UNCLE SAM'S FARM. 205 



places and New Orleans, each year. On the upper 

 Ohio, from the falls to Pittsburg, some one hundred 

 and fifty keel boats were employed about 1815 -'17. 

 The average size of these was about thirty tons ; and 

 they occupied from six to seven weeks in making the 

 voyage both ways. 



♦ In the year 1818 the first steamboat, the Walk-in- 

 the-water, was built on Lake Erie. In 1819 this boat 

 appeared in two or three trips on Lake Huron. It 

 was not, however, until the year 1826 that the waters 

 of the Michigan were first plowed by the keel of a 

 steamboat ; a pleasure trip from Buffalo to Green 

 Bay having been planned and executed in the sum- 

 mer of this year. In 1832 the first steamboat ap- 

 peared in Chicago. In 1833 nearly the entire trade 

 of the Upper Lakes — Erie, Huron, and Michigan — 

 was carried on by eleven small steamboats. So much 

 for a beginning. 



In the year 1845, there were upon the Upper 

 Lakes sixty vessels, including propellers, moved by 

 steam, and three hundred and twenty sailing vessels ; 

 the former measured twenty thousand tons in the ag- 

 gregate ; and some of the latter carrying one thou- 

 sand to twelve hundred tons each. In 1846, accord- 

 ing to the official statements exhibiting " the consoli- 

 18 



