54 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
tion dissolved; but Nelson agreed with
Wayne, Grier and Curtis in the
opinion that an attachment should issue,
since there was no power in
Congress to interfere with the judgment
of the court under pretense
of power to legalize the structure or by
making it a post road.
Justice McLean dissented, feeling that
the principle involved was
of the deepest interest to the growing
commerce of the West, which
might be obstructed by bridges across
the rivers. He opposed the idea
that making the bridge a post road
(under the purpose of the act of
July 7, 1838,) could exempt it from the
consequences of being a nuisance.
He regarded the act of Congress as unconstitutional
and void; and,
although he admitted the act might
excuse previous contempt, he
declared that it could afford no excuse
for further refusal to perform
the decree.
A sequel to the preceding case arose in
the same term of court
(December, 1855,) on motion of the
counsel for the bridge company for
leave to file a bill of review of the
court's order of the December term
of 1851, in regard to the costs. The
court had already determined that
the decree rendered for costs against
the bridge company was un-
affected by the act of Congress of
August 1, 1852; but the court
declining to open the question for
examination declared "there must be
an end of all litigation."38.
The later history bearing upon the
subject here treated-the later
regulation of the construction of
bridges across the Ohio under act of
Congress, the later opposition which
found expression against the con-
struction of bridges such as the
railroad bridges of Parkersburg and
between Benwood and Bellaire39 (which
were completed in 1871), the
decline of old local prejudices and
jealousies, and the rise of new problems
of transportation resulting from the
extension of railways, cannot be
considered within the scope and limits
of this monograph.
Professor Callahan was followed by
Editor Wiley of Eliza-
beth, Pa.
SHIP AND BRIG BUILDING ON THE OHIO
AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
BY RICHARD T. WILEY.
The coming of the steamboat on the
western rivers was soon
followed by the end of a movement in the
commerce of the region,
which seems strange as we compare it
with present-day conditions and
activities. To think of Pittsburgh and
the river towns of the Ohio basin
38 U. S. Supreme Court Reports, 18
Howard, 460-463.
39 Wheeling Intelligencer, April 13 and
April 20, 1869.
Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual
Meeting. 55
as seaports seems like a wild flight of
the imagination, yet that is what
they were in effect at the beginning of
the Nineteenth Century and for
a few years thereafter. Strange as it
may seem, sea-going vessels of
large tonnage for the time, sailed from
various settlements on the
Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny rivers,
while these were yet hardly
more than frontier outposts, following
the rivers to the Gulf of Mexico,
and proceeding thence to ports in
various parts of the world, in both
hemispheres, laden with the products of
this region. And the building
and equipment of these vessels became an
important industry of various
river towns. Can it be now that with the
deepening of existing water-
ways and the opening of a deep water
connection between the Great
Lakes and the Ohio, history is about to
repeat itself, and again sea-
going vessels be seen in our local
waters?
The story of this wonderful development
of a few years in the
early days has never been adequately
told, and can only be touched
on in its most conspicuous features in
this paper. Much time and
effort, search and research, have been
given in an effort to trace it back
to its very beginning; and while much
interesting material has been
unearthed, it cannot be said with
certainty that the beginning has been
reached. The search has been a
fascinating one, with rewards by the
way, of facts discovered here and there,
and the incentive always of
hinted facts just beyond. A number of
claims have been made in the
past, with a positiveness which seemed
to be warranted by the informa-
tion at hand, that this or that ship was
the first to sail these western
waters, only to be shown by the
uncovering of further information to be
in error. Of this more anon.
It would seem that this transportation
development of the time
was an evolution, even though a
comparatively rapid one, rather than
something which had its genesis suddenly
in the building and sailing of
some particular vessel. Navigation of
these rivers began with the red
men and their canoes, which were of two
types -the
dugout, made by
shaping and hollowing out a log into
boat form, and the bark canoe,
made by carefully peeling the bark in
one piece from a large tree trunk,
shaping it to pointed prow and stern and
pitching the seams to make
them impervious to water. A third type
of Indian canoe, made by
stretching skins of animals over wooden
framework, does not seem to
have been much, if at all, in use among
the Indians of this region.
