Bristol Borough developed a rich maritime history around its former port at Market Street. Its seagoing legacy began in 1727 with the launch of the twenty-five-ton sloop Expedition, and over time local builders produced more ships, some as large as one hundred tons. After the American Revolution, Bristol became the only seaport in Bucks County, linking the rural area with ocean vessels and bringing prosperity to the town. In 1790, John Fitch demonstrated his steamboat on the Delaware River at Bristol before a large crowd. From 1841 to 1900, Bristol shipyards launched twenty-one schooners for Atlantic trade routes. Between 1832 and 1931, Bristol also served as an export terminal for steamboats carrying coal from Lehigh County down the Delaware Canal on barges. During World War I, the town's shipbuilding yards were especially active, and the North Bristol Shipbuilding Plant launched dozens of four-hundred-foot freighters, each weighing eight thousand tons, from twelve concrete shipways along a half-mile stretch of the Delaware River. Although Bristol is no longer a working seaport, it continues to celebrate its river access and maritime past, recalled by occasional ceremonial visits from tall ships and by giant seagoing freighters passing upriver.