New Albany as a Commercial and Shipping Point Victor M. Book* Details of New Albany’s early history as a river port are meager and elusiv+a fragmentary municipal record, an oc- casional note in a stray newspaper, a brief reference in a con- temporary river guide, or a line or two from some traveler‘s account. Yet, a piecing together of these bits of miscellaneom data gives a fair picture of We evolution of the town as a commer- cial and shipping point. Even before the Scribners came there was a ferry running back and forth to the Kentucky shore, and the increase in ferry traffic during the first two decades of the settlement indicates that there was a growing freight and passenger intercourse between New Albany and Louisville. The record of the launching at New Albany of some of the first steamboats on the Ohio signified a growing demand for river conveyances in the area, while the establishment of for- geries and foundries dong the river front testified that steam- boat repairing was engaged in by the local “mechanics." Ad- vertisements of town merchants, with listings of wares shipped in by passing steamboats, showed that some of the regular packets paused at New Albany at least long enough to drop off freight. Regulations reserving the river front as a wharf area imply that from the beginning there was a consciousness of river commercial activities. And the design of the first Floyd County seal, an engraved steamboat, speaks eloquently enough for the fact that early New Albanyians closely allied themselves with the river and the craft which plied its waters.’ The Falls barrier made necessary two separate lines of steamboats on the Ohio River. Above they ran between Pitts- burgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville ; below, from Louisville to New It was, as observed by the Scribners, the trans- shipment of river cargo at this point that gave the towns in the region their real commercial importance. The Pittsburgh, or up-river boats, had to be unloaded, the cargo transferred to avidor M. Bogle is a resident of Washington, D.C. pis.artiele is a revised chapter of his Ph.D. dlesertation at Boston Umver~~ty,1961, written under the direction of Warren S. Tpmn. 1Minutes of the Commissioners of Flo d County, Indian A 13, 1821, p. 134: “Ordered that the County &eamrer pay to J%n x$ man five dollars for cutting a Steam Boat as a device to the County Seal of Floyd County & insertmg the word Indiana to the same.” 2 There came to be many local runs between these points, but those memtioned above were the chief diviaiona 370 Indahnu Magazine of History wagons or smaller water conveyances, and then reloaded on the down-river boats. There are no statistics to show what percentage of the transshipment business passed through New Albany during the early period, but it was sufficient to instill hope among New Albany mercantile people that their town would sometime surpass Louisville in this respect. The towns of Shippingport and Portland on the Kentucky side served as Louisville's lower shipping station^,^ but the problem of connecting these settle- ments to Louisville proper was not entirely solved until the latter half of the century. In the meantime, New Albany tradesmen publicized their town as the real head of navigation on the Ohio-Mississippi system. They sought to divert the lower traffic to their wharf, pass the contents by road to Jef- fersonville, and on across by ferry to Louisville. This scheme on the part of New Albany traders was desultory, and, to say the least, not organized. But it began to unfold at an early date and grew in prominence as the century proceeded. Had specific enough action been taken in the 1820's, particularly in the improvement of the crude road between New Albany and Jeffersonville, the future of these Indiana towns might have been different. It must be added, however, that topographical conditions on the Kentucky side of the river did give Louisville a distinct advantage in attaching her western suburbs to her and combining the whole into an adequate port for both up river and down-river shipping. The first newspaper printed in New Albany ran a regular column on arrivals and departures at the local wharf, setting a precedent that was to be followed in the New Albany papers till almost 1880. The following notice appeared on May 6, 1821 : STEAMBOAT NEWS Arrived on Thursday, Steam Boat Vulcan, A. Butler, master, eighteen days from New Orleans, with full freight and 35 cabin & 168 deck pamengem. The Comet and Hero came up the Falls on Tuesday last, bound to Cincinnati. Wednesday the Maysville in attempting to aseend the Falls, fell back, & lodged on the rocks.