er Flint[1] was wrecked last fall going to the Cascades, by running on to a ledge of rocks, she has been got off this winter and is now at Portland, and is expected to commence runing on the river in a few days. The Whitcomb is expected here tomorrow to commence runing again. The Whitcomb is the largest boat that runs on the river, and the Eagle, the smallest, being a propella, and about 25 feet long.
Afectionately Yours
Charles Stevens
Milwaukie 10th April/53
Brother Levi
... I believe I stated to you in a former letter that it was my intention to start out the first of Feb. or there abouts to look at the country, but was not able to start at that time. Mr. Shoudy the young man that has been boarding with us since we have been here, joined me in making a skiff to go down the Columbia with, but when we finished it, we found a man in Portland that wanted to go just where we did, and he had a boat four times larger than ours so we fited up in his boat and on the 7 of March started on our journey. We were bound for Shoal water Bay, In passing down the Columbia, we landed in places where we thought it looked like making a settlement, and in the towns along the river.
I believe I gave you a kind of discription of the lower part of the Wellammit, but it was from information gathered in a very dark night, and I found I was far being right about it. All the country above & below the mouth of this river is verry level, for a good distance back, but much of it overflows in the summer & winter. There is an island in the mouth of the Willammit an Columbia,[2] (that is, two sides of it are washed by the Willammit the other by the Columbia), it is about 18 miles long and I cannot say how wide. This is level, and I am told
- ↑ The James P. Flint was built at the Cascades to run to The Dalles. The following season she was taken below the Cascades, and in September was wrecked opposite Multnomah Falls; abandoned until 1853, she was then taken to Vancouver and renamed the Fashion; Lewis and Dryden, Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, 35.
- ↑ Sauvie Island.
