1789 - Transportation

Transportation

Landowner Colonel John Stevens III petitions the state legislature at Albany February 9 to grant him exclusive rights to build steamboats (see 1788). A King's College (later Columbia) graduate who served as treasurer for New Jersey during the Revolution, Stevens has seen such a boat operated on the Delaware River by James Rumsey and worked out designs of boilers and engines, but Rumsey has submitted a similar petition and the legislature awards him the grant (see technology [patent office], 1790).