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Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt and the First Mississippi River Steamboat

Picture
The Roosevelt Route to New Orleans- Wikimedia Commons


by Kathy Warnes

Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt defied her father to marry and accompanied her husband Nicholas Roosevelt on a hazardous Mississippi River voyage to New Orleans- twice.

Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt, the great grand aunt of Theodore Roosevelt, made two trips down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans and both times she was pregnant. She made these voyages at a time when the role of woman in her society was changing, but she had anticipated and acted on these changes since her youth.

Sturdy Pioneer Women Wanted Gentility As Well

The rise of wealth and the middle class in the cities helped make the “idle” wife a symbol of success and promoted an exaggerated ideal of the “lady.” In some quarters, society’s respect for the sturdy pioneer woman laboring alongside her man and the wife spinning wool or raising chickens to sell to supplement the family income was declining. The average frontier wife herself struggled for gentility. Husbands arranged to have pianos carried across mountains and even rough hewn frontier cabins included one parlor item, even if it were only a china figurine like Ma in Little House on the Prairie treasured.

Lydia Latrobe and Her Father, Benjamin Latrobe, Defied Convention

Born in 1792 and a daughter of architect Benjamin Latrobe, Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt didn’t struggle for gentility because she had been born into a middle class life. She did defy conventional behavior standards for the women of her time, but then she was used to defying convention. Her very marriage defied convention as strongly as her 1,500 mile trips during two pregnancies.

Lydia’s father, Benjamin Latrobe, wasn’t exactly conventional. He was well known for his work on the United States Capitol building and his designs for the porticos on the White House. His influence on Washington D.C. also includes working as the chief surveyor for the Washington Canal. He designed the main gate to the Washington Navy yard and consulted on the building of the Washington Bridge across the Potomac River. A few of his other distinguished works included the Bank of Pennsylvania and the Fairmount Water Works in Philadelphia. Benjamin Latrobe earned and lost fortunes and redefined and reinvented himself all of his life.

Nicholas Roosevelt and Lydia Latrobe Marry

Nicholas Roosevelt was a member of the Oyster Bay branch of the Roosevelt family, the side that produced Theodore Roosevelt three generations later. Born in New York in 1767, Nicholas was a partner of Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston who are credited with building the Claremont, the first commercial steamboat, in 1807.

Bright, artistic, assertive, and fearless, Lydia Latrobe first met Nicholas who was her father’s business associate and friend, when she was nine years old and he was 34. When she was 13 years old, she and Nicholas became engaged, over her father’s objections. Lydia married Nicholas Roosevelt in 1809, when she was 17 and he was 42.

Lydia Roosevelt Designs a Barge for the Voyage Down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers

In 1809, keelboats usually took at least a month to make the trip from the Ohio River at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, Louisiana. The return trips took a minimum of four weeks of arduous labor against uncertain currents. His partners Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston asked Nicholas to make a survey voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to determine the feasibility of building a steamboat to travel the rivers with people and freight.

Despite the fact that Lydia was pregnant, she decided to accompany Nicholas on the 2,500 trip down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The Roosevelts left on their flatboat voyage in the spring of 1809. Lydia not only decided to go with Nicholas on his trip, she designed and furnished the barge that they would use to make the trip.

Drawing on array of skills that she had learned from her father, Lydia included a bedroom on the barge as well as a dining room, pantry, a room for the crew in front, and a fireplace for cooking. She also provided a flat area for sporting seats and an awning for sultry days on the Mississippi River. Their crew included a pilot, three hands, a male cook, and a maid for Lydia.

Life on the Mississippi

The Roosevelts spent the hot summer nights on the deck while the crew worked around them. One night two Indians came aboard, demanding whiskey. Nicholas finally managed to find a bottle of whiskey for them and both he and Lydia were glad to see them disappeared into the forest. A few weeks later, fever slithered onboard the flatboat and infected all of the passengers except Lydia. For the next three weeks, she cooked, scrubbed and nursed the crew back to health. When they recovered, they again took to the river on the Natchez course.

Adventures in Natchez

By the time the flatboat reached Natchez, the crew anticipated a night on the town. They left Lydia and Nicholas who was still sick and her maid onboard. After the crew left, the level of the Mississippi River suddenly dropped, and the decreased water level caused the bottom of the flatboat to hit the mast of a sunken boat. The flatboat would have sunk straight to the bottom of the Mississippi if Lydia hadn’t constantly bailed water for the next four hours until the crew came back.

