caused him to be censured, and removed on the charge of conniving at the wreck of the Vancouver for the sake of plunder; a puerile and ill-founded accusation, though his services might well be dispensed with on the ground of incompetency.[1]
If the sands of the bar shifted so much that there were six fathoms in the spring of 1847 where there were but two and a half in 1846, as was stated by captains of vessels,[2] I see no reason for doubting that a sufficient change may have taken place in the winter of 1847–8, to endanger a vessel depending upon the wind. But however great the real dangers of the Columbia bar, and perhaps because they were great,[3] the
- ↑ The first account of the wreck in the Spectator of May 18, 1848, fully exonerates the pilot; but subsequent published statements in the same paper for July 27th, speak of the removal on charges preferred against him and others, of secreting goods from the wreck. Reeves went to California in the autuinn in an open boat with two spars carried on the sides as outriggers, as elsewhere mentioned. In Dec. he returned to Oregon in charge of the Spanish bark Jóven Guipuzcoana, which was loaded with lumber, flour, and passengers, and sailed again for San Francisco in March. He became master of a small sloop, the Flora, which capsized in Suisun Bay, while carrying a party to the mines, in May 1849, by which he, a young man named Loomis, from Oregon, and several others were drowned. Crawford's Nar., MS., 191.
- ↑ Howison declared that the south channel was 'almost closed up' in 1846, yet in the spring of 1847 Reeves took the brig Henry out through it, and continued to use it during the summer. Or. Spectator, Oct. 14, 1847; Hunt's Merch. Mag., xxiii. 358, 560–1.
- ↑ Kelley and Slacum both advocated an artificial mouth to the Columbia. 25th Cong., 3d Sess., H. Com. Rept. 101, 41, 56. Wilkes reported rather adversely than otherwise of its safety. Howison charged that Wilkes' charts were worthless, not because the survey was not properly made, but because constant alterations were going on which rendered frequent surveys necessary, and also the constant explorations of resident pilots. Coast and Country, MS., 8–9. About the time of the agitation of the Oregon Question in the United States and England, much was said of the Columbia bar. A writer in the Edinburgh Review, July 1845, declared the Columbia 'inaccessible for 8 months of the year.' Twiss, in his Or. Ques., 370, represented the entrance to the Columbia as dangerous. A writer in Niles' Reg., lxx. 284, remarked that from all that had been said and printed on the subject for several years the impression was given that the mouth of the Columbia 'was so dangerous to navigate as to be nearly inaccessible.' Findlay's Directory, i. 357–71; S. I.
none, though they had lost 2 vessels, the William and Ann, in 1828, and the Isabella in 1830, in entering the river. Their captains learned the north channel and used it; and one of their mates, Latta, often acted as pilot to new arrivals. Parrish says, that in 1840 Captain Butler of the Sandwich Islands, who came on board the Lausanne to take her over the Columbia Bar, had not been in the Columbia for 27 years. Or. Anecdotes, MS., 6, 7. After coming into Baker Bay the ship was taken in charge by Birnie as far as Astoria, and from there to Vancouver by a Chinook Indian called George or 'King George,' who knew the river tolerably well. A great deal of time was lost waiting for this chance pilotage. See Townsend's Nar., 180.
