7. Robert Fulton’s Grave

trinity-church-cemetery-alexander-hamilton-robert-fulton-grave-nycGrave of Robert Fulton, inventor of the Steamboat

Fulton sailed the first commercial steamboat up the Hudson River in 1807, covering the distance from New York to Albany in 32 hours instead of the several days typical of wind-driven craft. Although steamboats were not allowed on the Erie Canal because their paddles eroded the channel, they became an indispensable link at both ends of the waterway, hauling produce along the Great Lakes and down the Hudson River.

Fulton died at age forty-nine in 1815 and was buried in the yard of Trinity Church. In 1901, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers erected a prominent memorial to the inventor in the churchyard. A nearby street is named for Fulton.