Word: shreve
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...took 40 days from Pittsburgh to St. Louis; it took longer being towed back. The Pittsburgh middlemen squinted at Shreve's furs, offered him small change. Ignoring the tradition that Pittsburgh middlemen monopolized the fur trade with the East, Shreve loaded his furs on wagons, carted them over the snowy Alleghenies to Philadelphia, where he sold them at a fat profit...
...Shreve did not believe the deep-draught New Orleans would long ride over the Mississippi snags. And could she travel upstream against the current? Even Fulton had his doubts. He wrote: "I do not see by what means a boat containing 100 tons of merchandise can be driven six miles an hour in still water. . . ." He offered $100,000 for the patent on a boat that could...
...Henry Shreve did not claim the $100,000, but he started building the boat. Amid sensational rumors and the hoots of river loafers, he laid the keel at Wheeling. "Talk of this hull never died. . . . The vessel defied every principle of shipbuilding." It "was exceedingly shallow of draft, but reared aloft with two decks, one above the other...
...Shreve installed the "incredible engines" in the "unbelievable hull," and the President steamed out of Wheel ing. At Marietta, the steamboat blew up. Patiently Shreve buried the eight casualties, repaired his boiler, continued down stream...
Despite the accident, passengers crowded aboard. Shreve had brought not only practical steamboating to the Mississippi. He had brought luxury. The President was "finished with the finest woodwork and mirrors . . . meals equaled those of the best hotels and were served with much formality." In "the commodious bar," most of the conversation was about what the steamboat monopoly would do to Captain Shreve when he got to New Orleans...