NICHOLAS ROOSEVELT'S 1811 STEAMBOAT NEW ORLEANS
Article from The Pittsburg Dispatch, 31 October 1911

River Fest Opens with Old Annals

Notable Papers Read Before Ohio Valley and Western Pennsylvania Societies

Pittsburg's Role Told

Washington's Relation to Inland Navigation described and New Orleans' Trip

Three papers were read yesterday afternoon in the lecture room of Carnegie Institute that were intensely interesting and vastly informative about matter directly connected with the pending navigation anniversary celebration. The occasion marked the real opening of the river festival. When these compact monographs are collected, with others to follow, in a volume it will be a notable contribution to the history of this region in its formative period, and the readers will regret that they did not hear the reading coupled with the charm of delivery by the writers of the several papers.

Professor Henry W. Temple of Washington and Jefferson College presided and explained that the meeting was a joint one of the historical societies of the Ohio Valley and Western Pennsylvania. Professor G.A.M. Dyess discussed "Washington, Pittsburg, and Inland Navigation." He pinned up the thesis that George Washington was the Father of Pittsburg and inland navigation, and he defended it with great wealth of citation and keen analysis. He first traced the various trips of Washington to this region, after buffaloes, exploring, and in the French war. The failure of the Potomac & James company he asserted, brought about the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and the Cumberland Road, the inception of the National Pike.

[portrait of Edwin E. Sparks, Ph.D.]

Portrays Real Washington

He made what at first seemed a divagation to discuss how the deification of Washington had led to his undue disparagement. It had robbed us of sense of a human being and we have been consigned to cherishing a priggish myth, a wooden image. Severally he disputed the branches of "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." As to the latter, for 50 years he said, there had been only lip service, respectable cant. Suddenly he revealed his purposes, because he revealed Washington as the first commercial American, the first to gain an insight into the possibilities of the Pittsburg region and a Western empire, when later Jefferson thought 1,000 years necessary to its building. He alluded to his dream of a canal from the Potomac headwaters to the Ohio. Then he described the earliest experiments of Rumsey on steam navigation of the Potomac. Finally he quoted from the famous letter Washington wrote to Governor Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, wherein is a notable declaration favoring a canal from the Ohio to Lake Erie. He concluded with an eloquent panegyric upon these pioneers and said their achievements were a challenge to the Pittsburg of today.

President Edwin Earle Sparks of Pennsylvania State College read a paper on "The Ohio River and American Expansion." He said his assigned duty had been to furnish a comprehensive view of the purpose of this anniversary, but his effort riveted attention not alone to his almost classic diction, but also to his charming delivery. He spoke of North and South America and Africa as three continents civilized within comparatively recent periods.

Westward Empire's Star

Generally development starts at the coast. In North America the expansion was westward. Columbus had shouted to his pilot "Heave West;" Bishop Berkeley had declared "Westward, ho." It was the Ohio River which had conduced most to the westward advance. Pittsburg had been the gateway of the West, sharing with the Cumberland Gap. Its rival is the St. Lawrence, but climactic conditions, the rapids, and its far Northern latitude gave the lower stream preponderance of influence on expansion, not counting the hostile ownership then.

Then he told of the early Ohio and its heavily timbered shores, its superb climactic auspices. Many ascribe Pittsburg's growth to her coal resources, but he discounted this factor and gave the higher credit to the Ohio River. He averted to the great part this region played in the bitter controversies raging over the internal improvement questions and the assertions of a paternalistic system by the Federal Government. Professor Sparks also ended his noticeably impressive address with a contrast between the ship building a century ago and now. No Frenchman had to be imported to build ships, nor are engines brought in separate parts over the mountains to be assembled here.

Professor Hulbert "Fills In"

The chairman announced that neither Miss H. Dora Stecker nor her paper was present. She was to have presented a paper on "New Orleans and the Ohio Navigation Company." The president of the Ohio Valley Historical Society, Professor Archer Butler Hulbert of Marietta College, admirably filled the gap by reading a paper on the initial trip of the New Orleans. It was a graphic recital. He told of the impression when the Clermont made its trips on the Hudson that the ocean tides affected the steam and inland navigation could never be successful. Nicholas J. Roosevelt, on his bridal trip in 1810, had floated down the Ohio on a flatboat, intent on viewing the possibilities of Robert Fulton transferring his projects to that river. He made a glowing report in New York on his return in six months; soon began the construction of the New Orleans here for service in the New Orleans and Natchez trade. Its start was made October 20, 1811, and on October 27, it had reached Cincinnati. It traveled 12 or 13 miles an hour. Its crew numbered 10 and a big Newfoundland dog named Piker [sic, actually Tiger] was a distinguished passenger. Despite all dissuasion Mrs. Roosevelt again accompanied her husband. The boat rounded into the Crescent City, January 9, 1912 [sic, actually 1812]. It made 13 trips at a profit of $20,000, half its own cost, between New Orleans and Natchez.

An earthquake was felt along the voyage and there was a comet to add to the consternation of those along the banks, especially the Indians, who called it the "fire canoe." Professor Hulbert alluded facetiously to the 500 different versions as to the length of the New Orleans but he stated it as 115 feet with 20-feet beam. That the "ocean tide" theory was wrong the new boat proved at Natchez. It had run past the anchorage, but the engine responded and the wheel reversed, and it went up and down until it reached the moorings. An old darky, according to legend, shouted "Dat ribber's got its master now."

There will be two other historical meetings on Wednesday morning and afternoon. Some of the participants came yesterday, among them George Cowles Lay of New York, James Norton Callahan of the University of West Virginia, Harry Brent McCoy of Cincinnati, and W.K. Longnoor of Frankfort, Ky.


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