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The Roosevelts spend three bad nights in a Baton Rouge barroom before reaching New Orleans. Fulton and Livingston design them a steamboat.
The sleeping room the Roosevelts managed to obtain in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was not much more than a small storeroom. And it was just off of the barroom. Another nearly sleepless night was spent atop a dirty bed, dozing to the sounds of fighting and other objectionable noises coming from the bar. The next three nights were spent, filled with apprehension, on the sandy beaches. Home to New YorkOn December 1, they reached New Orleans. The trip had proven many things, most of all that a better means of transportation up and down the Mississippi River was greatly needed. It had been a voyage that Lydia Roosevelt would never forget but they gladly booked passage on the next boat that would take them home to New York. Yellow Fever and a Baby ArrivesAlthough Lydia and Nicholas Roosevelt were more at ease on their return trip, it too held its mishaps. Yellow fever became an unwelcome passenger, striking down the captain first, then quickly spreading. In a months time the Roosevelts were able to go ashore at Old Point Comfort, Virginia, in Chesapeake Bay. From Virginia they traveled by stagecoach to New York. What a grueling time this must have been for Lydia, now racing the clock to be home before the birth of her child. They reached New York in mid-January 1810. It was now nine months that they had been gone from home-home just in time for her to deliver a daughter they named Rosetta. Any normal woman, especially of the time, would have said enough to traveling, especially under the diverse conditions they had experience aboard their flatboat adventure, but not Lydia Roosevelt. A Boat About to be BornLydia had a few months rest while her husband presented his thorough and detailed report to Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston. Then, with infant Rosetta in arms, the Roosevelts were off to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nicholas Roosevelt's dream of a steamboat that could ply up and down the mighty Mississippi River was about to take substance. The Roosevelts Reach New Orleans: A Night in a Baton Rouge Barroom, continues with Fulton Designs Steamboat: Largest and Grandest on the River Indians and Illness on an Idyllic Voyage . Previous: Alligators and Catholics: A Bad Time on the River .
The copyright of the article The Roosevelts Reach New Orleans in American History is owned by Mary Trotter Kion. Permission to republish The Roosevelts Reach New Orleans in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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