I I III Cl) II I’ 0 U d 0 I :: - .-. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Published by the Archives of British Columbia in co-operation with the British Columbia Historical Association. EDITOR. W. KA LAMB. The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. ASSOCIATE EDITOR. WILLARD E. IRELAND. Provinial Archives, Victoria, B.C. (On active service, R.C.A.F.) ADVISORY BOARD. J. C. G00DFELL0w, Princeton. ROBIE L. REm, Vancouver. T. A. RICKARD, Victoria. W. N. SAGE, Vancouver. Editorial communications should be addressed to the Editor. Subscriptions should be sent to the Provincial Archives, Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C. Price, 50c. the copy, or $2 the year. Members of the British Columbia Historical Association in good standing receive the Quarterly without further charge. Neither the Provincial Archives nor the British Columbia Historical Association assumes any responsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. The Quarterly is indexed in Faxon’s Annual Magazine Subject-Index. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY “Any country worthy of a future should be interested in its past.” VOL. VIII. VICTORIA, B.C., OcToBER, 1944. No. 4 CONTENTS. PAGE. “Steamboat ‘Round the Bend “: American Steamers on the Fraser River in 1858. By Norman R. Hacking 255 Boom Days in Prince George: 1906—1913. ByF.E.Runnalls 281 The Journal of John Work, 1835. Being an account of his voyage northward from the Columbia River to Fort Simpson and return in the brig “Lamt,” January— October, 1835. Part III. Edited by Henry Drunimond Dee 307 Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry in British. Columbia. A Checklist. Part II.: 1900—1910. By Marjorie C. Holmes — 319 NOTES AND COMMENTs: British Columbia Historical Association — 333 Local Historical Societies_ — _ 335 Contributors to this Issue — 336 Tnu NoRTHwEST BOOKSHELF: The Letters of John McLoughlin, Second Series. By Burt Brown Barker 337 Van Aistyne: American Diplomacy in Action. ByW.N.Sage 340 - INDEX — — 343 ______ The Commodore, that arrived at Esquimalt with the first large party of gold-seekers on April 25, 1858. 4 1 - The Wilson G. Hunt, built for the Coney Island excursion trade in 1849, sent to California in 1850, and brought north to the Fraser in August, 1858. - _:__ The E’nterprise, brought from the Willamette River to the Fraser in August, 1858. “STEAMBOAT ‘ROUND THE BEND.” AMERICAN STEAMERS ON THE FRASER RIVER IN 1858. Westward expansion on the North American continent has been closely linked with river navigation. The early explorers, fur-traders, and gold-seekers all made use of the mighty net work of navigable rivers and lakes that stretches from the Hud son to the Yukon and from the Mississippi to the Mackenzie. The success of Robert Fulton’s pioneer steamboat Clermont on the Hudson in 1807 was the signal for the opening of a colour ful era of river navigation, which Mark Twain immortalized in his Life on the Mississippi. Within a few years all the great rivers of America resounded to the churn of the paddle-wheel and the high-pitched screech of the steam-whistle. The heyday of the river steamer was the 1850’s and ‘60’s, when fabulous fortunes were being amassed, based on America’s “manifest destiny” of westward expansion. Some of these for tunes, notably that of the Vanderbilts, were founded on the huge profits accruing from operation of river steamboats. It was a day of cut-throat competition and piratical business methods, in which the rewards often went to the most unscrupulous; nevertheless, the successful steamboat captain, no matter what his ethics, was usually acclaimed in pioneer communities with the hero-worship that is now reserved for great aviators and mass killers. River steamboats came relatively late to the Fraser. They were attracted thither by the gold fever that swept down the Pacific coast from the sand-bars of the river in the spring of 1858. Vessels had entered the river prior to this date, but none had ventured much beyond Fort Langley, about 30 miles from the mouth. The first vessel to enter the river was the schooner Cadboro, owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company. In July, 1827, she crept slowly up-stream, carrying the men and equipment to build Fort Langley. The pioneer steamer on the river was another Hud son’s Bay craft, the historic Beaver. She paid the first of her British Co’umbia Historiso2 Qucrter1y, Vol. VIII., No. 4. 