A steamboat helped Jackson
In 1814 a steamboat carried supplies to General Jackson at New Orleans, and helped him to win the great battle fought there.
Seven steamboats were running on the Ohio and the Mississippi at the close of the War of 1812. Before another year went by, a steamboat had made its way from New Orleans against the currents of the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers to Louisville, laden with goods from Europe.
The steamboat had now won a place on the American rivers. It aided in the rapid settlement of the country. It made travel quick and easy, and it carried the goods of settlers up and down the rivers.
Robert Fulton dies, 1815
Robert Fulton died in 1815, deeply mourned by all his countrymen, and was buried in Trinity churchyard, New York City.
Steamboats carry goods up the Mississippi
Erie Canal across New York
131. The Erie Canal. Before Fulton invented the steamboat, supplies had been carried to the western settlers over the mountains from the East. Now, however, steamboats puffed up the Mississippi from New Orleans loaded down with goods that had been brought all the way from Europe. The settlers could get all the supplies they wanted and at a much lower cost. For this reason the merchants of New York and the East were in danger of losing all their trade with the settlers. They saw that they must have some connection with the West by water, and so they planned the Erie Canal. It took seven years to dig. When it was finished it was three hundred sixty-three miles long, forty feet wide, and four feet deep. The depth was later increased to seven feet. It stretched straight across the state of New York from Lake Erie to the Hudson River.