USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Standard history of New Orleans, Louisiana, giving a description of the natural advantages, natural history settlement, Indians, Creoles, municipal and military history, mercantile and commercial interests, banking, transportation, etc. > Part 57
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549
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
which then ranked first in enterprise among American cities, Boston, New York and Baltimore. This business was severely interfered with for some little while by the French privateers, who were nowhere more numerous than in the Gulf of Mexico; and it is largely from these privateers that the "French spoliation claims" sprang which have occupied the attention of Congress so many years.
On October 13, 1795, one of these French privateers entered the mouth of the Mississippi, seized the Spanish naval station at the Balize and occupied it for cight days. The Spanish governor sent down troops to dispossess them, when the French- men destroyed the station and put to sca. When the war ended a number of Ameri- can vessels which had been captured by privateers in the gulf were brought to New Orleans as prizes and sold there.
The purchase of Louisiana by Jefferson opened a new commercial epoch for New Orleans and offered that city the first opportunity it had ever enjoyed to prove its commercial advantages. While these had been recognized for some time, and the several powers-Great Britain, Spain, France and the United States-had been work- ing and intriguing to secure possession of the city, and while its commerce had very naturally increased, this was accomplished under the most unfavorable conditions, with every possible restriction that could be devised by the Spanish. The city was, under the American dominion, to spring forward as one of the great commercial cities of the world, and for a time it promised to realize all Jefferson predicted for it-that it would be greater than even London itself.
The annexation of Louisiana to the United States was followed by a large in- crease in the trade of New Orleans. In 1795 its exports were $1,421,000, of which $500,000 was estimated as coming from the West (Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio). In 1801 the shipments from the districts of Kentucky and Mississippi alone were $1,626,672, and from all the American possessions in the Mississippi Valley, $2,111,- 672. In 1802, the last year of the Spanish rule, the trade ran up to $2,637,- 564. This was divided as follows: Western Pennsylvania and territory northwest of the Ohio, $700,000; Kentucky and Tennessee, $1,522,064; Mississippi Terri- tory, $412,500. From the Spanish possessions there came $120,000 from Upper Louisiana (mainly furs and skins) and $1,720,800 from lower Louisiana (what now constitutes the State of that name). The total receipts of produce at New Orleans, therefore, were $4,475,364, of which nearly two-thirds were from American terri- tory. The produce received included 34,500 bales of cotton, of an average weight of 300 pounds each, the bale being smaller than now ; 4,300 hogsheads of sugar, of an average weight of 1,000 pounds; 800 casks of molasses, of 125 gallons each, equal
550
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
to 2,000 of the barrels in which molasses is exported to-day ; 4,000 casks of tafia or rum made from Louisiana molasses, each of 50 gallons; 3,000 pounds of indigo; lumber and (sugar) boxes to the value of $300,000; peltries and skins to the value of $120,000; rice and various other products amounting to some $80,000. These were the products of Louisiana.
Among the chief articles of Western produce coming from American territory were 50,000 barrels of flour, 2,000 barrels of pork, 1,200 barrels of beef, 2,400 hogs- heads of tobacco, 25,000 barrels of corn, besides butter, hams, beans, lard, staves and cordage.
Not only did the Americans control the interior trade, but they were rapidly getting control of the exterior or ocean trade of New Orleans, for of the ocean ves- sels leaving that port in 1802 a total of 265, of a tonnage of 31,241, there were 158 Americans and 104 Spanish and French. The British were shut out altogether by the war.
Such was the condition of affairs when the purchase of Louisiana by the United States opened a new commercial future for New Orleans and a chance to realize Jefferson's prophetic words in his message to Claiborne, the first American gov- ernor :
"New Orleans will be forever as it is now, the mighty mart of the merchandise brought from more than a thousand rivers, unless prevented by some accident in human affairs. This rapidly increasing city will in no distant time leave the em- poria of the Eastern world far behind. With Boston, Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia on the left, Mexico on the right, Havana in front and the immense valley of the Mississippi in the rear, no such position for the accumulation and per- petuity of wealth and power ever existed."
If this prophecy has not been fully realized in the century that has passed since then it must be attributed to that accident in human affairs which Jefferson spoke of as possibly interfering with his dream of the commercial prosperity of New Or- leans.
