Irwin & Foster Steam-Powered Packet Boat Firm Takes A Trip To Texas

Remember that this is a multiple page Irwin Family chronology, so be sure to click through everything for all the history postings.  Archive List appears on the right.

John Irwin, the 3rd grandfather of Patrick Burns Irwin, left a family in Cincinnati for a move to Appalachia Ohio, after the 1824 death of his father William Irwin.  The Cincinnati relatives were merchants, founders and boosters of the growing city and employed in the business of moving people and product up and down the big rivers of the USA.  The Irwin family assets were hammered by the infamous Panic of 1819.  Google it for more information but know that Cincinnati was one of the hardest hit cities in the young USA.  Things began to improve in 1822 but John Irwin may have seen greener pasture far removed from city life.  Or maybe Cincinnati was such a bankrupt mess that it was time for John to get out while the getting was good.

This is a photo of a classic, steam-powered packet boat.  It carried people, cattle, bales of cotton from southern plantations, produce of every description and machinery required in the settlement of western lands.  This is how the Irwin's made their living.  It was risky.  There was a lot of competition, it all turned on the unlawful institution of slavery and the boats frequently caught fire and sank.

Irwin & Foster Firm was located at #4 Cassilly Row, otherwise known as Old Rat Row.  This was the rough and tough waterfront district of Cincinnati.  John's brother Archibald was in business with Dunning Foster.  Dunning was the brother of American Composer, Stephen Foster and the young Foster worked for the Irwin & Foster firm as a bookkeeper on the riverboats.
The famous song, Oh Susanna, was written during Foster's bookkeeping days with the Irwins.

So, the Foster family packed the artist Stephen off for Cincinnati.
The prospect there seemed a good one. He was to enter the office of his older brother, Dunning McNair Foster, who was in partner­ship with Archibald Irwin, Jr.
Dunning had engaged a room for Stephen in the boarding house where he now lived. 
This was the home of Mrs. Jane Griffin, a widow who was a communicant of St. Paul's Church; a circumstance which, as the Fosters were devout Episcopalians, doubtless pleased Mrs. Foster much better than Dunning's earlier quarters at the Broadway Hotel. The boarding house was on tree-shaded Fourth Street, in a good neighborhood and within easy walking distance of the Irwin & Foster office.

The sign Stephen saw as he stood before the door at No. 4 Cassilly's Row, East Front Street, near the wharf, read IRWIN & FOS­TER, AGENTS. 
They were designated as commission and forwarding merchants and steamboat agents. Stephen soon learned pre­cisely what that title meant. 
It meant com­petition with the half dozen firms in Cassilly's Row and other office buildings along the river front for freight and passenger business.
Each firm represented several steamboat companies
Irwin & Foster Agents today, is the present site of the Guilford Public School, Fourth Street between Broadway and Ludlow, and near the University Club.

This is a story about our Cincinnati Irwin's in business with the family of Stephen A. Foster, the songwriter of "Beautiful Dreamer" and other old hit tunes.

In soliciting the trade of local manufacturers and merchants and the patronage of the trave­ling public, the young partners—they were still in their twenties—had made a good start. Dunning Foster, after several years as a clerk on an Ohio River steamboat, had brought river experience as well as good looks and affability to his work as a solicitor. The energy and stability of Irwin & Foster, however, were supplied by Archibald Irwin, Jr. 

"Archibald Irwin, Esq." had come from Pennsylvania in the early 1820's and had won success as a commission merchant.  He was treasurer of the Little Miami Railroad Company which did not achieve legal incorporation until 1836.  

Archibald, Jr., displayed the Scotch Presbyterian qualities of his father and of their relatives, prominent in industry and in law. 
He saw to it that Irwin & Foster sailings always had top place in the steam­boat advertisements in the newspapers. He was a vigorous figure in the movement of the river men in the fall of 1848 to support General Zachary Taylor for the Presidency.
When the new clerk and bookkeeper turned to the steamboat advertisements in the local newspapers he found that of nineteen announcements, Irwin & Foster ranked second in number only to Rogers & Sherlock among the local steamboat agents. 
Right at the top of the column were five separate notices that Irwin & Foster boats were sailing for Pitts­burgh, St. Louis and points on the Arkansas.River. 
Later the list expanded to include Louisville, Nashville, Memphis and far-off New Orleans. There must have been fascina­tion for Stephen in these destinations and in the picturesque names of boats which he entered on the bookkeeping ledgers: Northern Light, Taglioni, Chalmetto, Talisman, Ohio Belle, Planet, Gladiator, Schuylkill, South Amer­ica, Bolivar, Germantown, Clipper, Messenger, Hibernia, Mary Stevens, Declaration, and Tele­graph.

