James Rumsey and America’s First Steamboat
Show by Steve Gilly, Rod Mullins
Before Robert Fulton, there was James Rumsey, an inventor who defied his skeptics and the power of the Potomac River at Shepardstown, in what’s now West Virginia. Today we tell the story of how a chance encounter with George Washington led to Rumsey’s water-jet propelled steamboat twenty years before Robert Fulton’s Claremont and a patent war with another inventor. Subscribe to the Stories podcast on your favorite podcast app so you never miss our stories. Thanks for listening!
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