He went first from Connecticut to Trenton, N.J., and there in his twenty-sixth year began to ply the humble trade of watch-maker.  Then he became a gunsmith, making arms for the patriots of Seventy-six, until what time the British destroyed his shop.  Then he was a soldier.  He suffered the horrors of Valley Forge; and before the conclusion of the peace he went abroad in the country as a tinker of clocks and watches.  His peculiarity of manner and his mendicant character made him the butt of neighborhoods.  In 1780 he was sent as a deputy-surveyor from Virginia into Kentucky, and after nearly two years spent in the country between the Kentucky and Green rivers, he went back to Philadelphia.  On a second journey to the West his party was assailed by the Indians at the mouth of the Muskingum, and most were killed.  But he was taken captive, and remained with the red men for nearly a year.  But he escaped at last, and got back to a Pennsylvania settlement.

Fitch next lived for a year or two in and did approve of the invention, he withheld any public endorsement of it.

Month after month went by, and no helping hand was extended.  Fitch got the reputation of being a crazy man.  To save himself from starvation, he made a map of the territory Northwest of the river Ohio, doing the work of the engraving with his own hand, and printing the impressions on a cider-press!  Early in 1787 he succeeded in the formation of a small company; and this company supplied, or agreed to supply, the means requisite for the building of a steamboat sixty tons’ burden.  The inventor also secured patents from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia, granting to him the exclusive right to use the waters of those States for fourteen years for purposes of steam navigation.

Hereupon a boat was built and launched in the Delaware.  It was forty-five feet in length and twelve feet beam.  There were six oars, or paddles on each side.  The engine had a twelve-inch cylinder, and the route of service contemplated was between Philadelphia and Burlington.  The inventor agreed that his boat should make a rate of eight miles an hour, and the charge for passage should be a shilling.

He who might have been in Philadelphia on the twenty-second of August, 1787, and did approve of the invention, he withheld any public endorsement of it.

Month after month went by, and no helping hand was extended.  Fitch got the reputation of being a crazy man.  To save himself from starvation, he made a map of the territory Northwest of the river Ohio, doing the work of the engraving with his own hand, and printing the impressions on a cider-press!  Early in 1787 he succeeded in the formation of a small company; and this company supplied, or agreed to supply, the means requisite for the building of a steamboat sixty tons’ burden.  The inventor also secured patents from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia, granting to him the exclusive right to use the waters of those States for fourteen years for purposes of steam navigation.