"Steam-boat, ark, Kentucky, barge, and keel-boat building, is carried on to a considerable extent. Sea vessels have been built here, but the navigation is too far from the sea, and attended with too much hazard for it to answer. The following vessels, besides steam-boats, have been built at Pittsburg and on its rivers: _ships_, Pittsburg, Louisiana, General Butler, and Western Trader; _brigs_, Dean, Black Walnut, Monongahela Farmer, and Ann Jean; _schooners_, Amity, Alleghany, and Conquest, (_navigator_)." _Palmer's Journal of travels in the United States and Canada, 1817._ "The _steam-boat navigation_, we are assured, is a losing concern. The newspapers have announced the hopes of our western citizens, and the editors now appear to be careful to conceal their disappointments. Two large vessels of this description are lying near the _Point_, which have not justified public expectations. Captain FRENCH, of _Brownsville_, (fifty miles by water up the Monongahela and thirty-five by land) has built two vessels of this kind, which it is said have succeeded best." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "The best mode perhaps in descending the Ohio, in time of low water, is in keel boats.... Merchants are beginning to prefer this method for safety and expedition; and instead of purchasing boats and taking charge of them themselves, they get their goods freighted down from Pittsburgh in keel boats by the persons who make them, and who make it their business to be prepared, with good boats and experienced hands for such engagements." _Cramer's Navigator, 1817._