 | This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations. (April 2022) |
 "Enterprise on her fast trip to Louisville, 1815" | |
| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Steamboat construction Steamboat commerce |
| Founder | Elisha Hunt |
| Defunct | 1817 |
| Headquarters | Brownsville, Pennsylvania , US |
Area served | Port cities located on the Monongahela, Ohio and Mississippi rivers |
Key people | Daniel French Caleb Hunt |
| Owner | 23 shareholders |
The Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company (or MOSBC) was the second company to engage in steamboat commerce on the rivers west of the Allegheny Mountains.[1] The company was founded in 1813 under the leadership of Elisha Hunt and headquartered in his store which was located close to the boat landing in Brownsville, Pennsylvania.[2] Daniel French designed and built the engines and power trains for both the Despatch, or Dispatch, and the Enterprise.[3] During the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, the shareholders of the Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company sent the Enterprise to aid the American cause.[4][5][6] In 1815, the Enterprise demonstrated for the first time by her epic 2,200-mile voyage from New Orleans to Brownsville that steamboat commerce was practical on America's western rivers.[7][8][9]
- ^ Hunter, p. 13:
"In the meantime a group of men at Brownsville, some fifty miles above Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River, entered the new field, building and putting into operation several steamboats." - ^ Shourds, p. 315:
"This new acquaintance proved to be Elisha Hunt, who, with his brother Caleb, were conducting a mercantile business there."
Shourds, p. 317:
"During the autumn of 1812 Elisha Hunt visited Philadelphia, and while there arrangements were made and a stock company formed to construct steamboats and carry passengers and freight by steamboats between Pittsburg and New Orleans."
Shourds, p. 319:
"One of Elisha Hunt's letters says: 'The amount of dividend paid to the stockholders out of the profits of the boats I am not able to give, for no book account was ever kept by the Captain. On his return to Brownsville he brought his funds in several shot bags of Spanish dollars, which were poured out on the counter of E. & C. Hunt's store, and laid off into six piles to the shareholders, with which they were satisfied at the time.' " - ^ American Telegraph (Brownsville, Pa.), 5 July 1815:
"Last Saturday evening the Steam was first tried on the Despatch, another steam boat, lately built in Bridgeport, and owned as well as the Enterprize, by the Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company. We are happy to learn that she is likely to answer the most sanguine expectations of the ingenious Mr. French, the engineer, on whose plan she is constructed." - ^ American Telegraph [Brownsville, Pennsylvania], Wednesday, 14 December 1814:
"The Steam Boat Enterprise of this place, which has been trading since last June in the Ohio, arrived here last Sunday afternoon. We understand that she performed the voyage from Steubenville to Pittsburgh, with a full cargo, in about three days; she made the passage from Pittsburgh to Brownsville, a distance of 65 miles, in about 17 hours. When the strength of the current is taken into consideration, it will be seen that she is equal to any boat in use. She will return to Pittsburgh in a few days, whence she will take freight and passengers, for New Orleans." - ^ Major Abraham Edwards to James Monroe, Secretary of War, 11 February 1815:
"Report of the departure of boats, loaded with munitions of war, from this place [Pittsburgh] to Baton-Rouge and New Orleans and the names of persons in charge of the stores."
National Archives DNA-RG 107, E-1815, microfilm 222, reel 15 - ^ Western Courier [Louisville, Ky.], 4 January 1815:
"Passed the Falls [Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, Ky.] on the 28th ult. the Steam Boat Enterprise, loaded with public property, consisting of 24 pounders, carriages, shells, small arms &c. for Gen. Jackson's army." - ^ Western Courier, 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, 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, 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."