navigation, too, was increasing, but not without its drawbacks and losses.[1] In the midst of all, the young and vigorous community grew daily stronger, and more able to bear the misfortunes incident to rapid progress.
In July 1854 there was a raid in Rogue River Valley by the Shastas; unattended, however, by seri-
- ↑ The steam-tug Fire-Fly was lost by springing aleak on the bar in Feb. 1854. Thomas Hawks, captain, L. H. Swaney, Van Dyke, Wisenthral, and other persons unknown were drowned. At the close of the year the steamship Southerner, Capt. F. A. Sampson, was wrecked on the Washington coast. The steamer America, bound to Oregon and Washington ports, was burned in the harbor of Crescent City the following summer.
The steamships engaged in the carrying trade to Oregon from 1850 to 1855 were the Carolina, which I think made but one trip, the Seagull, Panama, Oregon, Gold Hunter, Columbia, Quickstep, General Warren, Frémont, America, Peytonia, Southerner, and Republic. Three of these had been wrecked, the Seagull, General Warren, and Southerner, in as many years. Others survived unexpectedly.
formed in 1856, built the James Clinton and Surprise, two fine stern-wheel boats. In 1857 the Elk was built for the Yamhill River trade by Switzler, Moore, and Marshall; and in 1858 the first owners of the Enterprise built the Onward, the largest steamboat at that time on the upper river.
In 1860 another company was incorporated, under the name of People's Transportation Company, composed of A. A. McCully, S. T. Church, E. N. Cook, D. W. Burnside, and captains John Cochrane, George A. Pease, Joseph Kellogg, and E. W. Baughman, which controlled the Willamette River trade till 1871. This company built the Dayton, Reliance, Echo, E. D. Baker, Iris, Albany, Shoo Fly, Fannie Patton, and Alice, and owned the Rival, Senator, Alert, and Active. It ran its boats on the Columbia as well as the Willamette until 1863, when a compromise was made with the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, then in existence, to confine its trade to the Willamette River above Portland. In 1865 this company expended $100,000 in building a dam and basin above the falls, which enabled them to do away with a portage, by simply transferring passengers and freight from one boat to another through a warehouse at the lower end of the basin. The P. T. Co. sold out in 1871 to Ben Holladay, having made handsome fortunes in 11 years for all its principal members. In the next two years the canal and locks were built around the west side of the falls at Oregon City, but the P. T. Co. under Holladay's management refused to use them, and continued to reship at Ore gon City. This led to the formation of the Willamette Locks and Transportation Company, composed of Joseph Teal, B. Goldsmith, Frank T. Dodge, and others, who commenced opposition in 1873, and pressed the P. T. Co. so hard that Holladay sold out to the Oregon Nav. Co., which thus was enabled to resume operations on the Willamette above Portland, with the boats purchased and others which were built, and became a powerful competitor for the trade. The Locks and Transportation Co. built the Willamette Chief expressly to outrun the boats of the P. T. Co., but found it ruinous work; and in 1876 a consolidation was effected, under the name of Willamette Transportation and Locks Company, capital $1,000,000. Its property consisted of the locks at Oregon City, the water front at Astoria belonging formerly to the O. S. N. Co., and the Farmers' warehouse at that place, and the steamboats Willamette Chief, Gov. Grover, Beaver, Annie Stewart, Orient, Occident, with the barges Autocrat, Columbia, and Columbia's Chief. This secured complete monopoly by doing away with competition on either river, except from independent lines. Salem Will. Farmer, Jan. 7, 1876; Adams' Or., 37–8.
