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'In 1827 we find him on board the “President,” a boat of two hundred and eighty-five tons burden, and plying between Smithland and New Orleans. Thence he joined the “Jubilee” in 1828, and on this boat he did his first piloting in the St. Louis trade; his first watch extending from Herculaneum to St. Genevieve. On May 26, 1836, he completed and left Pittsburgh in charge of the steamer “Prairie,” a boat of four hundred tons, and the first steamer with a _State-Room cabin_ ever seen at St. Louis. In 1857 he introduced the signal for meeting boats, and which has, with some slight change, been the universal custom of this day; in fact, is rendered obligatory by act of Congress.