Henry Miller ShreveBorn 21 Oct 1785; died 6 Mar 1851 at age 65.American steamboat designer and builder who helped develop the commercial potential of the inland waterways of the Mississippi River system. Within a few years of Robert Fulton's successful steamboat experiment (1807), Shreve had built his own, the Enterprise (1813), which made the first complete upriver trip from New Orleans to Pittsburgh. He fought legal battles against Fulton's monopoly on river routes. By 1821, Shreve addressed the need to make navigation safer by clearing the river of obstructions. He created snag-boats with a jaw-like bow able to pull up snags (tree trunks), and put them through a sawmill on their deck. Shreve's work was a major contribution to the great era of steamboat traffic prior to the Civil War.« |
