In 1807, that steamboat traveled on the Hudson River with passengers from New York City to Albany and back again, a round trip of 300 nautical miles (560 kilometers), in 62 hours.

[5] For six years, he lived in Philadelphia, where he painted portraits and landscapes, drew houses and machinery, and was able to send money home to help support his mother.

In 1785, Fulton bought a farm at Hopewell Township in Washington County near Pittsburgh for £80 (equivalent to $13638 in 2018),[6] and moved his mother and family into it.

In early 1786, Fulton developed symptoms of tuberculosis and was advised by an eminent doctor to take an ocean voyage for the benefit of his health.

He left for England in the autumn of 1786, carrying several letters of introduction to Americans abroad from prominent individuals he had met in Philadelphia.

Owen agreed to finance the development and promotion of Fulton's designs for inclined planes and earth-digging machines; he was instrumental in introducing the American to a canal company, which awarded him a sub-contract.

The first successful trial run of a steamboat in America had been made by inventor John Fitch, on the Delaware River on August 22, 1787.

In Britain, Fulton met the Duke of Bridgewater, Francis Egerton, whose canal, the first to be constructed in the country, was being used for trials of a steam tug.

After installation of the machinery supplied by the engineers Bateman and Sherratt of Salford, the boat was duly christened Bonaparte in honour of Fulton having served under Napoleon.

After expensive trials, because of the configuration of the design, the team feared the paddles might damage the clay lining of the canal and eventually abandoned the experiment.

In 1804, Fulton switched allegiance and moved to Britain, where he was commissioned by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger to build a range of weapons for use by the Royal Navy during Napoleon's invasion scares.

Although Fulton continued to develop his inventions with the British until 1806, the crushing naval victory by Admiral Horatio Nelson at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar greatly reduced the risk of French invasion.

Livingston's shipping company began using it to carry passengers between New York City and up the Hudson River to the state capital Albany.

His infant daughter Alexandra Jones later served as a Union nurse on a steamboat hospital in the American Civil War.

It traveled from industrial Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where it was built, with stops at Wheeling, West Virginia; Cincinnati, Ohio; past the "Falls of the Ohio" at Louisville, Kentucky; to near Cairo, Illinois, and the confluence with the Mississippi River; and down past Memphis, Tennessee, and Natchez, Mississippi, to New Orleans some 90 miles (140 km) by river from the Gulf of Mexico coast.

By achieving this first breakthrough voyage and also proving the ability of the steamboat to travel upstream against powerful river currents, Fulton changed the entire trade and transportation outlook for the American heartland.

[15] Famous among them was a ménage à trois with noted philanthropist couple Ruth and Joel Barlow while living in Paris with them for six years.

[3][18] During his marriage, he proposed a foursome with himself, his wife, and Ruth and Joel Barlow in Washington, DC, but Harriet rejected the offer.

[20] The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania donated a marble statue of Fulton to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol.

Bronze statues of Fulton and Christopher Columbus represent commerce on the balustrade of the galleries of the Main Reading Room in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Alice Faye and Fred MacMurray played wharf friends who help Fulton overcome problems to realize his dream.

In the first serial, Triton (1961,[27] re-made in 1968), two British naval officers, Captain Belwether and Lieutenant Lamb, are involved in spying on Fulton while he is working for the French.

A Robert Fulton cartoon character appears in the 1955 Casper the Friendly Ghost short film Red, White, and Boo.

Author James McGee used Fulton's experiments in early submarine warfare (against wooden warships) as a major plot element in his 2006 novel Ratcatcher.

Invasion (2009), the tenth novel in the "Kydd" naval warfare series by Julian Stockwin, uses Fulton and his submarine as an important plot element.