New Orleans (steamboat) - Preparation and Construction

Preparation and Construction

As part of their plans for a steamboat voyage from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, Fulton and Livingston sent Roosevelt to Pittsburgh to explore, survey, and test the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. In addition, Roosevelt had to locate supplies and coal deposits that could be mined and brought at a later time to the western rivers to fuel steam-powered boats. Roosevelt arrived in Pittsburgh in April or May 1809 with his young wife, Lydia, the daughter of his business partner, Benjamin H. Latrobe, architect of the U.S. Capitol. According to a notation by Fulton, Roosevelt was paid $600 for an exploratory Mississippi River expedition on June 28, 1809. In a flatboat built on the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh, Roosevelt and his pregnant wife began a six-month journey to explore the steamboat's intended route to New Orleans. Roosevelt carried letters of introduction to all the important people along the route (Cincinnati, Louisville, and Natchez were insignificant towns at the time and the only places of any importance), but none, least of all the pilots and boatmen, believed he could ever navigate the western waters with a steamboat. During this exploratory voyage, Roosevelt recorded depths and measured currents for later reference. Near the present-day town of Cannelton, Indiana, Roosevelt purchased property and arranged to have coal mined and moved to the banks of the Ohio River, where it would become a useful fuel source when the steamboat arrived later. After reaching New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 1, 1809, Roosevelt and his wife sailed home to New York, arriving on January 15, 1810.

After Roosevelt gave a favorable report to Fulton and Livingston, he returned with his wife and daughter to Pittsburgh in 1810 to oversee construction of the new steamboat. Because the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, Kentucky, could not be easily navigated by boat, the partners planned to divide the western steamboat commerce into two sections, where one operated steamboats from Pittsburgh to the Falls at Louisville, and the other from Louisville to New Orleans. Roosevelt, who intended to steam the new boat down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and put it into service at New Orleans, named it the New Orleans, in honor of the city that would be its home port. Designed by Fulton, Roosevelt brought shipbuilders and mechanics from New York to build the steamboat on the banks of the Monongahela River, a short distance from its junction with the Allegheny River. The majority of the machinery for the boat was made in New York and hauled overland to Pittsburgh because the city did not have a local manufacturer with sufficient capacity to the work at the time. The boat's single cylinder, low pressure steeple engine, which was based on a James Watt and Matthew Boulton design, and its copper boiler were assembled by engineers William Robinson and Nicholas D. Baker and placed in its hold. Historians have debated whether the New Orleans had a stern-wheel paddle or two side-wheel paddles, but evidence that the New Orleans was a side-wheeler rather than a stern-wheeler is supported by contemporary accounts, including the Louisiana Gazette and Advertiser report on January 13, 1812, that noted it was detained by the breaking of "one'" of its wheels, and an account of the ship's sinking in 1814 that contained a reference to the "wheel on the larboard side." The pinewood used for planking was obtained from nearby forests and sent down the Monongahela River. Similar to other Fulton-designed steamboats, the New Orleans also included a mast, spars, and two sails as back-up, in case the steam engine failed.

The most accurate estimates put the New Orleans at 148 feet 6 inches long, 32 feet 6 inches wide, and 12 feet deep, with a tonnage of 371. Its size was considerably larger than the barges, then the largest craft on the rivers at the time, which rarely exceeded 100 feet in length. On the New Orleans the cabins below the deck provided space for up to sixty passengers. The total cost of the construction was about $38,000, a considerable sum. The boat, first launched on the Monongahela River in March 1811, took many months to complete. On its first test run, Roosevelt steamed the new boat down the Monongahela River to the Ohio River, then up the Allegheny River, where it reached a speed of three miles an hour, but stalled against a strong current.