The New International Encyclopædia/Shreve, Henry Miller

SHREVE, Henry Miller (1785-1854). An American inventor and steamboat builder, born in Burlington County, N. J. He was reared in western Pennsylvania, adopted the career of a river boatman, and early became interested in the problem of steam navigation on the Ohio and Mississippi. In 1814 he was at New Orleans, and with boats protected by cotton bales ran the gantlet of the British batteries to carry supplies to Fort Saint Philip, and later had charge of a gun in the battle of New Orleans. In 1815, in the Enterprise, he made the first trip ever accomplished by a steamboat from New Orleans to Louisville. Subsequently he constructed a river steamboat known as the Washington, which had many points of improvement over the boats of the Fulton model. The success of the Washington was followed by lawsuits brought by Fulton and his associates, who claimed the exclusive right to steam river navigation, but the cases were eventually decided in Shreve's favor. From 1826 to 1841 he was employed by the Government as superintendent of improvements on the Western rivers, and successfully opened the Red River to navigation. He invented many improvements in steamboat machinery and construction, as well as the steam ‘snag-boat’ and a ram for harbor defense.