Steamboat Building in New Albany

For the past quarter of a century New Albany has maintained a high reputation as a point at which the largest boats--the swiftest and most superbly finished steamers--that ever plied the Western rivers, have been built. The Eclipse, Shotwell, Magnolia, Robert J. Ward, Vicksburg, Quitman, and many other boats, famous alike in all that goes to make up the perfection of steamboat architecture and mechanism, have in turn surprised and delighted the people by their magnificence and speed. We are not able to give a full list of all the boats built here since the first ship yard was established in, we believe, 1817; if we could do so, we would be able to present an array of facts which would prove the superior skill and genius of our New Albany mechanics, and be for them an advertisement the best they could desire.. But it is not our purpose in this article to go into a statistical history of steamboat building here. However interesting such a statement might prove to our readers, it is not needed by our builders to establish their reputation as masters of their business. We only set out to write a short description of one among the greatest steamers, it not the greatest, that has ever been contracted for in the West. We refer to the Robert E. Lee, building here for Capt. John W. Cannon, by Hill, Roberts, & Co., Stuckey, Twomey, & Co., and Hipple, Smith, & Co., for the Vicksburg and New Orleans trade.. Taking all the several departments of hull, cabin, and machinery into the count, the Robert E. Lee is unquestionably to be one of the largest, finest, and fastest steamboats ever built in the world. She is not probably as long as some of the boats built here and elsewhere; but in capacity for freight and passengers, and in the completeness of her arrangements, division, and applicability of room and carrying capacity, she will, when finished, be the climax of steamboat architecture, and the superior of any boat ever built.. We have been kindly furnished by Capt. Eugene Commandeur, the affable and gentlemanly cashier for Hill, Roberts, & Co., and Stuckey, Twomey, & Co., with a memorandum of the dimensions of the hull and the quality, peculiarities, weight, size, &c., of the machinery; and Mr. Dan Hipple has also furnished us a memorandum of the cabin; and these will all be found of interest to steamboat men and the public generally.. The name of this steamer has been designated as Robert E. Lee--in respect to the great military leader whose genius for so long a time upheld and directed the military movements of the South in the late war. The name will prove talismanic in the South, where this great military Chieftain is idolized.. The length of the hull of the Robert E. Lee is 295 feet. Her beam is 45 feet; floor 36 feet; width over all 87 feet; depth of hold 9 feet.. The boiler deck is 265 feet long; width over all 84 feet. The cabin will be 18 feet wide, and 13 feet high. It will contain thirty state rooms on a side, eight feet wide and from six and a half to seven and three-quarter feet in length. The finish of the cabin and state rooms, and their furnishing, will be superior in point of superb elegance, beauty, and taste to any steamer ever turned out any where.. The Texas will be 125 feet long and 18 feet wide. Of itself it will contain about as much room as an ordinary steamboat. The pilot house will be large and finely finished.. The machinery for the Robert E. Lee is the largest ever put into a western steamer. There are two cylinders, each 40 inches in diameter and ten feet stroke. They are supplied with patent balance valves, and are to be in the highest possible style of finish. The weight of the cylinders, including side pipes, is twenty tons each. The shafts are of wrought iron, 17 1/2 inches in the main journal, each shaft working four flanges. The shafts and cranks weight 22 1/2 tons. They work wheels 39 feet in diameter, with 17 1/2 feet length of bucket.. There are eight boilers, arranged in two batteries of four each. Each boiler is 28 feet long, 42 inches in diameter, and has four flues. Over the fire surface in each boiler there is an iron sheet eight feet long, and reaching up toward the centre of the boiler sixty-three inches, and the iron is so prepared as to render burning almost impossible. There are two steam drums to each boiler, 36 inches in diameter. These drums are to be connected by large pipes. The steam pipes are 12 inches in diameter, and are of copper and wrought iron.. The doctor is of new style, gotten up by Mr. Jack Jones of this city, and is very large and a fine piece of machinery. It operates with parallel motion, and the pumps have plungers of 6 3/4 inches in diameter and 25 inches stroke. The doctor weighs 9 tons. The discharge pipes from the pumps are 4 1/2 inches in diameter. The doctor boiler is 16 feet long and 38 inches in diameter.. The Lee is supplied with a pumping engine of sufficient capacity to throw a large stream of water to any part of the boat, in case of fire. This engine also works pumps for pumping out the hold, &c. She has two double engines for working the capstans, forward and aft. She also has an engine for working a freight elevator, which carries freight in and out of the hold--making in all seven engines.. The iron bed plates for the main cylinders weigh 8 tons, the T heads weigh 2,500 pounds each, and the piston rods are of wrought iron and weigh 1,900 pounds each.... These are a few of the more important features of this great steamer--to be the most superb, when in complete running trim, that ever was turned out by American mechanics. The work on the hull is progressing rapidly, and her planking will be done today. This is probably the quickest job ever done on the Ohio, or any other western river. The builders, Messrs. Hill, Roberts, & Co., inform us that they have set the first day of August for launching her. If it was necessary she could be launched three weeks earlier.. Taking all her departments together, the Robert E. Lee will rank any steamer heretofore built. Her cabins, which are to be built by Hipple, Smith, & Co., the great cabin builders of New Albany, will be one of the very best jobs ever turned out even by those celebrated builders. The hull is as stanch as a man-of-war, extra fastened throughout, and Messrs. Hill, Roberts, & Co. are excelling themselves upon this boat in the way of extra workmanship. All the machinery will be made at the American Foundery of Stuckey, Twomey, & Co. It is scarcely necessary for us to say that every piece of it will be perfect.. The painting of the Lee is to be done by Capt. Thomas Kunkle, who is known throughout the South and West for his skill as an artist and his honesty as a man. Capt. Kunkle will make the Lee radiant and mirror-like, and will not omit a single touch of the brush to make the finish alike beautiful and complete...