A Ditch Runs Through It

Why would anyone ignore him?

2017 marks the bicentennial of the beginning of construction of the Erie Canal. It was the canal that turned New York into the Empire State. Of course, we are talking about a government project in New York so it took a long time to arrive at the first shovel of dirt. 

In fact, Robert Livingston, First Lord of Livingston Manor had traveled into what was then Indian territory in what would be western New York in the early 1700's. He reported to several successive royal governors that improvements to the natural waterways of the colony would allow access to the abundant resources of the western lands. He was ignored.

The first commission on the Erie Canal was formed in March of 1810. It was carefully assembled to include federalist and democratic-republicans. The committee included Gouverneur Morris, Stephan Van Rensselaer, William North, Thomas Eddy,

DeWitt Clinton, George Clinton's nephew

DeWitt Clinton, Simeon DeWitt and Peter Buell Porter. Gouverneur Morris was the titular head of the committee but it was widely known that DeWitt Clinton was the driving force behind what would become known as “Clinton’s Ditch.”

Not this George Clinton

The major accomplishment of the committee was to convince the New York State Legislature that the canal was in face a feasible project. In June of 1810 the entire committee, except for Morris, traveled by water as far as they could on the Mohawk River then, joined by Morris, traveled to Lake Erie by carriage. They then produced a report that spurred the Legislature to act, no small feat.

Robert Livingston, shipping magnate

On April 8, 1811, the legislature approved $15,000 for the commission to begin their work. They also added two new members to the commission, Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton. Livingston and Fulton. Livingston and Fulton had a monopoly for steamboat travel on the Hudson River and were in the process of building a steamboat to ply the Mississippi River which would give them a monopoly on that river as well. Having them on board would provide an even greater economic incentive for farmers and merchants from the west to use the canal. Once the merchandise got to Albany it could be loaded onto steam boats and arrive in New York City a little over a day later.

Robert Fulton. A face that just screams "Trust me with your major engineering challenges

Fulton and Livingston quickly found important roles on the commission. Fulton was to help find designers who could build the canal while Livingston would work with DeWitt Clinton on the herculean task of  trying to find national sources of funding for the project. In October, 1811 they sent a letter to the governments of all American states and territories pointing out that the canal would benefit the entire country and that they should either pay New York to help build it or pressure the federal government to give New York funds to offset the cost of construction.

It didn’t go well.

The states that bothered to respond at all sent resounding no’s.

Shortly thereafter the small dust up known as  The War of 1812 put the canal on hold.

A kerfuffle, if you will.

The commission retained its power and in 1812 was legally allowed to create a fund to pay for the canal. (This was repealed in 1814). Although several of the commission members held or ran for other positions during the war and very little work got done.

Abraham Van Vechten

Livingston had one more role to play in the commission’s history, which he did by dying in February of 1813. Opponents of the canal in the New York legislature took the Chancellor’s death as an opportunity to challenge the authority of the entire commission, claiming that it ended when one member died and the committee would have to be reformed. Eventually Attorney General of New York, Abraham Van Vechten ruled that the power of the commissioners did not end with any particular member’s end.

It would be another four years before construction on the canal would begin. The canal was not finished until 1825.

low bridge

The River Ran Backwards and Other Adventures of Robert R. Livingston's First Steamboat on the Mississippi River

Mississippi River icon

It is hard to imagine the Mississippi River without its iconic steamboats beating their way up and down stream. Even Mark Twain once wrote, of the steamboats on the Mississippi; “When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman.” But before all of those boats began to ply the waters there must have been a first steamboat on the river. What was the story of that boat? Why are you reading about the Mississippi River this blog about the Hudson River Valley? The short answer to that one is that, its my blog I'll change the rules if I want.

Robert R. Livingston, had probably been
planning this for years.

Within days of the first successful voyage of the North River Steamboat in 1807 Robert Fulton and Robert R. Livingston’s thoughts had turned to spreading their new form of transport to the Mississippi River. Fulton wrote “I think it would be well to write to your brother Edward to get information on the velocity of the Mississippi, the size and form of boats used, the number of hands and quantity of tons in each boat, the number of miles they make against the current in twelve hours, and the quantity of tons which go up the river in a year. On this point beg him to be accurate.”

