On June 10, 1809, mechanical innovator Robert L. Stevens climbed aboard a pioneering sidewheel steamship called the Phoenix and steered her out of New York Harbor, initiating a perilous, thirteen-day maritime journey down the Atlantic coast to Philadelphia. Built by Stevens and his visionary father, John Stevens, the historic voyage marked the very first time in human history that a steam-powered vessel successfully navigated the open ocean.
The historic coastal transit was a desperate, high-stakes flight to escape a crushing corporate monopoly. Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston had successfully secured exclusive legal rights to operate steamships in the waters of New York State, effectively outlawing the Stevens family from running their vessel commercially on the Hudson River. Refusing to dismantle his invention, Robert Stevens boldly chose to risk the dangerous, unpredictable swells of the open Atlantic to deliver his ship to the open, unregulated waters of the Delaware River, forever proving that steam power was seaworthy.