The first white men who came to the
western country followed
the models provided by the Indians and
made themselves canoes of
dugout logs for navigating the streams,
but they soon improved on the
primitive pattern, and the first advance
was the pirogue. With better
tools and facilities for shaping it than
the Indians could command, the
whites employed much larger tree trunks
for the making of these craft,
and sometimes joined two great logs for
the making of one pirogue,
forming a boat capable of floating a
considerable weight, be it of persons
56 Ohio Arch. and
Hist. Society Publications.
or of merchandise. The bateau was the
next development. It was a
freight boat, built of planks, square at
each end and widest at the
middle. Its ultimate development is seen
in the coal and freight barges
on our rivers to-day. The flatboat was
the usual conveyance of the
emigrant down the rivers, in his
migration to the west. It also was
built of planks, with the seams caulked,
was square and flat bottomed,
and was roofed over for the protection
of the people, their animals and
goods. This craft, though unwieldy, was
capable of carrying large
loads. The modern coalboat is its lineal
descendant. The keelboat,
which finally came largely into use as
the river packet of the day, alone,
of all the craft described, followed the
established plans of marine arch-
itecture, having a ribbed frame, planked
over in straight lines and curves,
after the manner of shipbuilding. Its
name really gives a very good
hint of its form and manner of
construction, which was much like that
of the canal boats of later days,
pointed at prow and stern, and having
a low cabin.
While paddles, oars, poles and cordelles
were used on these various
types of craft as the ordinary means of
propulsion, they nearly all
carried masts and sails for use when
these could be employed to ad-
vantage. Note the two facts-the
development of types into a marine
form of construction, with keel and
ribs, along with the use of sails-
and the step was a short one to ships
for plowing the main.
All of the information at hand seems to
indicate that the beginning
of the building of ships in the Ohio
basin was in the last few years of
the Eighteenth Century. Some careful writers
have been misled by a
paragraph in Harris's Directory of
Pittsburgh, into giving 1792 as the
time of the first ship-building
operations at that city, but it will be
shown that there was an error in the
date quoted by Harris, the
operations to which he refers having
been begun ten years later than
the date given by him. Here is the
quotation referred to. (Note par-
ticularly the dates and the names of
vessels.)
"In the year 1792 a French company
of merchants under the firm
of Tarascon, Berthoud & Co., came
from Philadelphia and commenced a
large establishment at this place They
brought with them about twenty
ship carpenters and joiners, and the
first summer built the schooner
Amity of 120 tons and the ship
Pittsburgh of 250 tons. Having sent out
caulkers, riggers, captains, mates and
sailors, they were fitted out com-
pletely for sea; and the following
spring the schooner was sent to St.
Thomas and the ship to Philadelphia,
both laden with flour. The second
summer they built the brig Nanina, of
200, and the ship Louisiana, of
350 tons. The ship was sent direct to
Marseilles; the brig was sent out
ballasted with stone coal, which was
sold at Philadelphia for 371/2 cents a
bushel. She also had a quantity of staves, heading,
hoop-poles, etc. The
year after they built the ship Western
Trader, of 400 tons. This com-
Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual
Meeting. 57
pany were the first to introduce the
navigation of the Ohio with keel-
boats."
Against this put the following, from
"Pittsburgh's Hundred Years,
by the careful local historian, George
H. Thurston, published in 1888:
"The building of sea-going vessels
was established at Pittsburgh by a
French gentleman, Louis Anastasius
Tarascon, who emigrated from
France in 1794, and established himself
at Philadelphia as a merchant.
In 1799 he sent two of his clerks,
Charles Brugiere and James Berthoud,
to examine the course of the Ohio and
Mississippi from Pittsburgh to
New Orleans, and ascertain the
practicability of sending ships, and
clearing them ready-rigged, from
Pittsburgh to the West Indies and
Europe. The two gentlemen reported
favorably, and Mr. Tarascon
associated them, and his brother, John
Anthony, with himself, under the
firm of John A. Tarascon Brothers, James
Berthoud & Co., and immedi-
ately established at Pittsburgh a
wholesale and retail warehouse, a ship
yard, a rigging and sail loft, an anchor
smithshop, a block manufactory
and all other things necessary to
complete sea-going vessels. The first
year, 1801, they built the schooner Amity,
of 120 tons, and the ship
Pittsburgh, of 250 tons, and sent the
former, loaded with flour, to St.
