The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1901-11-22
ROOSEVELTS AND LOUISIANA.
The Great Part This Historic Family
PLAYED in the Development OF a
Great Land.


blood is to be credited, in large meas
ure, for the rapid development of
Louisiana after it came into Ameri-
can hands. The complete success
attending the experiments in steam
navigation made on the Hudson and
he adjoining waters previous to 1909
urned the attention of its principal
promoters tothe idea of its application
on the western rivers. In the month
of April of that year Mr.. Roosevelt of
New York, pursuant to an agreement
with Chancellor Livingston and Mr..
Fulton, visited the rivers of the Missis-
sippi valley, with view of reaching
conclusion as to whether steam navi-
CATION would be practicable along
he largest water courses. He surveyed
the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from
Pittsburg to New Orleans, and, as his
report was favorable, it was decided
to build a boat at Pittsburg. This
was done under Mr.. RooseVelt's i'm
mediate direction, and in the course
of 1911 the first steamboat was launched
on the waters of the Ohio.
This bold navigator was the grand
Gather of the president, and it is as
added light in the illumination of the
vigorous, decided and fearless charac-
ter of our present chief executive that
his grandmother, the pioneer steam.
boat mans wife, insisted on accom-
panying her husband on the trial trip,
and upon taking with her all of her
children. It was easily to be seen in
advance that the voyage would be a
dangerous one, but nothing could deter
the brave woman from sharing her
husbands fortunes, good or evil. Nc
freight or paying passengers were car
ried, the trip being only an expert
mental one. The voyage was to be
from Pittsburg to New Orleans, and
if navigation of the rivers was found
practicable the boat was to be put in
the New Orleans and Natchez trade.
Besides Mr.. Roosevelt and his family,
there were no other persons aboard ex-
cept Mr.. Baker, the engineer Andrew
Jack, the pilot; six deckhands and a
few servants.
There were, of course, no wood
yards along the river banks at that
time, and Capt. Roosevelt had taker
his precautions on that score. On his
reconnoiter of the rivers, few
months before beginning the voyage,
he had discovered two beds of coal,
about one hundred and twenty feet
below the rapids at Louisville, ant
took along tools to work them, intend
ing to load the vessel with the coal in
stead of frequently OBTAINING the boa
while wood was being cut and hauled
TO the banks.
Whether we are to attribute some
thing of the presidents literary quail
ties as we'll as something of his heroi,
qualities to this same sturdy ancestor
cannot be said with certainty. Blu
there is a delightful little volume
called Rambler in North America. ;
describing this voyage. of which
Capt. Roosevelt must have been al
east collaboration. Or it may .hav'
been Mrs. Roosevelt who preserved fo
posterity such records of the voyag,
as we now have. The lady encoun
tered many and much more seriou
dangers than she had anticipated, fol
it was while the steamboat was OF
the Mississippi, in the months of De
cember and January, 1911, that the
greatest earthquake ever felt in NORTH
America changed the physical geo
graphy of much of the country wateret
by the Mississippi river.
The commissions, which came at in
tervsls during nearly two months, put
an end to the pretensions of New
Madrid as a rival of st. Louis. In ant
around New Madrid for many years
had been one of the largest popula
tions west of the river. For consid
cradle length of time the population
there, including the settlement O
Little Prairie, which was PRACTICAL.
part of the town, had been large
than that of st. Louis proper, exclud
ing Carondelet and other little sub
urbs. Among the capitalists of tn,
east, New Madrid had long been con
sidered the point at which would ris
the large city of the upper Louisian
territory, for nobody ever dreamed O
an inland town outgrowing New
Orleans 1t was while the Spaniard
still retained the country that som
New York moneyed men sent out
Col. Morgan of New Jersey, to start
boom at New Madrid. He investe
some money at that point, but re
.ceived such signal discouragemen
from the Spaniards that he left in dis
gust, and went back east to begin a
active propaganda for the annexation
by the United States. of all of th
Louisiana country.
When that annexation came, Ne
Madrid revived the hopes which ha
almost expired after the collapse q
the effort made by the Eastern D.
velopment company. 1t was elaine
that the new immigration and the ne
capital coming into the country woul
seek New Madrid rather than S
Louis. New Madrid appears to ha'
had some expert boomers, for, in spi
of her declining fortunes, there was
delusion in the east, and even in SON