Walk-in-the-Water was a sidewheel steamboat that played a pioneering role in steamboat navigation on the Great Lakes. She was the first such craft to run on Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Launched in 1818, she transported people and supplies to sites and points of interest around the Great Lakes, before being grounded and wrecked in a gale force storm in Buffalo's bay in 1821. According to some sources, Walk-in-the-Water name originated from an Indian's impression of a steamboat moving ("walking") on the water with no sails.
Description
Walk-in-the-Water was built in 1818 at Black Rock, New York for the Lake Erie Steamboat Company by Noah Brown. Her keel was constructed at Scajaquada Creek, and she was launched sideways on May 28, 1818.
Walk-in-the-Water was long with a beam of and a draft of . She had two masts, a quarterdeck raised above the spar deck, and a transom stern. A steamboat that ran on the Great Lakes in the early 19th century, there are no photos of the vessel, but there are several eyewitness accounts of its configuration. The raised quarterdeck allowed space for the cabins below, and better visibility for the helmsman as the ship's wheel was mounted on the quarterdeck at the stern. The hull was painted white overall, with two black stripes running the length of the vessel, and gray below the waterline. The rails were green, and the stem and transom were both ornamented with gold scrolling. Mounted in the bow was a four-pound wheeled cannon, used to announce the steamer's arrivals, departures and presence, as steam whistles had yet to be invented.
Walk-in-the-Water was powered by a single cylinder, 73-horsepower crosshead steam engine with a bore and stroke, built in New York City by Robert McQueen. The engine was described as having "a curious arrangement of levers with as many cogs as a grist-mill", driving the paddlewheels, which were in diameter, through a series of gears. "Old-fashioned" coupling boxes between the main shaft and the paddlewheel shafts enabled the two paddlewheels to be individually engaged or disengaged. The boiler was built of copper, reportedly in length with a diameter of , with a single high smokestack. The fuel was wood, preferably "well-seasoned pine and hemlock split fine". The vessel is said to have had a speed of somewhere between 6 and 10 mph (9.7–16 km/h).
According to one of her captains, Baton Atkins, she was named after a Wyandot Indian chief, who lived about south of the Detroit River. Alternatively, her name may have alluded to the expression "walks in the water", reputedly said by an Indian who had seen North River, Robert Fulton's pioneering steamboat, on the Hudson River in 1807.
Service history
thumb | left | Walk-in-the-Water at Detroit, 1820. This contemporaneous sketch by George H. Whistler appears to depict many details of the vessel accurately, such as the transom stern, raised quarterdeck and twin (black) stripes along the hull.
Walk-in-the-Water was considered the pioneer of steamboat navigation on several of the Great Lakes, the first steamboat to run on Lake Erie. Job Fish was Walk-in-the-Water'''s first captain. Chief engineer was Brock Grant, and the second engineer was his cousin, William Whitney Grant.Mansfield, 1899, Vol II, p. 265 Fish was dismissed when he rammed into the dock and blamed it on the engine crew. while he was cussing through the megaphone, where the company that owned Walk-in-the-Water soon found a replacement.Walk-in-the-Water maiden voyage began on August 25, 1818, from Black Rock, New York, carrying 29 passengers, bound for Dunkirk, New York; Erie, Pennsylvania; Cleveland, Ohio, and her destination port of Detroit. Because she lacked sufficient power to make headway against the strong currents of the Niagara River, a team of 20 oxen were required to assist in hauling the steamboat out of the river on the first leg of this voyage. The vessel then started her routine trips from Buffalo to Detroit on September 1, 1818. Buffalo at this time had no docks to accommodate large vessels. The steamboat completed her journey in about 9 days and traveled at about per hour on average. The fare for the trip in a cabin was $18 and less than half that for a bunk in steerage. Upon arrival in Cleveland, most of the townspeople came to the shore to greet the vessel.