colonists, as damaging to the character of the Columbia's entrance. They chafed under the fact that the United States had lost two men-of-war on the sands at the mouth of the river, and that the reports of government officers were of a nature to alarm shipmasters and keep commerce away.[1] The occasion was seized upon to discuss this subject in all its bearings in the columns of the Spectator, and, what was of more importance, the legislature of 1846 was impelled to pass a pilotage law, authorizing the governor to appoint commissioners to examine and license pilots for the bar and river, who should give bonds, keep suitable boats, and collect fees, according to law. Under this act, in April 1847, S. C. Reeves was appointed the first pilot for the Columbia River bar, which office he retained until the gold discovery in California.[2] Thus little by little, as necessity demanded, were added those means of safe passage to and from the colony, by land and sea, which the means at hand afforded.
While Lieutenant Howison was yet at Vancouver, intelligence arrived that congress had at length passed the notice bill—that is to say, the year's notice which should lawfully terminate the treaty—recommended by the president, and which the colonists had so long desired.[3] This agreeable news was brought by Selim E. Woodworth,[4] bearer of the despatches to the
- ↑ Howison in his report said that the dangers of the bar were not only really great, but were magnified for political purposes by the Hudson's Bay Company, it not being to their interest to remove the fancied difficulties of the entrance. If Howison had said for commercial purposes, he would have been right; he was right in saying they had no charts, and wanted none.
- ↑ Or. Spectator, April 15, 1847. Reeves was a good pilot and daring sailor. He went to California m the autumn of 1848 in a ship's long-boat, carrying two spars to be thrown over in a triangle as outriggers in case of a storm. Two men from Astoria accompanied him. He returned as pilot of a ship in the winter of 1848–9, and again sailed for California, where he sailed a small sloop, the Flora, on the bay, which was capsized in a squall in the month of May, drowning Reeves and a son of James Loomis of Oregon. Crawford's Nar., MS., 191.
- ↑ Or. Spectator, Sept. 3, 1846; Id., Oct. 1, 1846.
- ↑ Son of the author of 'The Old Oaken Bucket. ' While in California, in February 1847, he went to the assistance of the California immigrants who took the Hastings cut-off, and were snow-bound in the Sierra.
