Tell me, child, what did you learn in school today?

I learned that Robert Fulton invented the steamboat.
And he called it the Clermont.

* * *

Robert Fulton did not build the first American
steamboat.
(No, Robert Fulton did not do this.)

He saw steamboats.
He built steamboats.
He did all right with his steamboats.

He did not die in poverty.
He did not die in obscurity.

And he did not build the first American steamboat.

* * *

John Fitch built the first American
steamboat.
(Yes, John Fitch did this.)

He probably would have taken
fortune over fame.
He got neither.

He died in poverty.
He died in obscurity.

But he did build that first steamboat.

* * *

Cadwallader Colden wrote about Robert Fulton
after Fulton died.
(Yes, he did do this.)

He said that Fulton invented the steamboat.
He said that Fulton named his boat the Clermont.

(But...
(Fitch patented the steamboat.
(Fulton named his boat the North River Steamboat.
(The town of Clermont was Fulton's first port of call.)

Colden was wrong.
But his book was read,
and it was quoted,
and it was believed.

* * *

And the rest is history.


Harry W. Yeatts Jr.