In the days before steamboats, sails were greatly used on almost every manner of craft, and were made of every conceivable material. The great barges of early days were moved by sails when the wind was favorable.[62] Both barges and keel-boats were "provided with a mast, a square sail...."[63] Canoes were frequently provided with sails and their progress was more or less dependent on the winds.[64] The story of the building of the first brigs and schooners on the Ohio and its tributaries, the dreams of their proprietors and masters, and the experiences of their crews, is a subject worthy of a volume. The building of these larger craft for the Mississippi and ocean trade suggests at the outset the long, conflicting story of Mississippi control which can only be hinted at here. This business of building sailing vessels in the Ohio Basin began the decade before the nineteenth century opened, and grew more and more important until steam navigation revolutionized the river trade. These brigs and schooners were, without doubt, distinctively down river craft, which never returned; they were therefore the export carriers, and the importance of their place in history may be found in the fact that their appearance marks the rise of the export business to a position of prominence, as the use of the keel-boat marked the rise of what may be called interstate commerce. In the year 1792 the company of shipbuilders previously mentioned, Tarascon, Berthoud, and Company, who put the first keel-boats into business on the Ohio, built the schooner "Amity" of one hundred and twenty tons, and the "Pittsburgh," a ship of two hundred and fifty tons. In 1793 the schooner "was sent to St. Thomas, and the ship to Philadelphia, both laden with Flour. The second summer, they built the brig 'Nanina,' of two hundred, and the ship 'Louisiana,' of 350 tons. The brig was sent direct to Marseilles; the ship was sent out ballasted with our _stone coal_, which was sold at _Philadelphia_, for 37 1-2 cents per bushel. The year after they built the ship 'Western Trader' of 400 tons."[65] By 1800, therefore, cargoes of flour, iron, beef, pork, glass-ware, furniture of black walnut, wild cherry, and yellow birch, and beverages of varying character were awaiting the great hulls of these new ships of several hundred tons. In 1803 Thaddeus Harris found several of these ships on the stocks at Pittsburg; three had been launched before April, "from 160 to 275 tons burden."[66] On May 4 he wrote at Marietta: "the schooner 'Dorcas and Sally,' of 70 tons, built at Wheeling and rigged at Marietta, dropped down the river. The following day there there passed down the schooner 'Amity,' of 103 tons, from Pittsburg, and the ship 'Pittsburg,' of 275 tons burden, from the same place, laden with seventeen hundred barrels of flour, with the rest of her cargo in flat-bottomed boats. In the evening the brig 'Mary Avery,' of 130 tons, built at Marietta, set sail. These afforded an