The transfer of Louisiana to the United States saw a large immigration of American merchants into New Orleans. There had been a number of Americans already settled there even during the Spanish days ; but with few exceptions, notably that of Oliver Pollock, they had been regarded with suspicion. Of the new-comers nearly all were from the Atlantic coast cities, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York. Among those prominent in commercial circles were John McDonogh, general merchant, whose magnificent donation has done so much for the public
551
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
school system of New Orleans ; Chew and Relf, ship agents ; George Morgan, general merchant and dealer in liquors; P. Madan & Company, ship agents; Earle Jones & Company, dry goods ; Henry O'Hara, hardware; Judah Touro, of Newport, Rhode Island, to whom New Orleans owes so many charities; Stephen Gorton, dealer in coal ; Samuel Packwood, wholesale grocer ; John Poulteney & Company, James P. Sanderson, Ludlow & Conwell, Clark & Rogers, Richard Thomas, Richard Clague, George T. Phillips, Amory & Callender, Kenner & Henderson, George Pollock, Meeker, Williamson & Patton, and John Myers. Not a few of these merchants dealt in slaves also, as a side issue to their regular business. Of other Americans settling in New Orleans during the first five years of American dominion may be mentioned McMaster and Adams, Williamson, H. Munro & Company, White & Morris, William Simpson, Flower & Faukner, Rezin D. Shepherd (the chief legatee of Judah Touro) and Talcott and Bowers. It will be scen at a glance how few of these firms survive to-day in any form.
The first few years of the American dominion did not see as large an increase in the commerce of New Orleans as was expected. The receipts of Western produce were $4,275,000 in 1804, $4,371,545 in 1805, $4,937,323 in 1806 and $5,370,535 in 1807. In the latter year the produce reached New Orleans in 314 keel-boats and barges and 110 flatboats, and was shipped to market in 350 sea-going vessels of a ton- nage of 43,220 tons.
The flatboat and keel-boat period lasted for about ten years, and they were years of commercial progress and prosperity, in spite of the disadvantages under which transportation labored from the rude vessels then employed. The traffic was nearly all down stream, because the boats, having no propelling power, could not stem the current of the Mississippi. The flatboatmen, after making the voyage to New Orleans and selling their cargoes, generally broke up their boats for lumber and sold them and walked home to the Ohio or Cumberland overland. The up freight was almost prohibitive, five or six cents a pound, with not much profit in it even at those figures.
The barges and flatboats generally landed immediately above the corporate limits of New Orleans, in front of what is now the first district of that city, and around their landing place soon grew up a settlement, which was first of a very cheap and wild character, but which is now the wholesale district. Further down and immediately abreast of the city and the Place d'Armes (now Jackson Square), at what is the sugar and ship landings of to-day, lay the ocean-going ves- sels, averaging some 20 or more at a time and ranging from 100 to 200 tons cach.
552
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
There were no ship lines or companies, the vessels sailing under charters and having no fixed hour of departure, but going when they had received their cargo.
The next ten years saw a steady growth in the commerce and business of New Orleans, restricted, however, by the lack of good transportation facilities, and it was not until Fulton's invention of the steamboat that the city could fully enjoy the great advantages possessed in having the Mississippi, with its many tributaries, at its door. In 1810 the arrivals by river were 679 flatboats and 392 keelboats, a total of 1,071. These brought to New Orleans a most miscellaneous character of products, which included sugar, molasses, rice, cotton, flour, bacon, pork, whisky, apples, cider, corn, oats, cheese, beans, lumber, butter, lard, onions, potatoes, hemp, yarn and cordage, linen, tobacco, beer, horses, hogs, poultry, etc. Three-fifths of thesc products originated above "the falls of the Ohio" (Louisville) and two-fifths below that point.
In 1811 the arrival of the New Orleans, the first steamboat to navigate the Mississippi, created a revolution in the river business of New Orleans. The change was somewhat slow at first, because the stcamers were possessed of so little power that they could with difficulty resist the mighty current of the river, and found it a most difficult, slow and tedious matter to go up stream. There were only five steamboats built in as many years. Moreover, the navigation of the Mississippi was handicapped by the attempt of the Louisiana Legislature to establish a mon- opoly. A company had been formed, at the head of which were Fulton and Living- ston, who had made the first experiments with steam on the Ohio and the Mississippi. This company had obtained from the Louisiana Legislature an act granting them the exclusive right of navigating the waters of Louisiana with steam vessels for 14 years, with the privilege of renewing their charter at the expiration of that time. Any violation of this monopoly subjected the violator to a fine of $500. But in 1815 the Washington, the first high-pressure steamer on the Mississippi, openly violated the Fulton monopoly, carried the matter into the courts and won, the court declaring that the Mississippi river was the heritage of the people, and that neither Congress nor any State Legislature had the right to give control of its navigation to any person or company.