255 256 NoRMAN R. HACKING. October many visits to the fort in the autumn of 1836. Twenty-two years passed before any vessel ventured much beyond that point; and when the time came, the steamers that churned the swift cur rents and shallows up to Fort Hope and Fort Yale flew the American flag. Fort Langley thus marked the dividing line between British and American pioneering on the river. Citizens of San Francisco, ever lured by the magic word “gold,” first heard confirmation of rumours of gold on the Fraser River with the arrival of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s steamer Columbia from Puget Sound on April 3, 1858. The Washington Territory correspondent of the Daily Alta California, of San Francisco, writing from Olympia under date of March 26, said: “We have had great times since last I wrote you. We are crazy with the gold fever. Everybody that can get away is off to Frazer’s river after gold. Mills and mines, ships and shops, roads and ranches, all contribute to swell the number of the sturdy miners. We have two steamers running on the sound .. the Seat Bird and the Constitution. Two weeks ago, and the mails were carried round in a canoe. Now we have two steamers running opposition; both demand ing the mails, entering protests, etc. Verily it is a feast or a famine.”1 The only British steamers anywhere near at the time were the Beaver and her newer running-mate, the Otter, both owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Of the two, the Beaver was absent on a trading cruise from which she did not return until the end of October. The Otter alone was therefore available for immediate service. She was at once placed on the run be tween Victoria and Fort Langley, but the traffic offering was far greater than she could possibly handle. Nor could she carry her passengers and freight to a point conveniently near to the gold diggings. The Otter was screw-driven, and had been de signed for deep-sea service between coastal fur-trading posts. As a result she drew so much water that she could not ascend the Fraser above Fort Langley. What the trade demanded was a steamer that could go up at least another 70 miles, to the vicinity of Fort Hope. (1) Daily Alta California, San Francisco, April 4, 1858. 1944 “STEAMBOAT ‘ROUND THE BEND.” 257 Navigation of the Fraser was in law confined to British ves sels, but with only the Otter available it was obvious that Ameri can steamers would have to be employed. Closest at hand were the Constitution and Sect Bird, on Puget Sound. The former was a wooden screw-steamer unsuitable for river navigation.2 She landed a ‘few Puget Sound gold-seekers at Point Roberts, about 6 miles from the mouth of the Fraser, but before the excitement became intense her owner took her to San Francisco for repairs, where she arrived on April 14. The Sect Bird was controlled by Captain John T. Wright and his sons, who had been operating river and deep-sea craft out of San Francisco since 1849. Captain Wright was the first man to recognize the steamboat potentialities of the new gold-rush. As early as April 14, 1858, he was advertising in the San Francisco papers :— In consequence of the favorable news received from Fraser’s River, the undersigned has been induced to put on the well known steamship Commodore, which will sail from Pacific Wharf on Tuesday Apr. 20, 1858, touching at Mendocino, Trinidad, Crescent City, Port Orford and Victoria, Vancouver’s Island. Connecting with Steamship Sect Bird, at Port Townsend, for all ports on Puget Sound. J. T. Wright, Agent.S Prices of passage were $50 and $25. The steamer Commodore merits some mention, for she car ried the first large party of gold-seekers from San Francisco to the Fraser River mines. She was a wooden sidewheel steamer, launched in 1850 at Williamsburgh, N.Y., as the Brother Jonci than, the name by which she was best known. Purchased in 1852 by Cornelius Vanderbilt, she operated on the Panama—San Francisco route until 1856. Captain Wright renamed her in 1858, but her career under his management was short.4 She nearly foundered in July of that year, and so unsavoury was (2) The Constitution, 167 feet long, was built in Philadelphia in 1850, and purchased by the Pacific Mail Company in 1851. She carried the Puget Sound mails for a short time in 1858 for Hunt and Scranton, but was sold by the U.S. Marshal at Olympia in March for $10,050 to Capt. A. B. Gove. See Puget Sound Herald, Steilacoom, March 19, 1858. (3) Daily Altcc California, April 14, 1858. (4) As her new name would imply, Commodore Vanderbilt probably still had a financial interest in her. Captain Wright became the Vander bilt agent in San Francisco in 1859. See Wheaton J. Lane, Commodore Vanderbilt. An Epic of the Steam Age, New York, 1942, p. 167. 258 NoRMAN R. HACKING. October her reputation that she was sold to the California Steam Navi gation Company and reverted to her original name. She con tinued to run on the Pacific coast as the Brother Jonctthctn until July 30, 1865, when she was wrecked near Crescent City with heavy loss of life.5 A contemporary account by a passenger in the Commodore describes graphically her momentous arrival.