As living types of the family blood.
Don, from the mother did his mettle take,
Dan, the Prodigal—born to be a rake.
In the month of May, 1816, the Enterprise landed at Louisville, having made the trip from New Orleans in twenty-five days. She was the first steamboat that ever ascended the Mississippi river. The event was celebrated with a public dinner, given by the citizens of Louisville to Captain Henry M. Shreve, her commander.
A new era was inaugurated on the western waters, yet the clouds of monopoly had to be blown away, and the free navigation of the Mississippi heralded across the land.
The startling events of the times are necessarily connected with our story.
For the truth of history was never surpassed by fiction, only in the imagination of weak minds.
Sixty miles above Louisville, on the southern bank of the Ohio, stood a round-log cabin, surrounded by heavy timber. In the background a towering clift reared its green-covered brow to overlook the valley—the woodland scenery seemed to say: “here is the home of the wolf and the wild cat,” and it gave the place a lonesome look.
A passing neighbor had informed the inmates of the cabin that a saw-mill was coming up the river. Two barefooted boys stood in the front yard, and looked with hopeful eyes upon the wonder of the passing steamer. The gentle breeze that waved their infant locks, whispered the coming storms of the future.
It was the Washington, built by Captain Shreve, and was subsequently seized for navigating the western waters. The case was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the exclusive pretensions of the monopolist to navigate the western waters by steam were denied.