Enterprise (1814)
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The Enterprise (aka Enterprize) was the fourth steamboat west of the Allegheny Mountains. With an engine and power train designed and built by Daniel French, the Enterprise was launched in 1814 at Brownsville, Pennsylvania for her owners: the shareholders of the Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company.[1]
The Enterprise, under the command of Israel Gregg, was first used to transport passengers and cargo on the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers between Brownsville and Louisville, Kentucky. [2] After command was transferred to Henry Miller Shreve, the Enterprise was used to transport munitions from Pittsburgh to New Orleans for General Andrew Jackson to use during the Battle of New Orleans.[3]
After the American victory, the Enterprise was seized at the request of the heirs of the steamboat monopoly granted to Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton. After her release, Shreve steered the Enterprise homeward. During this voyage she became the first steamboat to reach Louisville from New Orleans.[4] Then the Enterprise steamed to Pittsburgh and Brownsville.[5]
This epic voyage, a distance of 2,200 miles from New Orleans, was performed against the powerful currents of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Subsequently, the judge in the Enterprise trial at New Orleans established a legal precedent by ruling against the monopolists. The important legal precedent against steamboat monopolies and the Enterprise's successful 2,200-mile voyage encouraged entrepreneurs to engage in commerce by steamboat.
[edit] Notes
- ^ American Telegraph, 5 July 1815: "Last Saturday evening the Steam was first tried on the Despatch, another steam boat, lately built in Bridgeport, and owned as well as the Enterprize, by the Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company. We are happy to learn that she is likely to answer the most sanguine expectations of the ingenious Mr. French, the engineer, on whose plan she is constructed."
- ^ Pittsburgh Gazette, 10 June 1814: "The Elegant Steam Boat, Enterprize, Captain Israel GREGG, arrived here on Wednesday last, from Bridgeport, on the Monongahela,... She is handsomely fitted up for passengers for Louisville, Falls of Ohio, for which place she will sail on Saturday or Sunday morning next."
- ^ Western Courier, 4 January 1815: "Passed the Falls [Louisville, Kentucky] on the 28th ult. the Steam Boat Enterprise, loaded with public property, consisting of 24 pounders, carriages, shells, small arms &c. for Gen. Jackson's army."
- ^ Western Courier, 1 June 1815: "Arrived in this port, in 25 days from New-Orleans, the Steam-Boat Enterprize, capt. SHRIEVE."
- ^ American Telegraph, 5 July 1815: "Arrived at this port on Monday last, the Steam Boat Enterprize, Shreve, of Bridgeport, from New Orleans, in ballast, having discharged her cargo at Pittsburg. She is the first steam boat that ever made the voyage to the Mouth of the Mississippi and back."
[edit] References
- Hunter, Louis C. (1949), Steamboats on the western rivers, an economic and technological history, Cambridge: Harvard University Press
- Maass, Alfred R. (1996), "Daniel French and the western steamboat engine", The American Neptune, 56: 29-44
