found: Kentucky encyclopedia, ©1992:page 322 ("John Fitch", steamboat inventor, born Windsor, Connecticut January 21, 1743. Served in the Revolutionary War and moved to Kentucky in 1780 where he surveyed and claimed three parcels of land in what is now Nelson County, Ky. Constructed models of boats propelled by steam between 1781 and 1785. From the legislatures of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and New York he obtained exclusive rights to navigate certain waters with boats powered by steam. Several of his boats operated commercially on the Delaware River between 1781 and 1790; granted a patent in 1791 but Congress failed to fund his invention. Returned to Kentucky in a depression and overdosed on opium in Bardstown in June or July of 1798. Later investigation of the boats built by Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton found that they were the same design as Fitch's.)
