Who built a steamboat called the Clermont?

Robert Fulton. Fulton directed the construction of a steamboat in New York in 1807. Registered as the North River Steam Boat, the ship was generally called the Clermont after the Hudson River home of Robert Livingston. On Aug. 17, 1807, the steamboat started on its first successful trip 150 miles (241 kilometers) up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany, in about 30 hours, including an overnight stop. After extensive rebuilding, the boat began to provide regular passenger service on the Hudson. The Clermont was not the first steamboat to be built, but it was the first to become a practical, financial, and commercially successful steamboat. Fulton did not try to construct an engine himself, as earlier inventors had done. Instead, he ordered one from Watt and adapted it to his boat.