I have shell access. I uploaded the site to the FTP; however when I checked the site the placeholder page popped up. I went back into the FTP folder and could not find the quickstart file.
The other login account associated with the domain cannot access the FTP folder. It was originally the shell account but was switched. I tried to switch shell access back, or at least grant FTP access, but was unsuccessful for unknown reasons and it remains a lame duck account.
It appears you might misunderstand how users are associated to domains or sub-domains. For each domain or sub-domain there will only be one user with access. To find yours navigate to “Manage Domains” in the panel and observe what user is associated with the domain or sub domain by looking at the user listed in the “web hosting” column.
quickstart.html will be located at /home/USER/DOMAIN.COM/quickstart.html where USER is replaced byt he user found above, and DOMAIN.COM will be replaced with the actual domain name as see also on the manage domains file. Your index.html should be in this directory if you want it to load when you browse to the domain name.
See also: http://wiki.dreamhost.com/One_User_Per_Domain_Policy