Permission to export was given the next year, however, and the engine was shipped in 1805.

It lay for some time in the New York Customs House.

Meanwhile Fulton had studied the Watt engine on Symington's steamboat, the Charlotte Dundas, on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and Livingston had been granted a renewal of his monopoly of the waters of New York.
Fulton arrived at New York in 1806 and began the construction of the Clermont, so named after Livingston's estate on the Hudson.

The building was done on the East River.

The boat excited the jeers of passersby, who called it "Fulton's Folly." On Monday, August 17, 1807, the memorable first voyage was begun.