Inventor

Background.

Unlike many of the inventors of this period—men who were self-educated and started out relatively poor—John Stevens was born in 1749 to a wealthy Perth Amboy, New Jersey, family. He received his education at private schools and King's College (now Columbia University). During the Revolutionary War he served as a colonel and the treasurer of New Jersey, and after the war spent several years developing his large estate and home on the Hudson River (the site of present-day Hoboken). Stevens seems to have been satisfied with this life of managing his private affairs until about 1788 when he learned of the steamboat inventions of John Fitch and James Rumsey. From that point on Stevens devoted his life (and much of his fortune) to steam-powered transportation.

Steamboat Innovator.

Stevens read everything he could find on steam technology and soon was designing boilers and engines...