The first Mississippi steamboat was a packet, the "New Orleans," a sidewheeler built at Pittsburgh in 1811, designed for the New Orleans-Natchez trade. Packets dominated during the first forty years of steam, providing the quickest passenger transportation throughout mid-continent America. The packets remained fairly numerous even into the first two decades of the twentieth century when old age or calamity overtook them. By the 1930s, the flock was severely depleted, and today the packet is extinct.
Containing almost 6,000 entries, "Way s Packet Directory" includes a majority of...