Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company
 "Enterprise on her fast trip to Louisville, 1815" |
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| Privately held company | |
| Industry | Steamboat construction Steamboat commerce |
| Founder | Elisha Hunt |
| Defunct | 1817 |
| Headquarters | Brownsville, Pennsylvania, USA |
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Area served
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Port cities located on the Monongahela, Ohio and Mississippi rivers |
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Key people
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Daniel French |
| Owner | 23 shareholders |
The Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company was the second company to conduct steamboat commerce on the rivers west of the Allegheny Mountains. The company was founded in 1813 under the leadership of Elisha Hunt and based in Brownsville, Pennsylvania.Daniel French designed and built the engines and power trains for both the Despatch, or Dispatch, and the Enterprise. During the Battle of New Orleans the shareholders of the Monongahela and Ohio Steam Boat Company sent the Enterprise to aid the American cause. 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.
In 1811, Robert Fulton and Robert R. Livingston were the first to enter the potentially lucrative field of steamboat commerce west of the Allegheny Mountains. They established an operation in Pittsburgh, where their steamboats were also built, and another in New Orleans, the busiest port in the West. During this age, a steamboat builder could receive a federal patent that provided both protection from being copied and the freedom to navigate any of the country's waterways. Fulton had been granted a federal patent but so had several others, including Daniel French. Fulton and Livingston decided to take additional measures to prevent another steamboat company from beginning operations on the western rivers. To this end they petitioned the states bordering the western rivers for a grant of an exclusive privilege to ply their waters by steamboat. Their requests were turned down by every state except Louisiana which granted them an exclusive privilege in 1814. In states where they did not have an exclusive privilege, Livingston and Fulton resorted to litigation under their federal patent to prevent competition.
Elisha Hunt was a resident of Brownsville where he was a prominent businessman, land owner, and a director of the Monongahela Bank of Brownsville. He owned and operated a general store which was located in the "Neck", as the commercial center of Brownsville was called. He sold a wide variety of goods, ranging from cotton and woolen goods to nails and gunpowder, to local customers. Elisha Hunt was ambitious and he wanted to expand his mercantile business. To accomplish this he planned to augment the store's local business with interstate commerce via the western rivers.
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Wikipedia