Ross Winans had already made a lot of money off the Russians, building a railroad system for them in the 1850's. It's what enabled him and his sons to indulge their own hobby of building 1:1 scale, live-steam ship models
Incidentally, I have a model of the Winans family's last effort on the subject of cigar-ships available as a 1/250 scale model on my website,
www.waldenmodels.com
Check it out!
Cheers,
Oliver