This decision served as a stimulus to the steamboats, which from this time for- ward took the place of the flatboats in carrying the traffic of the Mississippi. In 1814 the arrivals at New Orleans consisted of 508 flatboats and 324 barges, of a total tonnage of 88,350, and 21 steamboats, of 2,098 tons. These steamers were the New Orleans, Vesuvius and Enterprise. The sea-going vessels leaving New Orleans
553
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
that year were 351, of which 188 were ships, 95 barges and 52 schooners, with a total tonnage of 81,180 tons. The chief products received from the interior were 58,220 bales of cotton, 116,872 bushels of corn, 73,820 barrels of flour, 11,640 hogs- heads of sugar, 11,220 barrels of molasses, 7,225 barrels of pork, 7,500 barrels of rice, 3,205 casks of rum, 6,210 hogsheads of tobacco and 16,200 barrels of whisky.
The return trade, that is the supply of manufactured goods, mainly of Euro- pean make, came by way of the East from Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore overland. Nor did the discovery of steam as a motive power for river boats cause much change in the business. New Orleans increased its shipments up the river when a better means of stemming the current was discovered, but the bulk of its shipments to the Ohio Valley were heavy articles that could be transported cheaply. Most of the importers in New Orleans were Creoles or French, who imported French goods. As a consequence the Kentuckians or Tennessceans of eighty years ago were supplied from New Orleans with French prints and broadcloths, while their brethren on the Atlantic wore almost wholly the products of British looms. This early French influence, due to the large French population in New Orleans, made itself felt throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley almost to the outbreak of the civil war; and in many portions of the country the demand was for French rather than for English goods. The United States at that time was manufacturing very little in the way of calicoes and cottons, save of the lowest grade. Nothing better illustrates the early commercial influence of New Orleans than this very fact-that for years it set the fashion in the goods used throughout a large portion of the Mississippi Valley.
The introduction of the steamboat as a means of transportation on the river brought about a radical change in trade lines and gave an immense impetus to the business of New Orleans. The quarter of a century between 1815 and 1840 was the golden age commercially of that city, when it saw its greatest prosperity. Its trade is larger in the aggregate to-day, but not relatively and proportionately, and there is not as much profit in it. During the early steamboat period New Orleans, in spite of epidemics, rose to be the wealthiest city in the Union, the third in point of population, and disputed with New York the rank of the first port in America. It was the metropolis of the great valley, leading in all industrial, financial and com- mercial enterprises ; indeed, no other American city cver occupied the metropolitan position that New Orleans filled for half the century during its "flush days."
The opening of the Mississippi to steamboats without let or hindrance in 1816 saw a total of $8,052,540 of produce received at New Orleans, about double the re-
554
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
ceipts of the first year of the American dominion. Cotton still constituted only a small part of this commerce, amounting to 37,371 bales, or twelve per cent in value, and the bulk of the receipts were from the Ohio Valley and ineluded breadstuffs, provisions, tobaceo, and other Western produce, or eighty per cent in value of the receipts. New Orleans was the center not of the eotton and sugar trade alone, but of the grain, tobacco and provision trades, and received more tobacco then than it does to-day. The river traffic of New Orleans at that time required six steamboats, 594 barges and 1,287 flatboats, of a total tonnage of 87,670. The trip down the Mississippi was full of danger, because of the many snags and other river accidents, and a rough estimate plaeed the losses at 20 per cent ; that is, only 80 per cent of the goods which started down from the Ohio to New Orleans ever reached that port, the remaining fifth being sunk or burnt in the Mississippi on its way down stream.
From 1816 the river trade destined for New Orleans increased rapidly, thanks to the steamboats. It had been $8,062,540 in 1816; it was $9,749,253 in 1817; $8,773,379 in 1818; $13,501,036 in 1819, and $16,771,711 in 1820, having doubled in the short period of four years ; nor did the improvement stop then. The trade of New Orleans with the interior country continued to increase with years in spite of the heavy losses of the river and the very expensive commercial methods that pre- vailed, until the construction of the Erie and other canals diverted some of the busi- ness of the Upper Ohio. The merchants of New Orleans did not notice this diversion at the time, nor as a matter of faet did it make itself felt upon the aggregate trade of the city until long afterward. The Mississippi Valley was growing so rapidly in population and production that there was as much as New Orleans could handle, notwithstanding diversions of business to the East.
