both steamers were making weekly runs. At this time, sailing vessels still dominated ocean navigation, including the coastal trade, but Morgan and his brother-in-law John Haggerty joined with Allaire to develop coastal steam packets, focusing on the route between New York and Charleston. Morgan was the operations manager of the New YorkCharleston line, as well as the Jamaica packet line. By June 1835, he was dispatching two steamers per week to Charleston, David Brown and the newly acquired Columbia. The packet company had won the bid for the United States Mail contract, worth $7,200 annually, and its ships were earning more than $1,000 per trip in profits. However, the risks faced by ocean-going steamers threatened the company. William Gibbons sank in October 1836, which caused a loss of public confidence in addition to the direct financial loss. Some of the investors sold David Brown and then abandoned the company, leaving Morgan, Allaire, and Haggerty as the sole partners and Columbia as their only ship. Yet the partnership built new steamers of the line which they christened Home and New York, and they accomplished this despite the Panic of 1837. They also supplemented their packet revenue with contracts to carry mail along their line, and contracts to carry military troops to Florida. Another lost ship threatened the New York and Charleston Steam Packet Company. Home started its last voyageand only its third overallon October 7, 1837. Home had cost nearly $90,000 to build and included a cabin with luxury amenities to accommodate as many as 120 first-class passengers. She ran aground while departing New York Harbor, but continued to the ocean without any apparent damage. However, a storm with rough seas battered the ship near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; she started taking on water and her engine failed, and her sails were not able to drive and control the ship. The storm pushed Home toward the shore and ran it aground, and 99 people died trying to reach land. Gulf coast packets In 1837, Morgan started running steamboat service between New Orleans and Galveston, Texas, which was the first packet boat service running between these cities on a regular schedule. However, this had not been Morgan's first foray in shipping in the Gulf of Mexico. The previous year, the New York and Charleston Steam Packet Company deployed the steamship David Brown to sail a route from New Orleans to Key West,