Thomas, and the other, also loaded with
flour, to Philadelphia, from
whence they sent them to Bordeaux,
France, and brought back a cargo
of wine, brandy and other French goods,
part of which they sent in
wagons to Pittsburgh, at a carriage of
from 6 to 8 cents a pound. In
1802 they built the brig Nanina, 250
tons; in 1803, the ship Louisiana,
300 tons; in 1804, the ship Western
Trader, 400 tons."
Original documentary evidence now at
hand shows that neither of
the writers above quoted was entirely
accurate, though the later one
was approximately so. Almost complete
files exist, for the period under
consideration, of the Gazette and
the Tree of Liberty, two weekly news-
papers published at Pittsburgh, and are
now preserved in the Carnegie
Library of that city. One or both of
these note the launching of all
the vessels above named, in the order
there given. But the Amity, instead
of having been built in 1792, as Harris
says, or in 1801, as given by
Thurston, was evidently constructed in
1802, for her launching on the
23d of December of that year is noted in
the local news record. The
ship Pittsburgh was launched in
February, 1803; the brig Nanina,
January 4, 1804; the ship Louisiana,
April 6, 1804, and the Western
Trader, in May, 1804, as noted in the
current news record.
It is inconceivable, of course, that the
names and practically the
tonnage of vessels should be duplicated
in the same yard, in a series of
five, within ten years, so it is very
evident that the date given by Harris
as the beginning of operations by this
firm was one decade too early.
Other things in the record make this
indubitable. In the same newspaper
files already quoted from, first
appears, in the autumn of 1801, adver-
tising of the mercantile house of James
Berthoud, while in September,
58 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications.
1802, notice was given the public that
"the house of James Berthoud will
hereafter be known by the firm of
Tarascon Brothers, James Berthoud &
Co." Further evidence of the
unreliability of the Harris publication is
found in the statement that "this
company were the first to introduce
the navigation of the Ohio with
keelboats," for advertising of the period
shows that these were being built and offered
for sale at Pittsburgh and
various places on the Monongahela river
from four to six years before
the early date erroneously given by
Harris as the time of the founding of
the Tarascon-Berthoud house.
But this concern was not the first one
to build maritime vessels in
the Pittsburgh region or on the Ohio,
though it is probable theirs was
the first establishment in the western
country having facilities for their
building and complete outfitting. Note
is made in the papers already
quoted from of the building of the Dean,
a vessel of 180 tons, at a point
on the Allegheny river, eleven miles
above Pittsburgh, in the year 1802.
This vessel sailed from Pittsburgh in January, 1803, for Liverpool,
England, the intention being to take on a
cargo of cotton at the mouth
of the Cumberland river. This was more
than three months before the
sailing of the Amity and Pittsburgh from
Pittsburgh.
The claim has long been made that the
first sea-going vessel to be
built on the western rivers and to pass
down these to the sea was the
schooner Monongahela Farmer, a vessel of
92 tons' burden, built at
Elizabethtown, now Elizabeth, on the
Monongahela. It has figured as
such in history and story, and the
present writer confesses to having, in
full belief of its correctness, done
somewhat to perpetuate what there
is now good reason to believe was an
error. This vessel was built in
the year 1800, and was launched April
23, 1801, by the Monongahela
Company, an organization of farmers of
the vicinity. It was loaded
with flour and sent to New Orleans,
becoming later a packet between
that city and the West Indies. The stock
of the company was in twenty
shares of one hundred dollars each, and
was owned by twenty farmers.