The chief feature of this quarter of a century, from 1815 to 1840, as far as New Orleans was concerned, was the war between the steamboat and the flatboat-be- tween the old, rough and primitive way of doing business and a more systematic method with boats running on schedule time and with fixed eharges, and with the trade in the hands of merchants instead of flatboatmen. It is needless to say that the steamboat and civilization triumphed over the primitive flatboat, but not immedi- ately, as one would have imagined. Flatboats continued to be used to a large ex- tent up to the time of the civil war, and some reach New Orleans even to-day, but generally in tows. However, the steamers steadily gained on them, handling a larger share of the trade each year and relegating the old "arks" to the transportation of apples, potatoes and similar articles that can be carried in bulk.
The first steamboat, the New Orleans, had reached New Orleans the day before
555
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
Christmas, 1811. In 1815, when the river was deelared open to all steamers and the Fulton-Livingston monopoly was pronounced uneonstitutional, forty steamers reached New Orleans; in 1820 the arrivals were one hundred and ninety-eight ; and they continued to inerease as follows :
Value of produee Steamers arrived received at
at New Orleans. New Orleans.
Value of produee Steamers arrived received at at New Orleans. New Orleans.
1821
202
$11,967,067
1831
778
26,044,820
1822
287
15,126,420
1832
813
28,238,452
1823
392
14,473,725
1834
1,280
29,820,817
1824
436
15,063,820
1835
1,081
37,566,842
1825
502
19,044,640
1836
1,272
39,537,762
1826
608
20,446,320
1837
1,374
43,515,402
1827
715
21,730,887
1838
1,549
45,627,729
1828
698
22,886,420
1839
1,551
42,263,880
1829
756
20,757,265
1840
1,573
49,763,825
1830
989
22,065,518
1841
1,958
49,822,175
In this period of twenty years, during which the trade of New Orleans was transferred from the flatboats and other lesser eraft depending entirely upon the current for their motive power to take them to New Orleans, to the steamboats, the receipts of produee from the interior inereased fourfold and the ocean traffie showed a similar improvement. The inerease in the number of steamboats reaching New Orleans does not fully show the improvement which took place because the steamers not only beeame more numerous, but of larger tonnage and eould therefore carry more freight. The tonnage of the steamers reaching New Orleans in 1815 was only 77,220, whereas in 1840 it was 537,400 tons.
In regard to the flatboats and other craft during this period there is no sufficiently definite information. It should be said that while the steamboats sup- planted the barges and other floating vessels in many lines, they did not entirely drive them from the river. The Mississippi eounted some hundred or more tributaries. On some of these the settlements were sparse and the surplus to be exported to market afforded at best only one or two cargoes a year and these were sent far more eheaply and conveniently in flatboats and barges than in steamers. As late as 1840 one-fifth of the freight reaching New Orleans was earried by flatboat, keel- boat or barges. The early flatboats had depended exelusively on the current of the river to earry them to New Orleans. The system of towing, so general now,
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
and used almost exclusively in the coal and grain trades, was tried as early as 1829 and a small steamer-it would be called a tug to-day-was successfully used in towing kcel-boats down and up stream, thus doing away with the necessity of selling the boats when they reached New Orleans, as had formerly been the practice.
During this quarter of a century the steamboat had secured a practical monopoly of the trade of the Mississippi; and New Orleans, as the city to which all the steamers of the Mississippi and its tributaries went, became the commercial center of the great valley. The other river towns, particularly St. Louis and Cin- cinnati, prospered, but nonc did as well as New Orleans. Of the 362 steamers navigating the Mississippi and its tributaries in 1840, none were over eight years old. Their average tonnage was 302 tons, and only four exceeded 500 tons.
The ocean commerce of New Orleans had increased in exactly the same pro- portion with the river business. The city was not a manufacturing one, and but a small proportion of the produce received there was consumed. New Orleans was simply a point of transshipment, which took what it got from the South and West and exported it, sometimes not even repacking it ; hence its exports were within a few millions of the receipts, the difference being such breadstuffs and provisions as entered into local consumption. A number of changes occurred, but they were not of great importance. These changes were in the size of the vessels coming to the city, the gradual displacement of sailing by steam vessels, the substitution of foreign for American bottoms, and again the change in the ports to which the exports from New Orleans were shipped.
