Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company launched two steamboats (in 1814 and 1815) which were used to transport passengers and cargo via the Monongahela, Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The company was owned by shareholders and based in the neighboring towns of Bridgeport and Brownsville, Pennsylvania which are located on the Monongahela River about 65 miles (by boat) south of Pittsburgh.

By the summer of 1815, the company appeared to be firmly established as evidenced by The American Telegraph's account of 9 August 1815:

"The Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company, of this place, we are pleased to learn, intend to lay the keel of a Steam Boat of one hundred and thirty tons burden, as soon as sufficient stock can be sold; the shares in this company are five hundred dollars each, one hundred paid on subscribing, and one hundred at the end of each succeeding sixtieth day until the whole be paid; the new stock holders to draw a dividend of the profits of all the boats after the one proposed shall be in operation. This boat is intended as a regular trader from New Orleans to the falls of Ohio [Louisville, Kentucky], which with the Enterprize which is destined to trade between the falls & Pittsburgh, and the Despatch from Pittsburgh to Bridgeport, will form a complete line from New Orleans to this place."

Contents 1 Saint Louis voyage 2 Philadelphia meeting 3 Return trip 4 1813 5 1814 6 Notes 7 References

[edit] Saint Louis voyage

How did the steamboat company begin? A large body of evidence suggests that Elisha Hunt was the person most responsible for its creation. Besides being a prominent Brownsville businessman, land owner, and bank director, Elisha Hunt wanted to expand his mercantile business. For several years, he and his younger brother Caleb sold a wide variety of goods from their Brownsville store which was located very close to the river. Their customers were local people as well as others who were passing through town. Elisha Hunt planned to augment the store business by engaging in commerce via the western rivers.

Elisha's letter to his mother, dated 12 February 1812, announced plans for the initial attempt at river commerce:

"Caleb is now preparing a tour to St. Louis, in company with Jos. White from Philadelphia, they are going to take some produce of this country & expect to start in the course of two weeks, three young [French-Canadians] are going together which will constitute the whole crew. Caleb takes 1/5 of cargo."

E. M. Woodward, in his biography of Joseph White, relates a detailed history of the Saint Louis voyage:

"In the year 1811, Joseph White left Philadelphia with the intention of traveling on horseback to St. Louis, Mo., and other places in the Western and Southern States, for the purpose of collecting debts due the firm and extending its business. While in Brownsville, Pa., he noticed a man standing in the door of a store, whose costume indicated he was a member of the Society of Friends. Being a stranger in a strange place, Joseph was attracted towards this member of his own religious society. Asking for some trivial article of merchandise as an excuse for opening a conversation, he entered the store. This new acquaintance proved to be Elisha Hunt, who with his brother Caleb, were conducting a mercantile business there. The conversation that ensued was interesting to both, and when supper was announced Joseph was invited to join the family circle. The Hunts made a proposition that if Joseph White would give up his travel on horseback and assist them in building and freighting a keel-boat, Caleb Hunt would join him on the trip to St. Louis, thus making a more pleasant journey with favorable prospects of a successful mercantile venture; such an arrangement was agreed upon. In the spring of 1812, Joseph White and Caleb Hunt, with a crew of French Canadian boatmen, started their keel-boat from the landing at Brownsville, Pa., bound for St. Louis, Mo. "During the previous 11th month an earthquake, which is known as the 'earthquake of New Madrid,' had changed and rent the banks of the Ohio River." As far as the mouth of the Ohio the voyage was comparatively easy, requiring only watchful care to keep the boat in the current and avoid obstructions; but from the Ohio's mouth to St. Louis, against the rapid current of the Missouri [sic, Mississippi] River, was another kind of labor. They now doubled the number of their men, and pulled the boat up stream with a long rope, a number of hands on shore dragging it. This was called "cordelling" and bushwacking," as the men would catch a bush with one hand and pull the rope with the other. Such arduous labor was well calculated to lead the reflective mind to consider if some other power could not be successfully applied for propelling boats against such a current. After reaching St. Louis their merchandise was sold, partly for cash, the balance payable in lead to be delivered to St. Genevieve, on the Mississippi River, during the spring of 1813. Returning by keel-boat to the mouth of the Cumberland River, they there left their boat, and on horseback returned to their respective homes."

