James Rumsey - Other Innovators and Rumseian Societies

Other Innovators and Rumseian Societies

The demonstration occurred 20 years before Robert Fulton constructed and demonstrated the Clermont. The idea of jet propulsion was not Rumsey's alone. Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) originated the idea of propelling watercraft in that way. In the summer of 1785, while Rumsey and his assistant Joseph Barnes were in the process of assembling his boat, Benjamin Franklin, onboard a ship from France, wrote of propelling a boat by water jet. This coincidence has sometimes led people to believe Rumsey got the idea from Franklin. Indeed, if Franklin had wanted to make such a claim it likely would have been accepted, but he did not and became one of Rumsey's supporters.

John Fitch had demonstrated his steamboat in Philadelphia the previous August. Although there was yet no overall patent system in the confederated states, he had patents from some states that gave him exclusive rights to his and any other steamboat. Rumsey was more protective of his designs than his children and, though he was even more plagued by money problems, he sent the boat machinery to Philadelphia in March 1788. He quickly followed, armed with affidavits from those who'd seen his steamboat or been involved with its creation. There was a pamphlet war with John Fitch. Some Philadelphia businessmen attempted to make a joint effort between them; but after years of his own travails and poverty, Fitch was not in a mood to compromise. When he said he would apply for a patent in England for Rumsey's water-tube boiler, Rumsey and others formed the Rumseian Society. They decided he should go to England to secure patents for his inventions and seek further financial backing.

After moving to England in 1788, Rumsey was able to take out four patents before his death there in 1792. While some of these relate to steamboats (like his water-tube boiler design, which made the steam engine much smaller and more efficient) most are concerned with hydrostatics and water power. His 1791 patent has all the pumps, motors, and hydraulic cylinders of fluid power engineering. By September 1792 he had a true water turbine, almost 40 years before it would be next invented in France.

He spent four years in England and, on December 20, 1792, on the eve of the demonstration of his new steamboat, the Columbia Maid, he had just finished delivering a lecture to the Society of Mechanic Arts. Suddenly he was stricken with a severe pain in his head and died the next morning. At the time, his death was attributed to overstraining his brain. He was buried in London at Saint Margaret's Church.

In 1906 a second Rumseyan Society was formed in Shepherdstown. Through its efforts, a monument to Rumsey was constructed in a park overlooking the Potomac.

Another Rumseian Society was formed in Shepherdstown in the 1980s to construct a replica of the successful Rumsey steamboat and celebrate the boat's bicentennial in 1987. The boat was constructed in the machine and blacksmith shop in the back of O'Hurley's General Store. The replica is housed in a small building behind the Entler Hotel. For a time, there was an annual regatta in Shepherdstown in early October in honor of Rumsey.

In addition, the bridge across the Potomac to Maryland is name in honor of Rumsey, as is the James Rumsey Technical Institute in Hedgesville, West Virginia.