The Telegraph—bound for the Southland! A melody had been bubbling in Stephen's brain which called itself "Oh! Susanna." So he had the Black narrator of the song shout "I jumped aboard de Telegraph." 

On certain spring mornings as he looked down the olive-green river from the office windows, Stephen Foster would doubtless have liked to jump aboard too.
Then Archibald Irwin or Dunning would hand him bills of lading, mute reminders that passenger travel was only one part of this business and of life. He would neatly write on the books the shipments for Pittsburgh on the daily packet service: "10 hhds Sugar, 13 feacks Wool, 10 tons Sundries"; "13 brls 'Potatoes, 2.5 do Whisky, ao tons Sundries"; '"100 brls Lime, 5 do Alcohol, 1 do Oil, 6 tons Sundries"; and "120 brls Whisky, 18 do Lard Oil, 7 hhds Bees Wax."

Bonnie Speeg is the owner-keeper of a journal, hand-written in 1843 by one of the Irwins, and she has been kind enough to share some of the history of the neighborhood with us.  
"The Steamboat Commissioner, Archibald Irwin (Irwin & Whiteman), resided on the site of what is now Guilford School, from 1820 to1850; he was the employer of Stephen Foster.
Without the job procured by his brother to work at Irwin & Foster, "Oh Susannah" could not be claimed to have been written in our city.
The Irwin family is part of the Stephen Foster biography by Ken Emerson titled "Doo-Dah!" (1998) 
Irwin's sister Jane Findlay lived around the corner on Broadway and Arch Street. (presently the police station). 
Jane's niece, Jane Findlay, married William H. Harrison II and escorted her father-in-law to Washington, D.C. when he was inaugurated.
Jane Harrison returned to Cincinnati and interacted between the Irwins and Findlays often between Arch Street and Lytle and Fourth.
Irwin and his daughter walked with John Quincy Adams to Mt. Adams, in 1843, for the laying of the Observatory Cornerstone.
Archibald Irwin became Railroad Director (prior to Strader) in 1850..he lived on Arch Street."


These boats hauled freight where the going rate was $0.05 per 100 pounds for long journeys and $0.25 per 100 pounds for short trips.  They did a lot of commerce with the southern plantation owners and therefore, abolition of slavery was a hotly contested issue within the city of Cincinnati and abolitionist politics were often considered "bad for business".  John's wife, Hannah, was a woman of color so she was probably considered "bad for business" as well.

John Irwin's tombstone records that he and his first cousin James Irwin rode one of these boats south to fight in the Mexican American War.  James died in Mexico and John returned to his family, who then lived in Lawrence County Ohio.  A new baby William was born to Hannah while John was away at war.  What an adventure!  And by coincidence, Texas was a stop on their journey to Mexico.  Camp Irwin was named for the fallen cousin James Irwin.

CAMP IRWIN. Camp Irwin, also called Camp Placedo, was a Mexican War encampment established in October 1846 on Placedo Creek near the Port Lavaca-Victoria Road, twelve miles west of Port Lavaca in Victoria County Texas. 
It was named for James R. Irwin, Chief Quartermaster of Winfield Scott's army during the Mexico City campaign, and it served as a rendezvous for troops assigned to Gen. John E. Wool's Center Division and as a temporary military supply depot

Birth:	James Irwin born Dec. 1, 1800 Franklin County Pennsylvania, USA
Death:	Jan. 10, 1847 Distrito Federal, Mexico
United States Military Officer. He was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania and was the son of Archibald and Mary Irwin. He served in the US Army as an Assistant Quarter-Master General. He died from pneumonia in 1847 in Mexico City during the Mexican-American War. His grave was removed to Spring Grove on July 30, 1858.  Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum is the historic burial grounds for the Cincinnati Irwin's.

A bit more about James Ramsey Irwin