+ By 1827 there was nu mention made of Cincinnati in the New Albany Recorder and Advertiser, thus hinting that the traffic at the Falls had already divided between the upper and the lower commerce. 3 Portland was almpIjt directly o posite New Albany and came to be in a correspondm position on the l!entuelrJl side. "he earlier town of Shippingport waa%y-passedby the canal in 1831. 4 New Albany Chronicle, May 6,1821. New Albany as a Commerciat and Shipping Point 371 RIVER LIST February 2’7-Passed up S. B. Belvidere Beckwith master, (from New Orleans) 28-Cleopatra, Hill (from St. Louis) March 1-Benj. Franklin, Shrader (from New Orleans) Passed down February 27-S. B. Florida (N. Orleans) New York (New York) 28-Grampw, Voohrees (N Orleans)5 Cumings’ Western Pilot supplied the following informa- tion on the Ohio’s channel along New Albany for the use of 1825 rivennen: “At low water you must pass to the left of Sandy island, below Shippingport. Keep close to the head of the island, and when near its foot, incline a little to the left.- Portland is about a mile below Shippingport; keep near the left shore at the lower part of New Albany, and avoid Falling run, then steer short across, to one third from the left shore, to avoid an ugly rocky bar below the mouth of the latter. Five miles below Falling run commences a bar on the left: keep towards the right shore.”e The date of New Albany’s settlement almost coincides with that of the extension of the steamboat to the waters of the Ohio. But the steamboat did not suddenly take over all the western transport business. For many years after its intro- duction, barges, rafts, and flatboats still were common, par- ticularly in the down-river run. The Austrian traveler and fugitive monk, Karl Postl, recorded in 1828 that New Albany was “the resort of sailors, boatmen, and travellers, who go down the river in their own boats.”‘ What this type of tran- sient population did for the social life of the town can only be imagined, but it is suggestive of the cosmopolitan atmosphere, the hustle and bustle that is known to have marked the town during the later years of its attachment to the river. New Albany had ferries to connect it with life on the river before it had roads to join it with the scattered settle- ments in the interior. The ferry that was running when the Scribners came was a scow propelled by oars. It is not likely that this ferry made scheduled runs, but it was available for 5 New Albany, Indiana Recorder and Advertiser, Marc$S, 1827. The reference to New York as the home port of the boat beamg this name, is probably an error. dince the other boats mentioned were New Orleans boats, it is likely it also belongd to this group. 6 Samuel Cumings, The Western Pilot (Cincinnati, 182!5), 21-22. 7 Charles Sealsfield, The Amarica? As They Are (London, 1828) 41. When Karl Postl came to America, he wrote under the name 04 Charles Sealafield. 372 an occasional through-traveler or one of the farmers in the area who wanted to get his prduce over to Kentucky. The Scribners operated a horse-propelled ferry, composed of two flatboats and a tramp wheel in the center on which the horses paced to furnish the propulsion: A number of boats were licensed by the county officers to run back and forth across the river, and the frequent exchange of proprietorship suggesb that the business was not always too stable. Ferries operating from the town proper were taxed higher than the ones operat- ing from the outskirts. In 1823 the tax rates were: “Conner $15.00, Fitch $15.00, Newman $5.00, Oatman $5.00, Jones $5.00, Snider $5.00, Silver Creek ferry $5.00.”o There was some rivalry among the ferryboat operators, especially after roads were sufficiently improved to connect the settlement to the back country.10 The county commis- sioners endeavored to keep the rivalry regulated by setting forth a toll list applicable to all the operators : 4 wheel waggon or carriage $.SO Every horse of said waggon .eo Every 2 wheel carriage or cart .S7% Every single Horse, Mule or Ase .12% Every person exmpt the driver with team .12% Every head of meat cattle .12?4 Every horse of mid [?] carriage .26 For every sheep Hog or Goat .06 36 For every barrel of Flour or Liquids when taken over without the carriage or waggon 12% All other articles in the same proportioxG1 Serviceable roads to connect New Albany to the interior developed slowly during the first two decades. The early roads were little more than old trails which the settlers from time to time tried to mame from the forest.