New Orleans (steamboat) - Impact

Impact

During the decades preceding the first voyage of the New Orleans, and at an accelerated rate after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, settlers arrived in the western lands via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. However, with no practical way to go upstream, trade was limited. To move move upstream, one needed to either row laboriously at low speeds, push a boat with poles, or be pulled by men walking on shore with towlines. Otherwise, the return trip required a sea voyage from New Orleans to an eastern port and crossing the Appalachian Mountains to reach an inland departure point. The New Orleans, which achieved a downstream speed of eight to ten miles per hour and an upstream speed of three miles per hour, became the first of thousands of steamboats that converted river commerce from a one-way trip downstream to two-way traffic, opening the Mississippi River and Ohio River valleys to commercial trade. In its first year of business on the Mississippi River, between New Orleans and Natchez, the New Orleans averaged $2,400 in receipts per trip, making the round trip about once every three weeks. Factoring in expenses, this amounted to a net gain of upwards of at least $20,000, which Cramer described as "a revenue superior to any other establishment in the United States." However, the public doubted that steam navigation could succeed, and it was still more expensive than other methods of river transport. As a result, carrying of freight on flatboats and keels actually increased. In addition, the riverbed was dotted with dangerous snags, gravel, and sandbars, and the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville effectively cut navigation into two sections. Eventually, the riverbed was cleared, and the Louisville and Portland Canal was built, making it easier to travel the 981-mile passage between Pittsburgh and the Mississippi River.

The arrival of the New Orleans signaled the beginning of significant economic change along the inland rivers. Fulton and Livingston intended to have six boats running between the Falls of the Ohio and New Orleans and five between the Falls and Pittsburgh. On April 8, 1812, Fulton and Livingston secured, with the help of Livingston's brother, Edward, a New Orleans politician, the exclusive rights to the use of steam navigation on the Louisiana Territory's rivers for a period of 18 years, provided that they charge a freight rate of no more than three quarters of the rate already charged by non-steam-powered boats. After the New Orleans began navigating the lower Mississippi River, Fulton and Livingston attempted to prevent other steamboats from using the river, until court decisions broke their monopoly on steamboat commerce in New York and Louisiana. As commercial shipping improved, land development also increased along the inland rivers below the Falls of the Ohio.

Livingston and Fulton did not live long enough to see the long-term impact of the New Orleans on the western rivers. Livingston died in 1813 and Fulton in 1815, but Roosevelt retired to Skaneateles, New York, and died in 1854, at the age of 87.

The New Orleans was the first attempt in the rapid development of technology, which included more efficient steam engines, improvements in steamboat designed for western rivers, as well as lock and canal construction. After the New Orleans, several steamboats were built at Pittsburgh over the next few years, including the Comet (1813), the Vesuvius (1814), and the Aetna. Around 1817, when there were twelve steamboats on the western rivers, a skeptical public became convinced that steamboat navigation would work, and within two years, there were over sixty steamboats on the western waters. There were 143 steamboats on the river in 1826; a total of 233 had existed up to that time.