Rowing Days and Alligator Nights

Now, the Roosevelts and their crew were only a week away from New Orleans, and the voyage from Natchez to New Orleans actually took about nine days. The Roosevelts and their crew had to finish their trip downriver in a large rowboat instead of the flat boat. They had nightly visitor to distract them from the hardness of their bed on the rowboat. On their first night out of Natchez, a large alligator trying to climb over the edge of the rowboat and join them inside interrupted Nicholas’s sleep. Nicholas whacked the alligator with the pilot’s cane and he left for the evening. The next four evenings, the alligator returned for another whack. The fifth evening, the crew and the Roosevelts found rooms on shore.

Different Nights Under Different Roofs

Their pilot had assured the Roosevelts that it wouldn’t be difficult to find lodging for the night if they needed it, but many of the people that lived along the Rivers were reluctant to offer the hospitality of their homes. When they finally reached Baton Rouge, rain poured down and the Roosevelts and their crew could find only a dilapidated public house for shelter. Lydia saw their sleeping room and wished herself back on the boat. She described it as a forlorn place off the bar room which was full of men resembling cut throats. Throwing their cloaks on the bed, Lydia and Nicholas laid down to rest but the fighting and the noise in the bar room kept them from sleeping. The next day they got up at dawn and made their way back to the boat, feeling, as Lydia put it, “thankful “that we had not been murdered in the night.”

The Roosevelts spent the second night on shore with an old French couple who allowed them to spread their Buffalo skins on the floor in front of a large fire. They were safe, but the old Catholic couple coming into the room once or twice a night to kneel in front of a crucifix on a shelf interrupted their sleep. They spent three apprehensive nights on sandy beaches.

New Orleans At Last

On December 1, 1809, the Roosevelts reached New Orleans. They had learned firsthand that the fledgling United States of America had to find a better way to transport goods and people up and down the Mississippi River. Lydia Roosevelt had enjoyed the adventure of the voyage and she would never forget it, but the Roosevelts sighed with relief as they booked passage on the next ship that would take them to New York.

Yellow Fever and a New Baby

Lydia and Nicholas had anticipated an easier return trip, but yellow fever accompanied them on their return voyage. It struck down the captain first and then spread to the passengers and crew, including Nicholas. Nicholas was still recovering when the Roosevelts went ashore at Old Point Comfort, Virginia, on the Chesapeake Bay. They traveled by stagecoach from Virginia to New York, reaching there in mid-January 1810. They had arrived home just in time for Lydia to deliver a daughter that they named Rosetta.

A conventional woman would have refused to do any more river voyaging after the flatboat and rowboat adventure that the Roosevelts had just finished. Lydia Roosevelt wasn’t a conventional woman. She rested for a few months while Nicholas Roosevelt completed his detailed report for Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston. Then with their baby Rosetta, the Roosevelts left for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Fulton, Livingston, and Roosevelt dream of a steamboat traveling up and down the Mississippi River was about to become a reality.

Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt Steams to New Orleans in the Steamboat New Orleans

In 1811, Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt made a second voyage to New Orleans, this time in her husband’s steamboat New Orleans. This voyage proved to be more dangerous than the first.

On October 20, 1811, Lydia and Nicholas Roosevelt and their toddler Rosetta, left Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the steamer New Orleans bound for New Orleans. This would be Lydia’s second trip in two years down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans in a boat.

She and Nicholas had made the trip in 1809 in a flatboat when Lydia was pregnant with Rosetta. This time, they were going in a steamboat and Lydia was again pregnant, eight months pregnant, and again she shrugged off the disapproval of the proper ladies of the town for traveling when she was “in the family way.” They also loudly wondered how she could take an innocent toddler like Rosetta along.

Nicholas Roosevelt’s Steamboat New Orleans Departs for New Orleans

After Nicholas and Lydia had returned from their 1809 trip to see whether or not a steamship route to New Orleans was feasible, Robert Fulton arranged for the steamboat New Orleans to be built at Pittsburgh. The New Orleans was built at a shipyard on the banks of the Monongahela River in 1810 and 1811, below the bluff on which Duquesne University was later built.

When it was finished the New Orleans, measured 26 feet wide and 148 feet long, which made it whale-sized compared to the canoes and flatboats that traveled the rivers and streams. A 34 cylinder steam engine that could burn wood or coal that produced heavy white or black smoke propelled the New Orleans and it had large paddle wheels amidships, one on each side of the ship hull.

