200 Years Ago, First Steamboat Voyage Was Packed With Drama

The Waterways Journal
19 December 2011
By David Murray

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the very first steamboat voyage down the Mississippi River, by the steamboat New Orleans. It was a voyage that outdid any Hollywood movie or TV reality show for adventure.

Built in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1811 at a cost of 840,000, the New Orleans was a side-wheeler 116 feet long and weighing 371 tons. The engines featured 34-inch cylinders. The boat's captain was Nicholas Roosevelt, a business partner of Robert Fulton's and an engineer who built the boat to a design by Fulton and Robert Livingston. He later became Theodore Roosevelt's great granduncle.

Much of the trip's financing came from Chancellor Livingston, a former U.S. envoy to France who had administered the presidential oath of office to George Washington.

The New Orleans featured comfortable family quarters for Roosevelt's wife Lydia (nee Latrobe), eight months' pregnant at the start of the voyage. The crew included a maid for Lydia, three "hands," a pilot, and a cook. (The boat's pilot was to marry the maid when they reached New Orleans, so the trip evidently included romance as well as danger.)

In fact, the steamboat voyage wasn't the first Mississippi River trip for either Nicholas or Lydia. In 1809, two years earlier, they had spent their honeymoon going down both rivers by flatboat, allowing Roosevelt to note navigation hazards. (Lydia was engaged at 13 and was 17 when she married the 42-year-old Nicholas.) Shortly after, their first daughter was born. She later accompanied them on the New Orleans.

Roosevelt's trip was not the beginning of Mississippi River navigation. For years previously, downriver traffic was conducted on flatboats — big floating boxes that were broken up for firewood on arrival in New Orleans.

In 1811, steam travel on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers was eagerly awaited (and mocked by some). For that reason, the trip was well documented, both then and since. On October 18, after the boat finished a successful trial run, the Pitts-burgh Gazette announced, With plea-sure we announce, that the Steam Boat lately built at this place by Mr. Roosevelt ... fully answers the most sanguine expectations that were formed of her sailing." The vessel included two masts for sails — just in case. They proved unneeded.

The New Orleans left Pittsburgh on October 20, for a voyage that would take 12 weeks to traverse about 1,100 miles through what was then mostly wilderness. During the first part of the trip. the crew witnessed hundreds of migrating squirrels swimming the Ohio River upstream.

There were no locks on the Ohio or Mississippi rivers then to smooth out the flow or eliminate rapids. The New Or-leans had to halt at the dangerous Falls of the Ohio near Louisville. Ky., and wait for higher water to proceed. Roosevelt took advantage of the wait to make some return on his investment by charging curious locals a dollar apiece for upstream rides back to the astonished crowds of Cincinnati.

During the boat's stay in Louisville, the Great Comet of 1811 became visible to the naked eye, remaining visible for months. Meanwhile, Lydia delivered a son on October 30.

After rains raised the water level, the boat ran the rapids under full steam in the first week of December in a hair-raising, "white-knuckle" ride.

The crew regularly went ashore to collect firewood for the boilers, and on at least one occasion collected coal that had been mined from natural outcroppings and left for them along the riverbank.

On December 16, just as the boat was about to enter the Mississippi River. the first of the New Madrid earthquakes struck. They were the strongest non-volcanic quakes known to have occurred in North America. As is well known, the quakes caused the Mississippi River to temporarily flow backwards, as well as caving in much of the riverbank and creating new oxbow lakes. Aftershocks occurred during the next four months.

The New Orleans picked up frightened settlers whose homes had been swallowed. The crew was afraid to tie off to the quivering banks, choosing trees on small islands instead. Once, they awoke to find that their island had sunk in the night, and they had to quickly cut the tether line to escape.

Some Indians along the river believed not only that the steamboat was the comet that had landed on earth, but also that it had somehow caused the earthquakes. At one point the boat had to outrace swarms of Indians in war canoes who tried to attack it.

On another occasion, the crew awoke to discover and quickly put out a fire that had started in a woodpile.

As the boat passed through Louisiana, the territory was covered in a rare snowfall. But the crew made it to the city of New Orleans in January 1812, beginning the Mississippi River steamboat era.

Having proved all his doubters and detractors wrong by showing the feasibility of steam navigation in both directions on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, Roosevelt placed the New Orleans in regular "packet" service between New Orleans and Natchez, Miss. Two years later, it hit a stump and sank.

Robert Fulton died in 1815. Nicholas Roosevelt lived until 1854, and his wife until 1871.

Story Told Many Times

Nicholas Roosevelt's voyage captured the public imagination and has been told in many articles and several books. One of Lydia's relatives, Charles Joseph Latrobe. published an account of the voyage in his 1836 The Rambler in North America. A half-brother of hers, John H.B. Latrobe, told the story of the voyage as he heard it from his half-sister in The First Steamboat Voyage on the Western Waters by the Maryland Historical Society (Fund Publication No. 6, Baltimore. 1871).

For the 100th anniversary in 1911, when Nicholas Roosevelt's great grand-nephew Theodore was president, a complete replica of the New Orleans was built. On its recreation of the original voyage, it was followed by dozens of vessels — up to 47 at a time at one point.

Probably the best-known account of the 1811 trip, based on extensive research, was Mr. Roosevelt's Steamboat: The First Steamboat to Travel the Mississippi. by New Orleans author Many Helen Dohan (Samsot). The book first appeared in 1981 and has since been reissued several times. Dohan's popular book became the basis for a then-led cruise on the Delta Queen, for which she appeared as guest lecturer.
Hanover College in Hanover, Ind., has a Web site chronicling some commemorative activities marking the anniversary at http://rivers.hanover.edu/ steamboat2011 /.

New Orleans Bicentennial Events

New Orleans is marking the January 10, 1812 arrival of the pioneering boat with several celebrations — but on January- 28. The Hilton Riverside Hotel will offer a historical symposium on the significance of the voyage in the morning.

Re-enactors portraying Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt and their crew Will enact the boats arrival and travel to the SB Natchez Dock and the French Quarter between 3 and 3:45 p.m. There they will be greeted by Louisiana Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne in an event sponsored by the Propeller Club of the United States and the River heritage Foundation.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving and Blessing for the beginning of the State Bicentennial. At 5 p.m.. Dardenne will preside over a cocktail reception at the Cabildo, the former seat of colonial government in New Orleans that now houses one of the Louisiana State Museum facilities, where a maritime exhibition for the year of the State Bicentennial will open.