At the time that Jefferson purchased Louisiana the ocean trade of New Orleans was almost exclusively with the American colonies and consisted in the shipment in American vessels to the towns of the Atlantic seaboard, of the products of the vast interior country, the basins of the Ohio and Mississippi. The merchants of Baltimore and Philadelphia had been the first to establish agencies in New Or- lcans, doing so, while the city was still under the control of Spain. Next in im- portance was Boston in the receipts of produce from New Orleans, while New York, Charleston, South Carolina, Newport, Rhode Island, and other seaboard towns did some business with "the Crescent City." In the first years of the acquisi- tion of Louisiana, this coastwise trade between New Orleans and other American ports far exceeded the foreign commerce of the city; and from three-fourths to four-fifths of the vessels entering and leaving New Orleans were American bottoms. Cotton for Europe had not yet become the chief export article, and indeed
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
cotton was one of the smaller items in the commerce of the city in those days, the bulk of the exports being flour, pork, tobacco, sugar and similar produce. The vessels engaged in this trade were small sloops and schooners of 250 tons burden or thereabouts, in the handling of which the American seamen of the day were unexcelled.
It was not until 1830 that the foreign commerce of New Orleans exceeded its coastwise shipments, when the two stood as follows: Exports to coastwise ports, $8,357,788; to foreign ports, $9,868,328. The coastwise traffic of New Orleans has improved very considerably since then, but it never afterward caught up with the foreign trade. In 1840 this coastwisc traffic reached a total of $21,960,- 859. It remained for years at or near that figure. The opening of the Erie and Ohio canals, followed soon afterward by the construction of railroads, diverted the Western produce of the Ohio Valley to New York and Philadelphia. New Orleans began to devote itself more exclusively to cotton and other Southern products, which were shipped to Enrope rather than to the American seaports. A radical commercial change was going on which in time completely revolutionized the trade of the city.
With the prosperity of the steamboats came also the prosperity of the ocean commerce of New Orleans. At the beginning of the steamboat epoch, 1815, the imports at New Orleans were half as great as the exports of Southern and Western produce; that is, the people of the West supplied themselves through New Orleans with nearly half the manufactured goods which they needed. This continued up to the time when the canals and railroads began to invade the Mississippi Valley. In 1840, the imports were still one-third of the exports, but they dropped to one-fourth in 1850 and to one-fifth in 1860.
The size and character of vessels engaged in the commerce of New Orleans were radically changing during all this period. Merchants, the world over, were finding that they could send their goods more profitably in larger vessels and the average size of the merchant vessel was constantly increasing, although the low water on the bars of the Mississippi had a very material influence in delaying this growth, as shipyards, especially the American ones, were unwilling to turn out vessels which could not engage in the most profitable trade then known-that of New Orleans.
In the earlier days American bottoms had handled nearly all the trade of New Orleans, and even as late as 1857 eighty-three per cent of imports at this port came in American ships, and only seventeen per cent in foreign ones, whereas, to-day the American vessels carry only eight or nine per cent of the total.
558
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
At the beginning of the century the average tonnage of the vessels trading with New Orleans had been 150 tons. They increased slowly to 236 tons in 1840, which would be regarded as a pleasure boat to-day ; to 376 tons in 1857; and to 521 tons in 1860. Of the arrivals in 1846 only 109 were steamers, against 2,863 sailing vessels, consisting of 1,997 ships and brigs and 875 schooners. Even when the Civil War broke out the number of steam vessels calling at the port of New Orleans was barely 300 a year, against from 1,000 to 1,200 sailing vessels. The following gives the gradual growth of the ocean tonnage of New Orleans, by decades, and will furnish some idea of the troubles encountered at the bar: Aver- age size of vessel engaged in the New Orleans trade: 1820, tons 183; 1830, tons 217; 1840, tons 236; 1850, tons 362; 1860, tons 521; 1870, tons 645; 1876 (con- struction of the jetties), tons 732; 1880, tons 998; 1890, tons 1,193; 1899, tons 1,702. The increase in the last ten years is really larger than these figures of the average vessel indicate, being pulled down slightly by the development of the Central American trade, the steamers in which have to be small and of light draft in order to enter the shallow harbors on the Atlantic coast of Honduras and Nicaragua.
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