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January 2004: THE BIRTH OF AN ERA
1811 was a wide and crazy year on the Mississippi. The spring floods had been exceptionally high and the river overflowed many miles beyond its banks. This precipitated an outbreak of sickness that was worse than anyone could remember. During the summer a great comet appeared, night after night. Its tail stretched across the sky and many were convinced the end of the world was upon us. Come fall and it seemed the end was in progress because a great earthquake shook the Mississippi Valley again and again, great cracks opened in the earth and the ground rolled in swells, like the ocean. In other places the muddy river bottom rose and became new land. We have recounted these events in previous columns. But in spite of nature’s calamities, the most important event was a strange kind of boat, puffing smoke as it made its way on the river. Steamboats were relatively new, but had been used on the Hudson River for several years. This was their first appearance on the western rivers. Of all the calamitous events of that year, it turned out this was the most important for it opened an era that is not over yet.
The captain of the boat was Nicholas J Roosevelt, great-granduncle of future president Theodore Roosevelt. He had a strong interest in steamboats, and in fact, held several patents on their machinery. He set about promoting the building of a steamboat to sail the Mississippi. It was not so easy. The Ohio and Mississippi were very different from the slow moving Hudson, and there was much to learn before a successful boat could be built. Roosevelt went to Pittsburgh determined to learn what was necessary. He built a flatboat, traditional except more elaborate because it was going to be where he spent his honeymoon. So, with his new bride, Lydia, and an experienced crew, he set out down the Ohio in the spring of 1809.
Roosevelt eagerly sought out advice from the flatboats and keelboats he met. They were not encouraging. They said the swift river currents and shifting bottoms would make it impossible for a steam driven craft. Roosevelt was not discouraged. In fact, he was so confident he could bring steamboats to the west thatwhen he found a aeam of coal on the banks of the Ohio, he hired men to open up coal mines to provide fuel for the steamboats when they arrived. Doesn’t this sound a lot like you would expect from the granduncle of Teddy Roosevelt?
Nicholas and Lydia got to New Orleans but immediately returned to New York by ship. By the spring of 1811 they were again in Pittsburgh building a steamboat. In spite of many difficulties, he got the boat completed and christened her “New Orleans”. We really don’t know much about the new steamboat. She had a rounded hull (this was something that was going to have to be changed in later models). One account says she was 148 feet long but that sounds like an exaggeration. She probably had two masts to carry sail in an emergency. This was customary on the Hudson River steamers. Roosevelt had patents on side wheels so it is fairly certain she was a sidewheeler.
Mrs Roosevelt planned to go downriver with the new boat but her friends protested because she was pregnant. She paid no more attention to the protests than she had 2 years earlier when they said it was not proper for her to take a honeymoon on a flatboat.
Between Pittsburgh and Natchez, Mississippi there were only 3 settlements of any size: Cincinnati, Ohio; Louisville, Kentucky; and New Madrid, Missouri. None of them with many more than 2000 people. The same people who had said a steamboat was impractical on the western rivers now said: “Well, she’ll be alright going downstream but against the current she’ll never make it”. When the New Orleans reached Louisville, the river was too shallow for her. While waiting for the river to rise Roosevelt decided to show some of the skeptics. First a short run against the current and then a longer one to Cincinnati. Before leaving Louisville, Lydia gave birth to her baby. By then the river had risen to a height New Orleans could handle, but just barely. People wanted Lydia and her baby to go around by land but she paid no more attention than before and they accompanied Nicholas in running the Falls of the Ohio. It was a close call but they made it, in some places by a matter of inches.
A few days later they had their first experience with the earthquake. The sickening shaking and trembling of the earth was a foretaste of what was to come. As they came closer to the Mississippi the shaking became worse, land sank into the river, and new land rose to take its place. By the time they reached New Madrid on the Mississippi things were really frightening. This was near the epicenter of the quake (it is called the New Madrid Quake). Part of the town itself sank into the river. Jets of gas and clumps of hot coals were thrown from under the water. Great cracks appeared A large section of northwestern Tennessee sank below river level and for awhile the river below New Madrid ran backward until the depression was filled (today they call it Reelfoot Lake). In spite of all of it, New Orleans finally reached the city she was named for. At the time it seemed a minor occurance compared to nature’s disaster. Now we remember it better than the earthquake for it truly was the beginning of an era.
To be continued.