The New Orleans featured a single smoke stack standing 30 feet above the water. When the New Orleans was finally completed, in the summer of 1811, its cost had soared to $38,000, an enormous amount of money for the times. The Pittsburgh Gazette on Friday, October 18, 1811, informed its readers that once the New Orleans left Pittsburgh, it would never return.

“We are told that she is intended as a regular packet – a regularly scheduled boat carrying mail, cargo, and passengers-between Natchez and New Orleans,” the Pittsburgh Gazette said. The New Orleans carried her captain Andrew Jack; engineer, Nicholas Baker; a pilot, six crewmen, two female servants, a waiter and a cook. The Roosevelt family included Lydia, Nicholas, their two year old daughter, Rosetta, and Tiger, their Newfoundland dog.

The Great Comet and the Noisy Engine

While the steamboat passed scattered communities on its more than 1,100 mile inaugural trip, most of the territory through which it traveled was wilderness. This trip proved to be more eventful than the 1809 trip for natural as well as practical reasons. The Roosevelts and the rest of the steam boat New Orleans crew could see the Great Comet of 1811.

It also took them some days to become accustomed to the eccentricities of the New Orleans. The ship could travel at ten miles an hour downstream, and the engine noise could be heard for several miles in all directions.

Did the British Just Invade Kentucky?

The noisy passing of the New Orleans caused a stir on the Kentucky shore of the Ohio River. During the past few years, the United States and Great Britain had been inching closer and closer to war, as the British continued to impress American sailors into their own Navy, claiming that they were deserted British sailors.

Hearing the noise that the New Orleans made and seeing her mammoth size, Kentuckians were certain that the British were invading. Some of them fled, some of them fought, and others threw stones at the New Orleans as she passed.

The Falls of the Ohio and Henry Latrobe Roosevelt

The Falls of the Ohio River are located at a large bend in the river near Louisville, Kentucky and the rapids just below the falls featured eddies, islands, and rocks that ripped hulls along a two and a half mile passage. The Roosevelts had instructed the captain and the pilot to steer the New Orleans through these treacherous waters. The New Orleans had to wait for the autumn swell or for the river to rise as level to the falls as possible, before it could hope to navigate the falls of the Ohio.

The New Orleans tied up outside of Louisville to wait for the autumn swell. While the Roosevelts and the crew of the New Orleans waited for the autumn swell, Lydia’s baby decided not to wait any longer. On October 29, 1811, the New Orleans lay off of Louisville, Kentucky, and Lydia went into labor. The Roosevelt’s son, Henry Latrobe Roosevelt, was born on October 30, 1811.

Finally, on December 8, 1811, the captain and pilot decided that the autumn swell had reached as high as it could, and they decided to guide the New Orleans through the rapids and eddies. Nicholas begged Lydia to take the children and travel by buggy around the treacherous passage. Lydia send Rosetta and Henry ashore with two maids to round the rapids in a buggy, but she stayed with her husband on the New Orleans.

Lydia stood in the stern of the New Orleans with Tiger, the Roosevelt’s Newfoundland dog. She watched the rapids racing along at fourteen miles an hour and she realized the New Orleans would have to go faster than the rapids or the they would grab the ship and toss it like a rubber ball. Would the New Orleans be dashed to pieces on the rocks or would the strong, icy water fingers pull her apart?

Lydia and Tiger held stood quietly while the captain and pilot, with Nicholas anxiously standing by, steered the ship safely through the passage, although with a draft of less than six inches. The buggy brought the children back on board and the New Orleans resumed her journey.

Earthquake in New Madrid!

The Roosevelt’s trip on the Ohio River had been peaceful, but the trip down the Mississippi River proved to be eventful and dangerous. A little over a week after the New Orleans safely negotiated the Falls of the Ohio, its passengers and crew noticed an ominous change in the atmosphere. The sun rose as a dim ball of fire over the forests and the air felt thick and oppressive.

On December 16, 1811, the New Madrid Earthquake, centered near New Madrid, Missouri, shook the earth violently, reversed the course of the Mississippi River, and rang church bells in far away Boston. One of the strongest North American earthquakes ever recorded, seismologists estimate that it ranked an 8 on the Richter scale.

The pilot of the New Orleans confessed that he was lost because the river channel had changed and where he had known deep water, now countless trees emerged with their roots upwards. The river waters roared and gurgled horribly and occasionally they heard the rushing earth sliding from the shore and the commotion as the river swallowed up the falling mass of earth and trees. As the New Orleans passed small river towns, citizens begged the captain to take them aboard to escape the earthquake and its aftermath.

