he had designed the canal locks and written his book on canal navigation, he travelled to Paris where he built a submarine called the Nautilus. It was at this time that he built a ship operated by steam.

Returning to the United States, he and Robert Livingston constructed the steamship Clermont which traveled between New York and Albany on the Hudson River. Then in 1814 Fulton constructed for the government the first steam warship. He named the ship Fulton.