Lot
4159 
(Lake Pontchartrain) "Steam Boat Neptune", manuscript endorsement on folded letter datelined "New Orleans 20th June 1821" and addressed to General David Banister Morgan (1773-1848) at Madisonville La., docketing at left; overall light aging, fold separations have been reinforced with non-archival tape that should be properly removed, Fine. Estimate $1,000 - 1,500.
AN IMPORTANT EARLY PRE-REGULATION LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN STEAMBOAT LETTER.
By 1820, steamboats were operating on Lake Pontchartrain to both Mobile via passage into the Gulf of Mexico and to Madisonville on the estuary of the Tchefuncte River. Although it was not until June 1834 that a route across Lake Pontchartrain was contracted, letters were being carried privately the 36 miles from the landing on the southern shore of the lake to Madisonville as early as 1821.
The writer, Thomas Shield is reporting to General Morgan of his visit to Pensacola Fla. during the period of the first Seminole Wars. General David Morgan was a soldier who served in the Louisiana Territorial legislature, member of the Constitutional Convention, commanded the militia of Louisiana and Mississippi under Gen. Jackson at New Orleans in 1815 as brigadier-general, etc.