Word: shreve
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...Monopoly. The steamboat company of Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston (brother of Louisiana's Governor Edward Livingston) had an 18-year monopoly over the rivers in Louisiana, "enough to bottle up the Valley." Shreve determined to break...
...Livingston hurried down to look it over. "It was an odd vessel, he realized, only because no one had ever built a steamboat for the Mississippi. He could foresee that it would be the Valley steamboat of the future." "You deserve well of your country, young man," he told Shreve, "but we shall be compelled to beat...
First step in the beating was to seize the President, hold it in $10,000 bail. Shreve countered by demanding a $10,000 bond for any damages to his ship while Livingston held it. Frightened for the first time, Livingston released the boat. Triumphantly Shreve steamed back to Louisville...
Next spring he set out on a round trip to New Orleans-"the voyage from which all Western historians date the commence ment of steam navigation in the Mississippi Valley." The trip took nine days. Again Livingston seized the boat, again Shreve demanded bond...
Livingston offered Shreve a half interest in the monopoly, equal credit with Fulton in inventing the steamboat. When Shreve refused, Livingston had him arrested. Nevertheless, only two days behind schedule Shreve steamed out of New Orleans. "The monopoly's helplessness was farcical." In 1819 the Fulton-Livingston company withdrew all claim to a monopoly. "News of this surged up every stream. The Mississippi was free! Henry Shreve had battered the barrier down." In the next two years 60 steamboats were built on the River...