Some years later Fitch recorded a description of Voigt as follows: "Mr Voight is a Plain Dutchman who fears no man and will always speak his sentiments which has given offense to some of the Members of our Co., and some of them have effected to have a contemptible an opinion of his Philosophic abilities.
It is true he is not a man of Letters nor mathematical Knowledge but for my own part I would depend on him more than a Franklin, a [David] Rittenhouse, an Ellicot, a [John] Nancarrow, and Matlack [Timothy Matlock], all combined, as he is a man of superior Mechanical abilities, and Very considerable Natural Philosophy; and as we have many of the first Geniuses in our Co., perhaps nearly equal to those I have mentioned, it is Certain that he has pointed out more defects than them all, and pointed out ways to remedy those defects, when consternation sat silent in every breast for the disaster.
"[5] Fitch had been convinced by Benjamin Franklin that Daniel Bernoulli's 1753 idea of a jet propulsion boat could be made practical utilizing a steam driven water pump.
Fitch and Voigt joined together with a few friends in 1790 to try and establish a new religion called the Universal Society, in which good works would be inspired by a sense of honor rather than by supernatural suspicions and fears.
[7] In 1791, Fitch and Voigt both applied for jobs in the new United States Mint, hoping that while they held these offices they would have time to perfect the steamboat.
In their petition, Voigt was described as perfectly acquainted with all machinery and processes of coining, and capable of making the necessary instruments himself, having worked in a mint in Germany in his younger years, during which he had introduced valuable improvements.
In 1807, a few days after Fulton's similarly successful experiment, they launched a boat against the current of the Savannah River, which traveled five miles an hour.)
The resulting transit and equal altitude instrument, with the inscription "Henry Voigt Philadelphia" is now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
[11] "Henry Voigt died at Philadelphia, February 7, 1814 in the seventy first year of his age and was buried from the house of John Kessler Esq., corner of Fourth and Coates streets.