formation as to the
state of the market, all combined to handicap trade and to cause loss.
Pittsburgh shippers figured their loss already at $60,000 a year. In
consequence men began to look elsewhere, and an advocate of big business
wrote in 1802: "The country has received a shock; let us immediately
extend our views and direct our efforts to every foreign market."

One of the most remarkable plans for the capture of foreign trade to
be found in the annals of American commerce originated almost
simultaneously in the Muskingum and Monongahela regions. With a view to
making the American West independent of the Spanish middlemen, it was
proposed to build ocean-going vessels on the Ohio that should carry the
produce of the interior down the Mississippi and thence abroad through
the open port of New Orleans. The idea was typically Western in its
arrogant originality and confident self-assertion. Two vessels were
built: the brig St. Clair, of 110 tons, at Marietta, and the Monongahela
Farmer, of 250 tons, at Elizabeth on the Monongahela. The former reached
Cincinnati April 27, 1801; the latter, loaded with 750 barrels of flour,
passed Pittsburgh on the 13th of May. Eventually, the St. Clair reached
Havana and thus proved that Muskingum Valley black walnut, Ohio hemp,
and Marietta carpenters, anchor smiths, and skippers could defy the
grip of the Spaniard on the Mississippi. Other vessels followed these
adventurers, and shipbuilding immediately became an important industry
at Pittsburgh, Marietta, Cincinnati, and other points. The Duane of
Pittsburgh was said by the Liverpool "Saturday Advertiser" of July 9,
1803, to have been the "first vessel which ever came to Europe from the
western waters of the United States." Probably the Louisiana of Marietta
went as far afield as any of the one hundred odd ships built in these
years on the Ohio. The official papers of her voyage in 1805, dated at
New Orleans, Norfolk (Virginia), Liverpool, Messina, and Trieste at
the head of the Adriatic, are preserved today in the Marietta College
Library.

The growth of the shipbuilding industry necessitated a readjustment of
the districts for the collection of customs. Columbia (Cincinnati) at
first served the region of the upper Ohio; but in 1803 the district was
divided and Marietta was made the port for the Pittsburgh-Portsmouth
section of the river. In 1807 all the western districts were
amalgamated, and Pittsburgh, Charleston (Wellsburg), Mar