FITCH
FITCH
ship at the Rush medical college, Chicago, 1844-
49; was a presidential elector in 1844, 1848 and
1856; represented his district in the 31st and 32d
congresses, 1849-53; and was U.S. senator from
Indiana from Dec. 3, 1855, to March 3, 1861. At
the opening of the civil war he organized the
46th Indiana volunteers and was made colonel.
He commanded the Indiana brigade constituting
the land forces at the capture of Fort Pillow,
June 4, 1863; and at St. Charles, Ark., he
destroyed a Confederate battery, June 17, 1862,
with a loss of 200 men killed by an explosion on
board the Mound City, a Federal gunboat. He
resigned his commission in November, 1862, and
retired from the army on account of injuries
received in liattle. He was a delegate to the
Democratic national convention in 1868. He
was professor of the art and science of surgery
in the Indiana medical college, 1878-83. He died
in Logansport, Ind., Nov. 29, 1892.
FITCH, John, inventor, was born in East Wind.sor, Conn., Jan. 21, 1743. He received a limited school training; was apprenticed to a watchmaker ; contracted an luifortunate mar- riage, and left his home about 1769, settling in Trenton, N.J., where he worked at his trade. The necessities of arms for the American army led him to take up the business of a gunsmith, but wlien the British occupied Trenton in Decem- ber, 1776, they destroyed his shop and stock. He thereupon joined the New Jersey troops and passed the winter with Washington's army at Valley Forge. He afterward became an itiner- ant clockmaker, and in the spring of 1780 was made a deputy surveyor for Virginia of the ter- ritory between the Kentucky and Green rivers. Returning to Pliiladelphia in the autumn of 1781 he purchased a stock of goods and set out for the west to trade with the pioneer settlers. The Indians killed two of his companions, cap- tured nine others and destroyed his goods. He was a prisoner for two years, escajiing in 1783 and reaching Warminster. Pa., where he settled and in Aijril, 1785, built a model of a steamboat propelled by side-wheels, which he changed in July, 1786, to a small skiff moved with paddles,
projielled by '7 / / . ■ . u iv-^ a three -inch
cylinder steam- ' engine, which - is believed to ^<r~ _-„_ — -_ _ -» have been the
fitch's BOAT-i7aQ first double-
acting condensing engine transmitting power by means of cranks, ever invented. He ]ieti tioned the national and state legislatures and scientific men all over the world for pecuniary help to perfect his steamboat which he claimed to be canable cf crossivrr t'M> ocean liut he was
considered insane. He finally resorted to the
sale of a map of the North Western territory
which he constructed and engraved with his
own hand, and printed on a cider-press and by
this expedient procured §800. With this simi he
began in February, 1787, the construction of a
second boat of sixty tons, forty-five feet long
and twelve feet beam, with six paddles on each
side and a twelve-inch cylinder steam-engine.
This craft made a satisfactory trial trip on the
Delaware river Aug. 22, 1787, in the presence of
the delegates convened to frame the Federal
constitution. This publicity and the fact that
New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania
and Virginia had granted him exclusive privilege
of steam-navigation on their waters for fourteen
years greatly encouraged the inventor and he
constructed another boat in October, 1788, and
still another in April, 1790^ the Perseverance,
which latter ran an entire summer, carrying
passengers between Philadelphia and Burlington,
and maintaining an average speed of eight miles
an hour, covering eighty miles in one day.
The company, which he had formed in February,
1787, then built a steamboat to carry both freight
and passengers on the Mississippi river under a
charter from Virginia for the exclusive right of
steam-navigation on "the Ohio river and its
tributaries." This vessel was so damaged in a
storm as to require rejiairs that extended beyond
the time named in a default clause in the con-
tract, and the stockholders abandoned the iiro-
ject. In 1791 he received a 4)atent for liis
inventions in the United States, from which be
gained no benefit. The steamboat company sent
him to France in 1793, where their purpose was
to build a steamboat, but the plans were frust-
rated by the Revolution. He deposited his planii
and specifications with Aaron Vail, the Ameri-
can consul at L'Orient, who was greatly inter-
ested in the project and who furnished him
means to visit London, England. Tlie consul
during his absence exhibited and loaned the
drawings to Robert Fulton who had them in liis
possession in Paris for several months. Fitch
returned to America in 1794, having been obliged
to ship as a sailor for Boston to gain passage
home. He went to liis farm at Bardstown. Kj'.,
which he found in the possession of straiigers,
and returned east locating in Sharon, Conn. He
went to New York city in 1790 where lie con-
structed a steamboat, using for the craft a sliip's
yawl with a screw-propeller moved by a ,«mall
high-pressure engine. This he successfully exhib-
itel on Collect Pond in New York city, after-
ward the site of the city pri.son. In 1798 he
returned to Bardstown. Ky.. where he built a
three foot model steamboat which lie tried on a
small stream. He lived at this time in a small
