<P> Early attempts at powering a boat by steam were made by the French inventor Denis Papin and the English inventor Thomas Newcomen . Papin invented the steam digester (a type of pressure cooker) and experimented with closed cylinders and pistons pushed in by atmospheric pressure, analogous to the pump built by Thomas Savery in England during the same period . Papin proposed applying this steam pump to the operation of a paddlewheel boat and tried to market his idea in Britain . He was unable to successfully convert the piston motion into rotary motion and the steam could not produce enough pressure . Newcomen's was able to produce mechanical power, but produced reciprocating motion and was very large and heavy . </P> <P> A steamboat was described and patented by English physician John Allen in 1729 . In 1736, Jonathan Hulls was granted a patent in England for a Newcomen engine - powered steamboat (using a pulley instead of a beam, and a pawl and ratchet to obtain rotary motion), 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 . </P> <P> The first steam - powered ship Pyroscaphe was a paddle steamer powered by a Newcomen steam engine; it was built in France in 1783 by Marquis Claude de Jouffroy and his colleagues as an improvement of an earlier attempt, the 1776 Palmipède . At its first demonstration on 15 July 1783, Pyroscaphe travelled upstream on the river Saône for some fifteen minutes before the engine failed . Presumably this was easily repaired as the boat is said to have made several such journeys . Following this, De Jouffroy attempted to get the government interested in his work, but for political reasons was instructed that he would have to build another version on the Seine in Paris . De Jouffroy did not have the funds for this, and, following the events of the French revolution, work on the project was discontinued after he left the country . </P> <P> Similar boats were made in 1785 by John Fitch in Philadelphia and William Symington in Dumfries, Scotland . Fitch successfully trialled his boat in 1787, and in 1788, he began operating a regular commercial service along the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey, carrying as many as 30 passengers . This boat could typically make 7 to 8 miles per hour (11 to 13 km / h) 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 30 - mile (48 km) excursions, and in 1790, a third boat ran a series of trials on the Delaware River before patent disputes dissuaded Fitch from continuing . </P>

When was the steam powered paddle boat invented