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Wilson G. Hunt (sidewheeler)
Encyclopedia
Wilson G. Hunt was a steamboat that ran in the early days of steam navigation on Puget Sound
and Sacramento, Fraser, and Columbia Rivers. She was generally known as the Hunt during her years of operation. She had a long career on the west coast of the United States and Canada, and played an important transportation role in the California Gold Rush
.
and involved himself in many of Cooper's institutions including Cooper Union
and Cooper-Hewitt. Hunt was born in 1804 as simply Wilson Hunt but attached the middle initial 'G' to distinguish himself. He died in 1892 at age 88.
. The vessel was185.5 ft (57 m), 25.8 ft (8 m) and 6.75 ft (2 m) depth of hold.
The Hunt had an old style "steeple engine" with an enormous single cylinder of 36" bore by 108" inch stroke. The Hunt had a low-pressure boiler, which at the time was advertised as being safer than high-pressure boats.
The most unusual feature of the Wilson G. Hunt was the unusual steeple housing for her engine, which looked like an enormous slice of cheese:
Wilson G. Hunt was powered by a single-cylinder, steam engine
36" bore by 108" stroke, steeple type, with a low pressure boiler., 250 horsepower
nominal This power plant could drive the vessel at 15 knots.
The Hunts steeple engine was the only recorded use of this type on the West Coast. With this type of engine, as well as the more common walking beam type, there were special mechanical dangers. If the engine, powered by a single piston, should ever hang at dead center, the only way to move the piston to discharge the steam was to lever the paddle wheel forward with a long bar. This was extremely dangerous, as should the piston start pumping again, the bar could be flung out of the control of the men pushing it, killing them or breaking bones.
reached New York and the Huntwas sent round the Horn to San Francisco. The vessel nearly sank on the way.
Hunt finally arrived in San Francisco early in 1850 The journey took 322 days. The trip simply to Bermuda
was difficult, with the Hunt arriving at that colony on March 11, 1850, in deplorable condition, having just barely survived a gale on March 9.
On arrival in San Francisco Hunt was immediately placed in the Sacramento River trade, and proceeded to make a fortune for her owners, the California Steam Navigation Company, clearing in a single year over $1,000,000. Her first owners were Richard Chenery and R.M. Jessup. Competition was fierce on the California rivers, and while "racing" as such was forbidden, steamboat captains were expected to "do their best" which in practice amounted to the same thing. A boiler explosion occurred on board the sidewheeler New World just above Benicia, California
during a race with the Wilson G. Hunt. The resultant lawsult generated a clear picture what such a contest was like during the gold rush times in California:
Later Hunts owners combined with Charles Minturn, Capt. David Van Pelt, and others to form the California Steam Navigation Company, with the objective of forming a monopoly on river transport on the Sacramento river system.
reached California, Hunts owners sent her north to take advantage of the situation. Hunt arrived in Victoria in the middle of August, 1858. Because there was a shortage of British vessels, the colonial government at Victoria had decided to license American steamers to move the resultant gold rush traffic up the river. and ran for a short time on the New Westminster route. Another vessel running on the same route was the Sea Bird, which on September 7, 1858, caught fire en route and was destroyed, with the loss of two lives. Fortunately the Hunt was not far behind her and was able to take off her surviving passengers and crew.
. Previously the mails had been carried by the steamer Constitution but she had been taken off the route to be repaired preparatory to being transferred to San Francisco. The shallow-draft inland steamer Hunt was regarded as being more suitable for the route than the deeper-draft ocean-going Constitution. In July 1859, the sternwheeler Julia Barclay was brought around to Puget Sound from the Columbia River, arriving on July 9 in Olympia, Washington. John H. Scranton had arranged to have her carry the mail contract which he continued to hold. For about a month Captain Burns tried to complete against the Julia on the Olympia to Victoria run, but Julias mail contract gave her an advantage and when there wasn't enough business to sustain both boats, the Hunt was tied up in Victoria for about a year.
