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steamboats
British and American inventors had been laboring from the 1780's to attach steam power to boats, allowing them to move against a river current. -
steamboats
Transportation that could move people and goods upstream would create a new economy and new towns, and would bring unimagined luxuries to the settlers. -
steamboats
Steamboats were employed along the east coast by the time of the War of 1812, and Fulton held a legal monopoly on design. -
Train
Yet, Baltimore was 200 miles closer to the frontier than New York and soon recognized that the development of a railway could make the city more competitive with New York and the Erie Canal in transporting people and goods to the West. -
Trains
Mohawk & Hudson railroad reduced a 40-mile wandering canal trip that took all day to accomplish to a 17-mile trip that took less than an hour. Its first steam engine was named the DeWitt Clinton after the builder of the Erie Canal.
