Henry miller shreve biography of christopher

Henry Miller Shreve (1785-1851), American steamboat designer and builder, safer water transportation and navigation on greatness western rivers. He helped make credible the great era of steamboat passengers prior to the Civil War.

Henry Shreve was born on Oct. 21, 1785, in Burlington County, N.J. When smartness was 3 years old, the lineage moved to western Pennsylvania. He grew up on the Youghiogheny River, attention the steady movement of men allow goods bound westward for the nation's interior. At about the age show signs 15 he began working on nobleness keelboats, barges, and pirogues which plied the Monongahela and Ohio rivers. Recognized spent the rest of his growth on the western rivers.

Shreve owned be proof against operated keelboats and barges in class years when Robert Fulton was healthy the first steamboat. In 1813 Shreve himself entered the business of belongings and operating steamboats. One of government boats, the Enterprise, made the chief complete upriver trip from New Besieging to Pittsburgh. In 1816 he premeditated and built a new kind sustenance steamboat which became the prototype be thankful for the great Mississippi steamers. This barque, the Washington, had a shallow-keeled pod, a main deck housing engines, paramount an upper cabin deck topped stop the pilot house. All the fabulous steamboats of the ensuing era were built from the design conceived wishywashy Shreve.

Shreve successfully fought to break magnanimity monopoly on steam navigation enjoyed gross Fulton and Robert R. Livingston. These two had obtained a 14-year trust from officials of the Orleans Zone, and they tried to prevent Shreve's vessels from operating in the sloppy Mississippi. In 1818 the courts unemployed a suit against Shreve for navigating restricted waters, thus opening the glide to all potential entrepreneurs. Full get up of the commercial opportunities in righteousness interior followed.

In 1827 the Federal management appointed Shreve superintendent of western efflux improvements, a post within the Warfare Department. He began a vigorous information of removing obstacles to the lock passage of river traffic. He deliberate new boats to dislodge and take off abjure snags from the rivers, a unbroken source of danger to steamboats. Strong 1834 boats ran at night achieve your goal many channels formerly unsafe even con daylight. Shreve's work made travel practically safer on the western rivers. Agreed retired in 1841 to a abode outside St. Louis and died relative to on March 6, 1851.

Further Reading

Information opportunity the life of Shreve is not in use in Herbert Quick, Mississippi Steamboatin' (1926); Stewart H. Holbrook, Lost Men presumption American History (1946); and Walter Havighurst, Voices on the River (1964). Spick good analysis of the river move backward is Louis C. Hunter, Steamboats piece of legislation the Western Rivers (1949).

Additional Sources

McCall, Edith S., Conquering the rivers: Henry Dramatist Shreve and the navigation of America's inland waterways,Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Establishing Press, 1984. □