The New Orleans Reaches New Orleans

Next, a band of Chickasaw Indians in canoes attacked the New Orleans, but she outraced them. She finally reached Natchez, Mississippi, on December 30, 1811. As the New Orleans passed through Louisiana, a rare snowfall blanketed the landscape. Finally, the New Orleans reached New Orleans on January 10, 1812. The journey down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers had taken 12 weeks.

The New Orleans was the first steamboat to operate on the western rivers and her voyage began the era of the Mississippi River steamboat. Shortly after her maiden voyage, the New Orleans began regular runs between Natchez and New Orleans. On July 14, 1814, the New Orleans sank near Baton Rouge, setting the pattern for the average lifespan of a steamboat which was about three years.

The Roosevelts and their two young children went back home to New York and Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt continued her unconventional ways throughout the rest of her life.

References

Dohan, Mary Helen, Mr. Roosevelt’s Steamboat: The First Steamboat to Travel the Mississippi. Backinprint.com , 2000

Ewen, William, Days of the Steamboats, Mystic Seaport Museum, 2nd Edition, 1988

Feldman, Jay, When the Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquake. New York: Free Press, 2005

Freeman, Lewis R., Waterways of westward wandering, small boat voyages down the Ohio, Mississippi Rivers, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1927

Latrobe, Charles Joseph, The Rambler in North America: 1832-1833, London, 2nd edition, 1836