The owners of the vessel also owned its
cargo. It sailed in May of the
same year, touching at Pittsburgh on the
13th. It was detained at the
Falls of Ohio (Louisville) for more than
six months by low water, not
reaching New Orleans until the beginning
of 1802. Very complete
records of this vessel and her voyage
were preserved in a printed descrip-
tion of her materials and construction,
the letter of commission and
instruction to her commander and letters
from him on the way. The
commander was Capt. John Walker of
Elizabeth. For three-quarters of
a century boat building operations were
carried on by the Walker
family at Elizabeth, and representatives
of it are still there and at
various other places in the country. It
has constantly been maintained
by these Walkers that their forebear
sailed the first ship down the inland
waters. He survived until 1856, and his
son John died in Colorado
Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual
Meeting. 59
within the past year, so the span of
these two lives covered the century
and more since the events under
consideration.
Did the honor of being the first belong
to the Monongahela
Farmer? The Tree of Liberty has
this note in its issue of March 28,
1801: "Now riding at anchor in the
Monongahela, opposite this place,
the schooner Redstone, 45 feet in keel,
built at Chester's ship yard, near
Redstone, by Samuel Jackson &
Co.--with masts, spars, rigging, &c.,
of the growth and manufacture of this
western country." This was
nearly four weeks before the launching
of the Monongahela Farmer, and
more than six weeks before her sailing.
No further record can be found
of the schooner Redstone - when she sailed,
for what port or the nature
of her cargo. Her departure from
Pittsburgh may, of course, have been
subsequent to that of the Monongahela
Farmer. The "Chester ship yard,
near Redstone," is doubtless
identical with that referred to in an adver-
tisement in the Pittsburgh Gazette in
its issue of October 7, 1786, which
announces that "Joseph Chester,
boat builder, opposite the mouth of
Little Redstone, nine miles below Big
Redstone, makes all kinds of keel
and other boats, in the most improved
manner, and at shortest notice."
The mouth of Little Redstone creek is
the site of the present borough of
Fayette City, and Allenport, on the
opposite side of the Monongahela,
was, without doubt, the site of the
Chester yard.
The ship which seems to have the best
title to priority over the
Monongahela Farmer of any which have
figured in the records up to
this time is the St. Clair, built at
Marietta, Ohio. Different authorities
assign the years 1798, 1799 and 1800 as
the time of her construction.
That she was built about the end of the
century and sailed for Havana,
Cuba, with a cargo of pork and flour,
under command of Commodore
Abraham Whipple, of Revolutionary fame,
is generally agreed, though
Thurston speaks of the commander as
Commodore Preble. The present
writer has been unable to find any
documentary evidence, coming down
from the time, which fixes the date
definitely, as in the cases of vessels
already considered. The spring of 1800
is the time which has most
favor as that of the sailing of this
vessel. Prof. Archer Butler Hulbert,
of Marietta, an accepted authority on
matters of history of the Ohio
Valley, referring to it in his excellent
work, "The Ohio River, a Course
of Empire," says: "It was in
the year 1800, probably, that the first
ocean-rigged vessel weighed anchor on
the Ohio for the sea," and in the
same work he refers to the Monongahela
Farmer as "the first [ship]
to descend the Ohio of which we have any
clear record."*
In the year 1797, when war was
threatened between the United
States and France, Congress authorized
the building of two armed
*Prof. Hulbert quotes as his authority
for the time of the St. Clair's
sailing, Hildreth's Pioneer History,
issued in 1834, and an inscription on
the tombstone of Commodore Whipple.
60 Ohio Arch. and
Hist. Society Publications.
galleys for the defense of the lower
Mississippi. These were built and
launched at or near Pittsburgh, the
President Adams in 1798 and the
Senator Ross in 1799. Major Isaac Craig,
writing at the time, spoke of
the first as "as fine a vessel of
her burden and construction as the United
States possesses," and the second
as "certainly a fine piece of naval
architecture, and one which will far exceed
anything the Spaniards can
show on the Mississippi." But these
were never intended to be sea-
going craft and probably were never in
salt water.
And now to return to the claim long made
that the first sea-going
vessel built west of the Allegheny mountains
sailed from Elizabeth and
was commanded by Capt. John Walker.
