All Speed Ahead

Between the Revolution and the Civil War, the story of speed was nowhere more evident than on the Mississippi River.  It was a natural superhighway, extending 4000 miles with branches reaching within 800 miles of the Pacific Ocean.  Western steamboat life was a racing life, a dangerous, delightful diversion.  Racing steamboats became popular and competitive.  

John Fitch made the first vessel to move by the power of steam in 1787.  Twenty years later Robert Fulton's Clermont made the trip from New York to Albany in 32 hours.  By the 1840s the spirit of steamboat travel in the West was characterized by racing.  

When two steamboats happened to come alongside each other, the passengers encouraged the captain to race.  Boilers intended for only 100 pounds of pressure were now operating at 150-200 pounds of pressure.  Races were the cause of most steamboat explosions, yet it didn't seem to deter the love of steamboat racing.

How did steamboats evolve?  From flatboats which were used to move pioneers by water from the East to the West.  Once they arrived at their destination, the settlers would set their flatboat adrift or take them apart to use for shelter and fuel.  The demand in New Orleans for timber to use for sidewalks and houses provided a thriving market for the used flatboats.

Pioneers began to want to get to their destinations faster...next time, Watt's steamboat engine.

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Today in Pioneer History: "On August 31, 1897, Thomas Alva Edison patents the kinetograph, the first movie camera.  It was based on photographic principles discovered by still photographs pioneers .  Edison was different in that it used celluloid film."  

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.