John Fitch's Steamboat
Fitch tested near here a model steamboat in 1785. Before his death in 1798, he built 4 mechanically successful steamboats. The first in the U.S., they proved financial failures, leaving final success of the idea to Robert Fulton.
Adjacent, stone marker:
John Fitch here conceived the idea of the first steamboat. He ran a boat with side wheels by steam on a pond below Davisville, 1785.
Bucks County Historical Society 1902
Marker is at the intersection of York Road (Pennsylvania Route 263) and Street Road (Pennsylvania Route 132), on the right when traveling north on York Road.
Courtesy hmdb.org
