The Ohio River Trade, 1788-1830

by Hazel Yearsley Shaw

In 1818, rates for passengers from New Orleans to the mouth of the Ohio was $95; from New Orleans to Shawneetown $105; to Shippingsport $125; children from 2 to 10 years at half price; children under two at one fourth price; and servants at half price.[292] The passage up the river to the Falls, in 1819, cost $100, including provisions; from Shippingsport to New Orleans the cost was $75.[293] The passage up the river to Cincinnati from New Orleans in 1823 was $50; Cincinnati to New Orleans, $25; Cincinnati to Louisville, $4; Louisville to Cincinnati, $6; Cincinnati to Pittsburg, $15; Pittsburg to Cincinnati, $12; Cincinnati to Wheeling, $14; and from Wheeling to Cincinnati $10.[294] In 1827 the passage up the river to Louisville was about eight pounds, which included every expense of living. Many of the vessels carried seven hundred passengers, besides merchandise.[295] A year later, the regular charge for a cabin passenger was $35 from New Orleans to Louisville; for a deck passenger the rate was $10, $2 being struck off, if they were willing to assist in carrying wood.[296] By 1830 passage from Louisville to New Orleans and back was reduced to $30 each way.[297]

Steamboats with their safety barges in tow were to be seen on the Ohio. The Merchant from Pittsburg to Cincinnati, having in two her safety barge with 95 passengers, in 1826, was the first attempt of the kind. The barge had 52 berths and 3 cabins. The steamboat had 2 cabins.[298]

Goods were carried, about the year 1818, at 6¼ cents per pound weight,[299] by 1820 the increase of craft, together with the decreasing quantity of goods imported, had lowered the freight from New Orleans to the Falls of the Ohio to 2 cents per pound.[300] In 1829-1830 goods were delivered at the wharf of Cincinnati for one dollar per hundred pounds, from Philadelphia by way of New Orleans.[301]

The larger boats, on account of the shallowness of the water, usually ascended no farther than Shippingsport.[302] The navigation of the Ohio was often obstructed part of the year by large masses of floating ice.[303] From the middle of February or the first of March to the end of June, and in October or November were the best seasons for navigating the Ohio.[304]/

The steamboats were in constant danger from Planters, Sawyers, and Wooden Islands in the river. A Planter was a tree rooted fast to the bottom of the river and rotted off level with the water. Sawyers were less firmly rooted, and rose and fell with the water, being more dangerous when they pointed down stream. Wooden Islands were logs accumulated against planters.[305] From 1822-1827, the loss of property on the Ohio and Mississippi by snags alone, including steam and flat boats, and their cargoes, amounted to $1,362,500. The losses on the same items, from 1827-1832, were reduced to $381,000 in consequence of the beneficial action of the snag boats.[306] These boats, constructed under the direction of the government, were successful in removing these obstacles at small expense, and with great facility.[307]

As the settlements and business of the valley of the Ohio increased, the danger, delay, and expense of passing the Falls of that river, became a subject of general solicitude. Men of intelligence and enterprise, who were engaged in the river trade at Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and the intermediate towns, having been subjected to the inconvenience and expense caused by that obstruction, from the first settlement of the country, began to discuss the question, whether the difficulty could not be removed. William Noble, an enterprising merchant of Cincinnati, found that, at the time when the commerce of the West was in its infancy, the loss sustained by traders residing above the Falls, amounted in one year to $80,000, including storage, drayage, cooperage, commissions, and the wages of hands during the delay.[308]

The Falls were impassable for steamboats, except during the high floods which usually occurred in the spring and continued for a few days only at a time. They were passed by means of a laborious and expensive portage, extending from Louisville to Shippingsport, a distance of two and a half miles.[309] To remedy these inconveniences, the Louisville and Portland Canal was built round the Falls.[310] The first steamboat that passed through the Canal was the Uncas, on December 21, 1829.[311] This work,which was intended as a great benefit to the commerce of the West, seemed to have failed in accomplishing that purpose, for the following reasons: I. During the greater part of the year it afforded the only outlet for the productions of the larger portion of the Ohio Valley, and the only channel of ingress for the valuable imports of the same region. It was found that boats of great length were those of the greatest speed, and best suited to the navigation of the rivers, and the character of the trade. The length which was found most convenient was greater than the dimension of the locks of the Canal, and thus the boats best adapted to the trade between Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and other ports on the upper Ohio, and St. Louis or New Orleans, were excluded from that commerce, and a smaller class of boats, which were much less profitable, were exclusively employed.[312]

II. The width of the Canal was such that steamboats could not pass each other within it, nor could a loaded boat work her way through, but by a great effort, which occasioned a great loss of time.