Various county and other his-
tories have accepted the correctness of
this claim. Thus Thurston, in
"Allegheny County's Hundred
Years," published in 1888, says: "Alle-
gheny County is more than historically
connected in a general way with
the history of steamboat building.
Elizabeth is the point where was
built, at the close of the Eighteenth
Century, the first sea-going vessel
to navigate the western waters, and
Pittsburgh is the place where the
first practical steamboat was
constructed." Warner's and other histories
of Allegheny County make like claims,
basing them on earlier publica-
tions. Note has already been made of the
fact that the Walker family,
in an unbroken line of boat builders for
three-quarters of a century,
always claimed that John Walker sailed
the first ship down the rivers
to the sea. Could it be that this was
correct and the vessel was an
earlier one than the Monongahela Farmer?
Some things that have
recently come to light indicate a
probability of this. The vessel named
has long been so well known, because of
the very complete record
concerning it which has been preserved,
that this, coupled with the fact
that Capt. Walker commanded it on its
maiden voyage, may have brought
confusion in the general apprehension
concerning it, and made it to stand
for something really belonging to
another vessel. It is a matter of
history that besides taking the
Monongahela Farmer to New Orleans
in 1801, with a cargo of products of the
region, he also sailed the brig
Ann Jane, a considerably larger vessel,
built and loaded at the same
place, to New York about three years
later. Evidence is now at hand
that he made a water voyage to New York
earlier than the first of these
two.
John Walker, Jr., son of Capt. John
Walker, died at Mt. Morrison,
Col., a suburb of Denver, on the 23d of
January in the present year,
aged 94 years. His son, John Brisben
Walker, former editor of the
Cosmopolitan Magazine, and well known in various lines of activity,
has found among his papers a passport,
written in Spanish and issued
to the first John Walker, of which a
literal translation is given below,
furnished me by an interpreter employed
in one of the Pittsburgh
banks, a Spaniard by birth. The
superscription is handsomely engraved
and shows that the official issuing it
was a veritable poohbah of that
Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual
Meeting. 61
early day, as witness: "The Baron
of Carondalet, Chevalier of St.
John's Religion, Brigadier of the Royal
Army, Gen. Governor, Vice
Patron of Louisiana and Occidental
Florida, Inspector of its Troops, etc."
Then follows the written portion:
"I grant free and sure passport to
John Walker in order that on the
schooner Polly, her captain, Mr. John
Bain, he may go to New York, showing his
baggage at the office of the
Royal Duty. Given in New Orleans on the
17th of July, 1795. (Signed)
Baron of Carondalet."
Here was Capt. John Walker on a sailing
vessel at New Orleans
in 1795, on his way to New York. A
passport would be necessary,
because Louisiana was then a Spanish
possession. He was not in com-
mand of the vessel as master, but could
not be expected to have the
knowledge of seamanship to make him
competent to take command of
a vessel as master on the sea. Six years
later he was commissioned by
the owners of the Monongahela Farmer as
"master and supercargo," but
that vessel, while carrying complete
rigging, did not have it erected to
make her a sailing vessel on her passage
down the rivers, and she was
sold, with her cargo, on reaching New
Orleans.
The third John Walker informed the
writer, in a recent conversa-
tion in Denver, that he had never gone
into the matter in detail with
his father, but had accepted the current
tradition that it was on the
Monongahela Farmer that his grandfather
had made the pioneer voyage
down the rivers to the sea. Monongahela
Farmer and Polly were both
familiar names to him in his early home
life, in connection with family
traditions of the nautical life of his
grandfather, and it was always his
understanding that both of them were
built at and sailed from Elizabeth.
This could easily be, for, from the
laying out of the place in 1787, it was
a boat building place, and skilled ship
carpenters were employed there.
Thaddeus Mason Harris, the traveler and
writer, arrived at Eliza-
bethtown April 14, 1803, and makes this
note: "At this place much
business is done in boat and ship
building. The Monongahela Farmer
and other vessels of considerable burden
were built here and, laden with
the produce of the adjacent country,
were sent to the West India
islands." Local history has long
told of the sailing of the Mononga-
hela Farmer in May, 1801, and the brig,
Ann Jane, in May, 1804, from
Elizabeth, but there is no record of any
between them. The Pittsburgh
papers of that period seem to have been
careful to note the sailing of
all ships from the home ports. They
recorded the two above named
from Elizabeth, but only these two.
