First Regular Steam Ferry Service on the Hudson River
Poet involved
What happened
Robert Fulton's Clermont made its successful demonstration voyage up the Hudson River on 17 August 1807, inaugurating the age of commercial steam navigation and launching the first regular passenger steamboat service in America.
Literary impact
Fulton's steamboat was one of the earliest triumphs of American technological ambition celebrated in verse; Washington Irving and Philip Freneau wrote about it, and the Hudson River became a poeticized space of technological wonder contrasted with the Romantic wilderness of the Catskills.
Source: Wikipedia
