Steamboats on the Ohio

While the National Road was being built, those living along the Ohio River were amazed to see a large boat without sails, oars, or any visible means of propelling it, moving down the river.  The "New Orleans" was the first steamboat to be launched in the new western waters.

The steamboat developed quickly.  In 1819 there were already 63 steamboats on the Ohio.  By 1834 the total shipping tonnage on the Ohio and Mississippi was 126,000.  The Northwest region needed ways to move goods quickly and the steamboat was for a time the solution to the problem. 

The boats themselves competed with each other in elegance, with figureheads and all manner of decorations, not to mention luxurious accommodations for passengers.  Engineers and pilots vied for speed records, challenging each other in speed races.  Some of those speed races ended in some of the worst steamboat disasters in history.

Steamboat names reflected the personalities of those that built and piloted them.  The Washington, the Florida, Walk in the Water, the Lady of the Lake...showed a bent to the romance and splendor of the river.  They carried spectators, merchants, dandies, fine ladies and yes, cargo.  They featured piano bars, gambling and card games, champagne bars and all the luxuries dreamed of by those watching from their cabins along the river.

Written anonymously in the Western Monthly Review  in the early days of steamboats:  "A steamboat coming from New Orleans brings to the remotest villages of our shores, a little Paris, a slice of Broadway, or a piece of Philadelphia...fashion and finery where Cincinnati will soon be the celestial empire of the west without encountering the storms, the seasickness and dangers of passage from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic.  When the Eric Canal is completed, the opulent southern planters will be able to take their families, their dogs, their parrots through the world of forests from New Orleans to New York.  Maybe someday their voyage will terminate at Cincinnati." 

Next time...We will be taking a break while I regroup before starting a new topic.  I found a delightful book that chronicles all kinds of pioneers in all kinds of fields.
See you soon!
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On May 30, 1899, amateur bandit, Pearl Hart and her boyfriend hold up an Arizona stagecoach.  Neither of them had any experience in holding up stagecoaches,  but Hart (dressed as a man) and Joe Boot stopped the stagecoach between Globe and Florence and $421 from the three passengers, giving $1 back to each passenger out of pity.  They were arrested four days later after leaving a trail to their whereabouts.  Boot got 30 years, Hart got 5 in the county jail.

You Will Not Plant Corn North of the Ohio

One of the serious obstacles in the Ohio country was the Indian population.  Most of the tribes had been pushed northward to the Miami, Scioto, and Wabash Rivers.  The Treaty of 1785 was designed to keep them there.  It was unrealistic to think that such an arrangement would last unless backed up by force. 

The Indian villages were in the swamp forests of northern Ohio and Indiana.  They were pretty squalid and they fostered bitterness and rebellion among the tribes.  Their hunting grounds were slipping away and they saw their cession of land as one of fraud by the Americans.  "White men shall not plant corn north of the Ohio" became their rallying cry.

There were seven or eight fortified posts still held by the British in the north and west.  Detroit was one of them.  There the British systematically encouraged the Indians to aggressively resist any American advance.  The  British wanted the Indians to help protect their rich fur trade for one thing.  Ammunition and supplies were given as well as gifts - all used with deadly effect against the Ohio frontiersmen.

By 1789 the situation was serious, so Washington called for the nation to prepare for the first war since independence.  Militiamen from Kentucky and Pennsylvania gathered in Fort Washington (Cincinnati) in 1790 under General Josiah Harmar.  The goal was an expedition north against the Miami.  The troops reached the Maumee country on the site of present day Fort Wayne where they destroyed Indian huts and burned a great quantity of corn.  It wasn't enough as the militia was forced to retreat against overwhelming odds.  They gained nothing but experience (which they needed), but it did stir the Indians to more aggressive means and they followed Harmar's men closely as they retreated.

Governor Arthur St. Clair was replaced as commander and promised 2000 troops for six months, trained for ambush and surprise attacks.  Again everything went wrong from troops gathered from prisons and the streets, to supplies being grossly inadequate.  St. Clair, however, was a man of honest intentions, but he was old and in poor health.  He also had a limited military ability.  On October 4, 1791 he led his untrained men from Fort Washington  northward once again to conquer the Ohio country.

Next time...St. Clair's Expedition
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Today in Pioneer Pieces History:  "On March 11, 1818, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is published by 21 year old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.  It is frequently called the world's first science fiction novel (101 years ago) where a scientist animates a creature constructed from dismembered corpses.