John Fitch (born on January 21, 1743 in South Windsor, Connecticut, died by suicide July, 1798) was a clockmaker, brass worker, and silversmith who built the first recorded steam powered ship in the United States, in 1786. The first successful trial run of his steamboat was made on the Delaware River on August 22, 1787, in the presence of delegates from the Constitutional Convention. Fitch was granted a patent on August 26, 1791, after a battle with James Rumsey, who had created a similar invention, but unfortunately the newly-created Patent Commission did not award the broad monopoly patent that Fitch had asked for, but patent of the modern kind, for the new design of Fitch's steamboat. It also awarded patents to Rumsey and John Stevens for their steamboat designs, and the loss of a monopoly caused many of Fitch's investors to leave his company, which was a cause of his business failing. His Delaware river steamboat of 1790 ran much faster than the one of 1787, and if it had not had to compete with cheap wagon and coach traffic it might have been successful. Fitch's idea would be turned profitable by Robert Fulton, decades later. Though Fulton was able to obtain a monopoly in the state of New York, because of the powerful influence of his partner Robert Livingston, he was unable to gain a US Patent largely because one of Fitch's company, William Thornton, had become a clerk of the Patent Office and bitterly opposed him. Fitch also received a patent the same year from France, and is more widely credited than Fulton in Europe.

In the autumn of 1777, Fitch sold beer and tobacco to the British; George Washington greatly despised him for this.

In World War II the United States liberty ship SS John Fitch was named in his honor.

A memorial to Fitch stands in the court square of Bardstown, Kentucky, complete with a replica of his first steamboat.

Fitch's journal and memoirs were published many years later as The Autobiography of John Fitch. Though told with the biases of a bitter and disappointed man, they are a vivid and moving picture of his times and unhappy life.