Fulton was also interested in steamboats on the Mississippi and other western waters. He and Nicholas Roosevelt were associated in 1809 in this project, and in 1811 the steamer _New Orleans_ was built. It was the pioneer boat of the service, and descended the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from Pittsburg to New Orleans in fourteen days. In 1817 the _Chancellor Livingston_ appeared on the Hudson and in her general equipment marked a decided improvement in every respect upon anything that had gone before. She was the finest vessel without exception that Fulton and Livingston ever possessed. Her designer was Henry Eckford, one of the leading naval architects in America. She was, moreover, the biggest steamboat which had been built in the world, as she was of over 500 tons burden. The building of this boat was supervised at first by Fulton himself, but he died before it was completed. The _Chancellor Livingston_ was three-masted, and fore-and-aft rigged throughout, and carried in addition a large square sail on the foremast. She had three funnels which were placed forward of the paddle-boxes and between the fore and main masts. Her engines were of the steeple type. She was square-sterned, and not only carried a deck-house, but the roof of the deck-house was extended to form a square deck or gallery, and above this again were a smaller deck-house and a large awning, so that passengers on either deck were amply protected from the weather. The gallery, at the stern, was the same shape as the stern itself. It was supported by stanchions, and carried as far forward as the paddle-boxes. Early pictures of this vessel represent her as having portholes along the sides of the hull abaft the paddles, from which it would appear that in the body of the ship itself there was also passenger accommodation. She was therefore the first vessel to have three decks devoted to passengers. The first trip of this boat was made towards the end of March 1817, between New York and Newburgh, the 65 miles being covered in less than nine hours, in only three of which was the tide running with the ship. Coming back she did the distance in eight hours fifteen minutes, for the most part against wind and tide. Her cost complete was 110,000 dollars. This boat was not allowed to lie idle, and a statement was published in December 1821 that the _Chancellor Livingston_ made during the season of that year “170 trips from New York to Albany. Allowing the distance to be 150 miles the aggregate will exceed 25,000 miles, which would more than have carried her round the globe. We presume the _Richmond_ has performed the same number of trips, and when it is considered that these boats are generally filled with passengers, some idea may be formed of the extent of travel on the North River.”