carpenters, anchor smiths, and skippers could defy the grip of
the Spaniard on the Mississippi. Other vessels followed these
adventurers, and shipbuilding immediately became an important
industry at Pittsburgh, Marietta, Cincinnati, and other points.
The Duane of Pittsburgh was said by the Liverpool "Saturday
Advertiser" of July 9, 1803, to have been the "first vessel which
ever came to Europe from the western waters of the United
States." Probably the Louisiana of Marietta went as far afield as
any of the one hundred odd ships built in these years on the
Ohio. The official papers of her voyage in 1805, dated at New
Orleans, Norfolk (Virginia), Liverpool, Messina, and Trieste at
the head of the Adriatic, are preserved today in the Marietta
College Library.

The growth of the shipbuilding industry necessitated a
readjustment of the districts for the collection of customs.
Columbia (Cincinnati) at first served the region of the upper
Ohio; but in 1803 the district was divided and Marietta was made
the port for the Pittsburgh-Portsmouth section of the river. In
1807 all the western districts were amalgamated, and Pittsburgh,
Charleston (Wellsburg), Marietta, Cincinnati, Louisville, and
Fort Massac were made ports of entry.

The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave a marked impulse to inland
shipbuilding; but the embargo of 1807, which prohibited foreign
trade, following so soon, killed the shipyards, which, for a few
years, had been so busy. The great new industry of the Ohio
Valley was ruined. By this time the successful voyage of Fulton's
steamboat, the Clermont, between New York and Albany, had
demonstrated the possibilities of steam navigation. Not a few men