Harris was there a year before the
launching of the Ann Jane, but speaks of
"other vessels of considerable
burden," sent "laden with the produce of the
adjacent country." This
is strong evidence that there were other
sea-going vessels built there
before the Monongahela Farmer, and
greatly strengthened the case of the
Polly, which was at New Orleans in 1795,
with Capt. John Walker on
board, bound for New York.
62 Ohio Arch. and
Hist. Society Publications.
If, as seems probable, the Polly was
built in this region, it carries
the local ship building activity back at
least five years earlier than the
records heretofore have seemed to
indicate, and seems to give firm basis
to the Walker claim of priority. All
efforts to trace the subsequent
history of this vessel have been
unavailing.
While it may not be said with
positiveness which was the first
sea-going vessel built in these parts,
it is evident that the movement had
its origin in the last decade of the
Eighteenth Century. All the boat
yards of the region of which record can
be found had their beginnings
not earlier than the late eighties of
that century, and ship building here
seems to have attained its greatest
activity in the first decade of the
Nineteenth Century. Within that period
the records show that vessels
of this character were built on the
Monongahela at Pittsburgh, at
Elizabeth and opposite the mouth of
Little Redstone creek (now Allen-
port); on the Allegheny, at an unnamed
point eleven miles from
its mouth; on the Ohio, at Freedom,
Wheeling, Marietta and Louisville.
The Tree of Liberty, in its issue
of May 30, 1801, in noting ship building
operations at the two points last named,
said: "The spirit of enterprise
which exists now is really worthy of a
free and industrious people.
Traders need not be confined to one
market, but may carry the products
of the western country to any port in
their own vessels."
It is true that these were only
outward-bound vessels, for after
sailing away they did not return up the
river. Either the vessel was
sold at New Orleans or its other
destination, or it continued to be
sailed by its owners on the ocean
between various ports. Possible
exceptions to this were small barks
which did return up the river, but
these probably never saw the high seas,
their commercial operations being
confined to the rivers. The verb
"sail," as employed in this and previous
paragraphs, to designate the beginning
of the initial voyage, is used in its
accommodated sense of denoting a
vessel's departure, without reference
to the means of its propulsion; for, as
a matter of fact, these sea-
going vessels, in no case that has been
found, sailed down the rivers
under the impetus of the wind upon their
own canvas. It is true, they
were usually provided with the materials
for complete rigging--masts,
yards, ropes, sails and even anchors
-but the rigging was not set up
until New Orleans was reached and the
vessel was on the eve of begin-
ning its sea voyage. It would be built,
loaded, equipped and made all
ready for a freshet, and then would be
floated on the crest of this down
the rivers, when the freshet came,
usually in the spring. The boating
operations on the rivers for a number of
years before the building of
ships here had brought an active demand
for cordage, and there were a
number of ropewalks in the region. Every
material entering into the
construction, from the various hard and
soft woods to the flax and
hemp for cordage and sails, was a
product of the country, and was put
into form right on the ground. There is
some evidence that at the
Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual
Meeting. 63
beginning iron was imported into the
region, but even it was forged
into nails, bolts and anchors right
here.
Michaux, the French writer, who visited
this region in 1802, says:
"What many, perhaps, are ignorant
of in Europe is, that they build
large vessels on the Ohio and at the
town of Pittsburgh. One of the
principal ship yards is upon the
Monongahela, about 200 fathoms beyond
the last house of the town. The timber
they make use of is whiteoak,
redoak, blackoak, a kind of nut tree
[black walnut], the Virginia cherry
tree, and a kind of pine which they use
for masting, as well as for the
sides of the vessels, which require a
slighter wood. The cordage is
manufactured at Redstone and Lexington,
where there are two extensive
ropewalks, which also supply ships with
rigging that are built at Marietta
and Louisville."
