On this day in 1812, the first steamboat to ply the Ohio and Mississippi arrived in New Orleans, which was named in its honor. The craft had left Pittsburgh with a great fanfare two and a half months earlier, but naysayers insisted that, though it could float downstream, the thing could never make it upstream against the powerful currents. A crowd is still standing on the Mon Wharf in Pittsburgh waiting for the boat to come back and prove the naysayers wrong.