Interesting Facts about the First Steamboat On The Mississippi

Random Facts about the First Steamboat On the Mississippi

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Random Facts about the First Steamboat On The Mississippi

Nicholas J. Roosevelt was the first to take a steamboat down the great river. His boat was built at Pittsburgh, in the year 1811, under an arrangement with Fulton and Livingston, from Fulton's plans.

It was called the "New Orleans," was about 200 tons burden, and was propelled by a stern-wheel, assisted, when the wind was favorable, by sails carried on two masts.

The hull was 138 feet long, 30 feet beam, and the cost of the whole, including engines, was about $40,000. The builder, with his family, an engineer, a pilot, and six "deck hands," left Pittsburgh in October, 1811, reaching Louisville in about seventy hours (steaming about ten miles an hour), and New Orleans in fourteen days, steaming from Natchez.