| History | |
|---|---|
&sq=Facebook&lang=en&file=File:Flag_of_the_United_States_(1795%E2%80%931818).svg){kind=small} United States | |
| Name | Comet |
| Owner | Daniel D. Smith |
| Builder |
|
| Laid down | Winter, 1813 |
| Launched | Spring, 1813 |
| In service | June, 1813 |
| Out of service | After July 3, 1814 |
| Fate | Decommissioned after engine was removed. |
| Notes | Second steamboat to navigate the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. |
| General characteristics | |
| Length | 52 ft (15.8 m) |
| Beam | 8 ft (2.4 m) |
| Propulsion |
|
The steamboat Comet was the second steamboat to navigate the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.[1] Comet's owner was Daniel D. Smith and she was launched in 1813 at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[2][3] With an engine and power train designed and built by Daniel French, the Comet was the first of the Western steamboats to be powered by a horizontal high-pressure engine with its piston rod connected to a stern paddle wheel.[4][5] Smith was the first to defy the steamboat monopoly in Orleans Territory granted to Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton.
- ^ Lloyd (1856), p. 42:
"The second steamboat of the West was a diminutive vessel called the Comet. She was rated at twenty-five tons. Daniel D. Smith was the owner, and D. French the builder of this boat. Her machinery was on a plan for which French had obtained a patent in 1809. She went to Louisville in the summer of 1813, and descended to New Orleans in the spring of 1814. She afterwards made two voyages to Natchez, and was then sold, taken to pieces, and the engine was put up in a cotton factory." - ^ Morrison, p. 202-3:
"In 1813, Daniel French, of Pittsburg, Pa., altered a river barge, giving her more freeboard by building up her sides, into which he placed an engine constructed by himself. This vessel was about twenty-five tons burden, called the 'Comet,' and was owned by Daniel D. Smith. She went as far as Louisville in the summer of the same year, and during the next year went to New Orleans. She made a few voyages between the latter city and Natchez, after which she was sold, her engine taken out and put up in a cotton mill, and her hull broken up." - ^ Miller, p. 69:
"In the summer of 1813, Daniel D. Smith altered a river barge at Pittsburgh, using an engine invented by Daniel French. The craft, called the Comet, was sent down to New Orleans and also made a few trips to Natchez, but apparently was unsuccessful in the trade..." - ^ Daniel French granted US Patent (October 9, 1809), Propulsion of Vessels, 1791–1810, US Patent Office Scientific
- ^ Hunter (1993), p. 127:
"The first departure from the Boulton and Watt type of engine was the French oscillating cylinder engine with which the first three steamboats built by the Brownsville group were equipped- the Comet (25 tons, 1813), the Despatch (25 tons, 1814), and the Enterprise (75 tons, 1814). The first of these was not a success, and the Despatch made no name for herself; but the Enterprise was one of the best of the early western steamboats."