Robert Fulton Robert Fulton made many contributions to the American economy. Fulton was the American inventor who brought steamboating from its mere experimental stage to its complete and successful stage. Fulton was born on Nov. 14, 1765 in Lancaster County, P.A. He was the son of Irish immigrants. He and his family moved to America the loss of an unproductive farm which they had lost by mortgage foreclosure in 1771, and also his father had died. Fulton had not from the beginning been a successful inventor. He only started out as an apprentice in a Philadelphia jewelry shop. Here, he specialized in painting o