The movement that we have been
considering did not cover a long
period of years, and its decadence set
in before the end of the first
decade of the Nineteenth Century. This
came about from various
causes, three chief ones being: First,
the difficulties of navigation of
this character, under the most favorable
conditions, and the infrequency
of the times when it was even possible;
secondly, the coming of the
steamboat which, because of its greater
adaptability to the existing con-
ditions, soon relegated the sailing
vessel on these waters to the limbo of
things that were; thirdly, the passage
of the Embargo Act, under the ad-
ministration of President Jefferson, in
December, 1808. Its object was, by
cutting off intercourse with France and
Great Britain, to compel them to
recognize the rights of American
neutrality, and by its operation all
American vessels were detained in the
ports of the United States. It
remained in operation but fourteen
months, but had its certaineffect in
checking ship building here, as
elsewhere in the country.
The first of the reasons above
enumerated is set forth somewhat by
some literature of the time. Zadock
Cramer's Navigator, a Pittsburgh
publication of the period, with editions
at irregular intervals, in its
issue of 1811, says, after giving a list
of sailing vessels built in the first
years of the century at and near
Pittsburgh: "Misfortunes and acci-
dents in getting these vessels down the
Ohio, which most probably arose
from bad management in the persons
entrusted with them, has given a
damp to ship building at present."
The same issue notes the enterprise
of building the first steamboat at
Pittsburgh, then under way, and the
writer ventures on a remarkable prophecy
of what its successful out-
come would bring about-remarkable in
that at this time it reads like
history. Espwick Evans, who made a
pedestrian tour through this region
in 1818, left a record of what he found,
and here is a quotation from it:
"Ship and boat building is actively
carried on at Pittsburgh, but of late
no vessels of large tonnage have been
made, on account of the dangers
incident to getting them down the Ohio.
Very few of the vessels and
boats built here ever return up the
river as far as this place [Pittsburgh];
64 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications.
and, of course, there is a constant
demand for new vessels." Further
along, after traversing a portion of the
Ohio river, the same author
writes: "The boats which float upon
the Ohio river are various--from
the ship of several hundred tons burden,
to the mere skiff. Very few, if
any, very large vessels, however, are
now built at Pittsburgh and
Marietta; but the difficulties incident
to getting them to the ocean have
rendered such undertakings infrequent.
An almost innumerable number
of steamboats, barks, keels and arks are
yearly set afloat upon the river
and its tributary streams. The barks are
generally about one hundred
tons burden, have two masts, and are
rigged as schooners or hermaphro-
dite brigs. The keels have, frequently,
covered decks, and sometimes
carry one mast. These and also the barks
are sometimes moved up the
river by polling, and by drawing them
along shore with ropes."
The first steamboat built on western
waters, the New Orleans, was
constructed at Pittsburgh, in the year
1811, but four years after Fulton's
Clermont made its first successful trip
on the Hudson. There is record
of a steamboat having been built by
Capt. John Walker at Elizabeth in
1815, and soon after that there were
yards in operation in various towns
on the Monongahela and Ohio, turning out
the new type of vessels.
These soon largely took the place of all
other kinds of craft in bearing
the commerce of the rivers, and the
sea-going vessels made New Orleans
their port of arrival and departure.
Indeed, so far as a searching
investigation has revealed, no ships
were built in this region after the
construction of the first steamboat.
Thus came to an end a notable
movement which in its entire activity
does not seem to have covered
more than a score of years, but which
must have done much, in its time,
to bring this then obscure region to the
notice of the rest of the world.
PITTSBURGH A KEY TO THE WEST DURING THE
AMERICAN
REVOLUTION.
BY JAMES ALTON JAMES, M. D.,
Professor of History in Northwestern
University.
From the opening of the Revolutionary
War, American leaders
looked to the conquest of Detroit, the
headquarters of the posts and key
to the fur trade and control of the
Indian tribes to the northwest of the
Ohio.1 Throughout the war
this post, in the possession of the British,
"continued," as Washington
wrote, "to be a source of trouble to the whole
western country."2
The garrison at Detroit, at the
beginning of the year 1776, consisted
of 120 soldiers under the command of
Capt. Richard Lernoult. The