[edit] Philadelphia meeting

After the Saint Louis voyage, Elisha Hunt made the deciision to use steamboats for river commerce. Since he didn't know of anyone capable of building a steamboat, he made the 290-mile trip to Philadelphia. In his biography of Joseph White, E. M. Woodward presents an account of the Philadelphia meeting:

"During the autumn of 1812, Elisha Hunt visited his friend [Joseph White] in Philadelphia, and while there they examined a little stern-wheel steamboat built under a patent owned by Daniel French, of Connecticut, and then running as a ferry-boat between Cooper's Point, in New Jersey, and Philadelphia. French informed them that he could construct steamboats that would run five miles an hour against the current of the Mississippi River. A stock company was formed to construct steamboats and carry passengers and freight by steamboats between Pittsburgh and New Orleans. The stock of this company was divided into six shares, of which Joseph White owned two, or one-third of the entire stock. The Steamboat Company purchased the right to use French's patent west of the Allegheny Mountains, engaged his services, erected shops at Brownsville, manufactured tools for working iron, cut logs into plank with whip-saws, and with the ferry-boat above mentioned as their model, constructed the steamboat "Enterprise,"

The only known primary document regarding a business agreement between Elisha Hunt and Daniel French is held by the Indiana Historical Society. French wrote the following draft:

"Daniel French gives Hunt one-fourth of all advantages and profits during the patent arising from French's one-half of the whole property in his new invented steam improvements. Hunt gives French five hundred dollars in advance. Said Hunt is to go from places to places to look out places for establishing French's machinery in its various applications in mills, boats and other machinery, as also to sell, let, lease and assist in setting up works for the benefit of the said French at Hunt expense, and those services shall continue during the patent term as the best interest of the company mutually considered may direct, the said Hunt shall not hold back any reasonable services requested by the said French on forfeiture of said one-fourth as granted by said French to said Hunt, as those services are the principle consideration to said French for Hunt's one-fourth of said profits."

Unfortunately, French's draft doesn't disclose the date of the business agreement but he probably wrote it during the Philadelphia meeting.

The Philadelphia meeting between Elisha Hunt, Joseph White and Daniel French was a success. The nucleus of a steamboat company had been formed. A prominent Brownsville businessman was teamed up with an experienced steam engine and steamboat builder. Furthermore, Daniel French was ready to move to Brownsville. Joseph White, the third shareholder in the fledgling steamboat company, would remain in Philadelphia where his hardware business was located.

[edit] Return trip

In December of 1812, Elisha and Caleb Hunt transported Daniel French, his three sons and a steam engine from Philadelphia to the valley of the Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania. The trip was documented by Caleb Hunt's grandson, James Walker Roberts, on a tag which was attached to his granfather's "steamboat watch":

"Early in the nineteenth century Uncle Elisha Hunt, Caleb Hunt, and four others had hauled across the Allegheny Mountains to Brownsville, Pa., a steam engine and machinery"

[edit] 1813

By the summer of 1813, two companies which employed French's steam engines were established. Caleb Hunt wrote to his mother on 22 June 1813:

"There is a Cotton Factory Company established in Bridgeport with a capital of above eleven thousand dollars to be worked by steam. They are preparing to build a large brick building for the purpose. An air foundry is also going on by John and Wm Cock & others. And a company are about contracting to build steam boats & one to run from here to Pittsburgh to carry freight and passengers to make two or three trips a week and one larger to run to the falls of Ohio from Pitt."

[edit] 1814

The reason is found in Elisha Hunt's letter to his mother where Caleb's trip to Louisiana is announced. Caleb's trip is a fulfillment of Elisha's obligation to French. Elisha Hunt, 27 January 1814:

"Caleb has now gone by Land to Louisiana & will perhaps be gone 13 months, he will not go in the Steam Boat at all & it is probable that at his return he will settle at home."

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• French, Daniel, Draft of a business agreement with Elisha Hunt, Indiana Historical Society: Daniel French Papers, ca. 1796 - 1816, digital file 6091
• Hunter, Louis C. (1949), Steamboats on the western rivers, an economic and technological history, Cambridge: Harvard University Press
• Maass, Alfred R. (1996), "Daniel French and the western steamboat engine", The American Neptune, 56: 29-44
• Warren, Dorothy J. (10 April 1955), "History wanted on riverman's watch." St. Paul Sunday Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, p. 4
• Woodward, E. M. (1883), History of Burlington county, New Jersey, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, p. 220-221