Copyright Notice

All of the material on this website is copyrighted.  You are free to link to any of the articles and to download any of the PDF books to read and use as long as you credit me as the author. I fully hope and expect the classroom activities to be freely used.      kathywarnes@gmail.com
Picture
Sunset on Lake Michigan in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
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  • Welcome to History? ...
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  • Valentine's Day Crossword
  • Titanic Headlines, Titanic Questions
  • Hoover Dam
  • Journalists in History
    • Ernie Pyle
    • Robert St. John
    • Joseph Morton
    • Robert Cromie
    • Agnes Meyer and Katherine Graham
    • Walter Cronkite
    • Sigrid Schultz
    • Jack Denton Scott
  • March is Women's History Month!
  • Alcohol in American History - John Barleycorn Tells Some of His Story
  • As Relevant As Today- The Past Connects with the Present
    • Ignoring History is Irrelevant
    • Honoring a Veteran: Veteran's Day, November 11, 2012
    • December 1, 1958: The Day Chicago Cried with Our Lady of the Angels
    • Remembering the Vietnam War - 37 Years Present
    • Rebellion, Murder, and Voting Rights in Rhode Island
  • Words and Remembrance-May 1970 at Kent State in Ohio and Jackson State in Mississippi
  • Rub-a-dub-dub in Your Historical Bathtub!
  • The Freedom Summer Murders Changed American Racial Attitudes
  • To Beard Or Not To Beard - That is the Historical Question
  • Scarecrows Historically Speaking
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    • Grandmother Clara Zetkin Speaks
    • High Stepping Ohio Horseman
    • Philip Teitelbaum Creates a Money Making Machine
    • The 1755 Lisbon Earthquake..
    • Poul le Cour
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    • Lt. Colonel Ely Parker, First Native American Commissioner of Indian Affairs
    • Clara and Henry Leffingwell - An English, American, and Australian Story
    • The Murderer and the Museum Curator - Nathan Leopold and Kirtland's Warbler
    • Wilbur Carr, the State Department, and Immigration - 1920-1945
    • Billy Sunday Preached His Prayer Pennant Willing Baseball Story
    • William Alden Smith, Michigan's Titanic Senator
    • Helen and Dickinson Bishop Survive An Earthquake and the Titanic
    • Faster Than Flames: Locomotive Engineer James Root Races the Hinckley Fire
    • Three Hot and Contentious Weeks in July 1925 - The Scopes "Monkey " Trial
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    • Clara and Henry Leffingwell - An English, Australian, and American Story
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    • Lt. Uriah Phillips Levy Fights Prejudice and Saves Monticello
    • The Stavisky Affair - Sasha the Suave Scammer
    • General Santa Anna, Chicle, and Chewing Gum
    • James J. Metcalfe, Gangbuster, Reporter, Poet
  • Women Along the Historical Way
    • Lucena Brockway Adapts to Life in the Keweenaw Copper Mining Country of Lake Superior
    • Ida Tarbell- "Bachelor Soul." Transitional Woman, or Both?
    • SOE Agent Andree Borrel Lived Several Lifetimes in Her 24 Years
    • Ruth Becker's Faith Helped Her Survive the Titanic and Life Beyond
    • Clara Zetkin Speaks Against Hitler in the German Reichstag
    • Maria Mitchell, America's First Woman Astronomer
    • Lee Lawrence Ansberry - The Courage to Live
    • Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt and the First Mississippi River Steamboat
    • Margaret Fox Kane's Victorian Love Story
    • Chicagoan Kate Kellogg Meets a Ghost on a Train
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  • Practicing History
  • Classroom Clues
    • Power Point Pointers
    • Pieces of the World History Puzzle
    • Time Machine Tours
  • The Haunted Hollows of History
    • Does Columbus Haunt His Ships...
    • The Phantom Plowman
    • The Western Reserve and the Gilcher
    • The Ticonderoga's Haunted Bell
    • The Train Chaser
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    • Pistol Head, Cocker Spaniel, Combat Veteran
    • Goofy, The Warrior Dog Comes Home
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  • Musical Muse
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    • Solomon Linda, Mbube, Wimoweh, The Lion Sleeps Tonight
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        • George and Harry Washington Fight for Freedom
        • Charles Wedel Served on Manitowoc Submarines >
          • Navy Diver Frank Prebezich Remembered Pearl Harbor by Salvaging Battleships
          • Stan Valentine at Pearl Harbor
          • World War II - Serving Aboard the USS Enterpise
          • Michel Linovich-an Italian in Napoleon's Grand Army
          • Charles Whittlesey- Scholar, Soldier, Humanist
          • The Five Sullivan Brothers Stick Together...
          • Kentuckian James Andrews and the Yankee Bridge Burners
          • General Grant, General Babcock, General McDonald and Journalist Colony: A Study in Scandal and Friendship
          • The Dudman Family Lived the Meaning...
        • George Washington Travels French Creek to Fort Le Boeuf
        • Miracle in World War I - the Christmas
        • Presidents in a Package - Thomas Jefferson
        • President James Monroe Inspects Michigan Territory - 1817
        • President Grover Cleveland's Secret Surgery on the Steam Yacht Oneida
        • John Kissinger Volunteers to Get Yellow Fever
        • Mary Todd Lincoln Considered April Her "Season of Sadness"
        • Violets for Valor - Two Bereaved Fathers in the Civil War
      • Clarence and Mildred Beltmann - Persevering Through Hard Times
    • Singing Kumbayah- Harmonious in Hope, Discordant in Derision
    • James Bird - The Battle of Lake Erie, The Execution, The Ballad
    • PDF Musical Muse- Music History
    • Phil Ochs- A Musical Conscience of the 1960s and Beyond
    • Dan Fogelberg and His Music
    • Philip Paul Bliss and His Trunk of Songs
    • Riding with Private Andrew Malone: For All of those who didn't Make it Home
    • Do You Ken John Peel?
    • "Mind the Music and the Step-" Yankee Doodle Sings History
  • Back Water River and British Bluster
  • Soldier's Stories
  • September 11, 2001 is a "Mixed Feeling Day"
  • Memories of the Pearl Harbor Attack Haven't Faded with Time
    • Memories of Pearl Harbor
  • Light and Radiance - Figure Skater Laurence Owen and Her Team
  • Historic Halloween Tales
  • Thanksgiving Perspectives
    • Drive A Thanksgiving Turkey!
    • The Centerpiece of Thanksgiving Celebrations is Giving Thanks >
      • Presidents in a Package - Abraham Lincoln
      • Americans and Britons Celebrated Thanksgiving 1942 in War Weathered England
      • Writing a Gratitude Journal for Thanksgiving Day
      • "Do You Hear What I Hear?" >
        • Christmas Eve, 1941-A Sailor
        • Alfred Burt and Wihla Hutson
        • Milwaukee Soldiers and Sailors in World War II
        • History Sports Scenes >
          • Throwing Out the First Pitch - American Presidents On Opening Day
          • Kenesaw Mountain Landis
          • Jim Rice - A Big Time Coach in a Small Town
          • Playing Lucky Baseball with Lady Luck Sitting in the Catbird Seat
        • Silent Night Had Simple Beginnings >
          • The Angels Song - It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
          • Stuffing Stockings on St. Nicholas Day >
            • Mrs. Santa Claus- A Strong and Supportive
            • Katherine Davis-The Little Drummer Boy
        • Is There A Santa Claus? Virginia O'Hanlon and
        • Carols Silent Night and O Holy Night
        • Happy New Year
        • The Holocaust in History >
          • Carl von Ossietzky Wins a Nobel Prize While in a Nazi Concentration Camp
      • City Scapes