Robert L. Stevens

Colonel Robert Livingston Stevens (October 18 1787 – April 20 1856 Hoboken, New Jersey) was the son of Colonel John Stevens. In 1807, the father and son built the "Phœnix", a steamship which became the first steamship to navigate the ocean successfully when she traveled from New York City to the Delaware River in 1809. The "Phœnix" could not operate in the harbor at New York City because Robert Fulton and his partner Robert Livingston (1746-1813), Minister to France, had obtained a monopoly there.

Robert Livingston Stevens applied the "wave line", concave waterlines on a steamboat hull, in 1808. He invented other improvements to shipbuilding, and he invented a percussion shell, the rights to which he sold to the government. In 1842, he was commissioned by the government to build the first ironclad warship ever constructed, but he died without ever completing it.

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He was the brother of John Cox Stevens and Edwin Augustus Stevens.

References

* " [http://www.todayinsci.com/cgi-bin/indexpage.pl?http://www.todayinsci.com/10/10_18.htm Today in Science History: October 18] ". Retrieved October 18 2005.

External links

* [http://cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Camden-Amboy.html Camden & Amboy Railroad: Two Original “Joint Stock” Certificates Signed by Robert L. Stevens, Inventor of the "T"-Rail and Railroad Spike.]