&sq=&lang=&file=File:Enterprise_03.jpg) Enterprise on her fast trip to Louisville, 1815
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| History | |
|---|---|
&sq=&lang=&file=File:Flag_of_the_United_States_(1795%E2%80%931818).svg){kind=small} United States | |
| Name | Enterprise, or Enterprize |
| Owner | Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Co., Brownsville, Pennsylvania |
| Builder | Daniel French designed and built the engine and powertrain. |
| Laid down | Fall, 1813 |
| Launched | May 1814 |
| In service | June 7, 1814 |
| Out of service | After August 5, 1816 |
| Fate | Sank at Rock Harbor, Rock Island, Ohio River next to Shippingport, Kentucky. |
| Notes | The steamboat Enterprise demonstrated for the first time by her epic 2,200-mile voyage from New Orleans to Brownsville, Pennsylvania that steamboat commerce was practical on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. |
| General characteristics | |
| Length | 60–70 ft (18.3–21.3 m) |
| Beam | 15 ft (4.6 m) |
| Draft | 2.5 ft (0.8 m), light ship |
| Propulsion |
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| Armament | Gun located on the bow for saluting |
The steamboat Enterprise demonstrated for the first time by her epic 2,200-mile (3,500 km) voyage from New Orleans to Brownsville, Pennsylvania, that steamboat commerce was practical on the Mississippi River and its tributaries.[1][2][3]
- ^ Western Courier [Louisville, Ky.], 1 June 1815:
"Arrived in this port, in 25 days from New-Orleans, the Steam-Boat Enterprize, capt. SHRIEVE. The celerity and safety with which this boat descends and ascends the currents of these mighty waters, the improvement of the navigation of which is so advantageous to the western world, must be equally interesting to the farmer and the merchant. The facility and convenience of the passage, in ascending the rivers, are such as to give a decided preference to this mode of navigation, while the size and construction of the boat entitles it to all the advantages which the Ætna and Vesuvius have in vain attempted to monopolize over the free waters of our common country." - ^ American Telegraph [Brownsville, Pa.], 5 July 1815:
"Arrived at this port on Monday last, the Steam Boat Enterprize, Shreve, of Bridgeport, from New Orleans, in ballast, having discharged her cargo at Pittsburgh. She is the first steam boat that ever made the voyage to the Mouth of the Mississippi and back. She made the voyage from New Orleans to this port, in fifty four days, twenty days on which were employed in loading and unloading freight at different towns on the Mississippi and Ohio, so that she was only thirty four days in active service, in making her voyage, which our readers will remember must be performed against powerful currents, and is upwards of two thousand two hundred miles in length." - ^ Hunter (1993), p. 18:
"The members of a committee of Congress reporting early in 1816 must have had the achievements of the Enterprise particularly in mind when they declared that the success of steamboat navigation on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers was no longer in doubt."