Col. John Stevens (1749–1838) of Hoboken completed his 100-foot-long steamboat, Phoenix, in 1808. He wanted to sail it on the Hudson River, but inventor Robert Fulton and his friend Robert Livingston had persuaded New York State to pass a law making the Fulton-Livingston company the only one allowed to sail on New York waters. 
   
As a result, when the Phoenix was completed, it could not operate on the Hudson River. So the Stevens family decided to run the Phoenix on the Delaware River between Trenton and Philadelphia. In order to get to Trenton, the Phoenix had to sail on the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first steamboat in the world to sail on the ocean.
    
 In 1811, Col. Stevens bought a license to operate a commercial ferry* between Manhattan and New Jersey. When the steamboat Juliana (named for his daughter) began operation between Hoboken and New York, it became the first regular, commercially operated, steam-powered ferry service in the world. But because of the law that New York State had made, Col. Stevens was forced to stop his trans-Hudson operation and run Juliana on the Connecticut River.
      
Twenty years after inventing the steamboat, Col. Stevens and his sons designed, built, and tested a railroad locomotive. Imagine building a circular railroad track in your yard! That’s what Col. Stevens did to test the engine at his estate in Hoboken. The locomotive carried six people at 12 miles per hour! It was the first engine of its kind to run in the United States.