Robert Fulton
For once not the craziest part of the story

It took Fulton and Livingston four more years to complete their plans but in 1811 they began construction of the New Orleans at Pittsburgh. They had added another partner to the endeavor in the form of Nicholas J. Roosevelt, a distant uncle of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt had helped Fulton and Livingston in the construction of the side mounted paddle wheels for the North River. In Pittsburgh he supervised the construction of the new boat which would be 146 feet 6 inches long and 32 feet 6 inches wide. The engine was built in New York and carried in pieces overland to Pittsburgh because there were no facilities for constructing such an engine in the city at the time.

The steam boat made its first successful test trip around Pittsburgh on October 15, 1811. Just five days later, on October 20 the New Orleans set out for New Orleans. Aboard her were Nicholas Roosevelt who would act as captain for the trip, his extremely pregnant wife Lydia and their first daughter. Nicholas Baker was the engineer for the trip and Andrew Jack was the pilot. There were also six deck hands, two maids for Lydia, a cook, a waiter and a large Newfoundland dog named Tiger.

A large Newfoundland Dog. Newfoundland Dogs have webbed feet which
makes them excellent swimmers.

On October 28 the New Orleans docked at Louisville. The steamboat would have to wait at Louisville nearly a month before the water rose high enough in the Ohio River to allow the boat to traverse the Falls of the Ohio, which were more like a series of shallow rapids than an actual waterfall. During the wait Roosevelt took the steamboat on several small excursions including a return to Cincinnati to prove that the boat could travel upstream. On October 30 Lydia Roosevelt gave birth aboard the New Orleans to a son they named Henry.

The New Orleans enters the Mississippi

They departed Louisville in late November to make their way over the Falls and after stopping to resupply into the Mississippi River. It was hoped that the Mississippi River would be relatively easy to cruise down. Andrew Jack had experience on the river and knew the channel well.

It was not an easy cruise to New Orleans.

On December 16, shortly after the New Orleans had entered the Mississippi, the New Madrid earthquake hit. This earthquake, which was actually an extended period of severe tremors, has been estimated up to an 8.0 on the Richter scale basically reshaped the Midwest. The entire channel of the Mississippi was erased, the course of the river changed dramatically. For about an hour after the most severe tremors the river actually ran backwards. Jack, the pilot, had no idea where he was and soon found himself navigating the boat over areas that only hours before had been fields or forests. Whole sections of the shore were dropping into the river, islands appeared and disappeared.  Tiger the dog would often give warning of a fresh tremor by putting his head in Lydia’s lap before it hit.

The New Orleans had to navigate a river full of obstacles and unknowns after
the earthquake

A few days after the worst of the tremors the New Orleans arrived in New Madrid itself. Houses had fallen into the holes that opened in the ground. Many people asked to be taken aboard but the steamboat had neither the space for all the refugees or the means to supply them.

The New Orleans finally arrived in New Orleans on January 10, 1812. It had spent a total of 259 hours cruising on the trip and averaged 8 mph. The time announced for the trip did not include all of the time lost stopping to wait for the right conditions or for other reasons.

In less than two weeks the New Orleans set out on the first voyage along the route that Livingston and Fulton had envisioned for it, New Orleans to Natchez and back. The ship could make 3mph upstream and 10mph downstream meaning she could complete a round trip every three weeks.  Fulton and Livingston began to sell stock in their steamboat which realized a profit estimated to be about $20,000 in its first year in operation. Edward Livingston also helped his brother and Fulton get a monopoly on steam travel in the territory. Violating the law would mean having to pay Fulton and Livingston $5,000 for each violation and forfeit any unauthorized steamboats to them.

The Chancellor did not live long enough to enjoy the monopoly on the river to its fullest; he died in 1813. The New Orleans met its end in July of 1814. She snagged a log or some other obstruction near Baton Rouge which punctured her hull. The ship sank but her engine was removed and used in a later vessel of the same name.

In 1989 author Clive Cussler and his National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) set out to try to find the final resting place of the original New Orleans. They surveyed the shore and were able to come up with a “ballpark” location for the boat but unfortunately the Army Corps of Engineers had laid a steel and concrete revetment mattress over the site in 1971 to help control erosion. This made finding an exact location using various forms of metal detectors impossible.

1911 "replica" of the New Orleans
I mean they are both boats...

Sources:

NUMA Expeditions New Orleans www.numa.net

A Critical Account of the Beginning of Steamboat Navigation on the Western Rivers of the United States, Pittsburg Legal Journal, Vol 59 No. 42 (21 October 1911) pp 570-591

The Rambler in North America by Charles Joseph Latrobe 1832-1833

The Sea Hunters II by Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo G. Putnam’s Sons 2004