Gold had been discovered in Idaho in the early 1860s, which led to the Hunt being bought in 1862 by the Oregon Steam Navigation Company
and taken to the Columbia River
. There the Hunt operated on the route from Portland, Oregon
to the lower Cascades in command of Capt. John Wolf. On the Columbia, Hunt was part of a chain of steamers that transported traffic between the portages around the rapids at the Cascades of the Columbia and the second longer set of rapids to the east of The Dalles. Each set of rapids enforced a requirement to portage traffic around the obstacle and control of the portages and ready transport across them was the key to control of the river traffic. Hunts role in this system was to carry traffic up to the first portage at the Lower Cascades. She continued running on the Columbia until 1869, and during that time enjoyed a flourishing business, repeatedly carrying from 50 to 300 passengers, 100 head of stock and plenty of freight on a single trip. Her operating costs were high, but the demand for transport on the Columbia during the 1860s was so great that she was a very profitable boat. In 1869 the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, having achieved a monopoly on the Columbia River, decided to extend their steamboating ventures to Puget Sound.
, reputedly one the slowest but most profitable vessels ever to traverse the Sound. Hunt arrived in February 1869 in command of Capt. W. I. Waitt, with Josiah Myrick, purser, Frank Dodge, freight clerk, Thomas Smith, chief engineer ; James Gallegher, assistant, J. Smith, mate, and J. J. Holland, carpenter. The Hunt had been rebuilt in Portland in I865 and was in good condition, but the company could not do much with her, and to save themselves from further loss sold her to Finch in October 1869. Finch and the Wrights had, in the meantime, built the steamer Olympia, afterward called the Princess Louise, and when the competition ended, the Hunt was sent to San Francisco where she remained for ten years.
was running the Enterprise on the Fraser River run from Victoria. The Company's rival on this route was Captain John Irving
, who held a monopoly on steamboat traffic on the upper Fraser routes but was hindered by the Company's activity on the lower river. In early 1878, Captain Irving travelled to San Francisco, where he found the Hunt and bought her for a cheap price. In February 1878 she was brought up by Captain Stoddard, cleaned up, repainted, and placed on the New Westminster route against Enterprise. (The Hunt 's Canadian registry number was 72676.
New Westminster's newspaper, the Mainland Guardian was impressed by the appearance of the then 30 year old steamer:
In July 1878 the Canadian government announced its decision that the transcontinental railroad would run down the Fraser River valley. There were over 5,000 tons of rails that had been piled up at Esquimalt for the construction of the Canadian Pacific's extension on Vancouver Island
. On July 23, 1878, Wilson G. Hunt transported the first shipment of these rails to New Westminster, where they were loaded on Royal City and taken up to Yale. During 1878 the Hunt , under captains Irving, Insley, and Rudlin, continued to do well against the Enterprise. In October 1878 Hudson's Bay Company bought Hunts old rival, Olympia, renamed her Princess Louise and after a put her on the New Westminster run against the Hunt Princess Louise was a far superior boat, and by the fall of 1879 the Company forced Captain Irving to come to terms, under which he and the Company operated Princess Louise, Wilson G. Hunt and Enterprise jointly under Irving's management as the Royal Mail Line.
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Hunt was extensively repaired in 1879, and in 1881 was sold to Joseph Spratt, who was running the steamboats Maude and Caribou and Fly on the east coast of Vancouver Island as the East Coast Mail Line. Captain Spratt replaced Maude with Wilson G. Hunt on the route from Victoria to Comox and Nanaimo by way of the Gulf Islands and Chemainus
. By the end of 1883, Captain Spratt was forced to sell his East Coast Mail Company to Captain Irving's Canadian Pacific Navigation Company, in part because of serious mechanical problems with Wilson G. Hunt. While the public announcement by Captain Spratt, issued in the Victoria Colonist on December 8, 1883, was that the Wilson G. Hunt was only being withdrawn for repairs, in fact she had broken a shaft and was probably beyond repair. There was a story that Captain Spratt had two men bailing her out to keep her from sinking at the dock in Victoria while he negotiated the sale to Captain Irving This may have been true, but Spratt surely did not intend thereby to attempt to fool the astute Irving, who as Spratt well knew, was an excellent steamboat captain and had owned and commanded the Hunt before him. Irving replaced Hunt on the east coast route with Yosemite
, another former California Gold Rush sidewheeler.
Puget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...
and Sacramento, Fraser, and Columbia Rivers. She was generally known as the Hunt during her years of operation. She had a long career on the west coast of the United States and Canada, and played an important transportation role in the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
.
Namesake - Wilson G. Hunt
The ship was named after a wealthy New York businessman who was a prominent merchant and philanthropist founding the firm of Wilson G. Hunt & Co. in 1833. Among other endeavors, Hunt was connected with Peter CooperPeter Cooper
Peter Cooper was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and candidate for President of the United States...
and involved himself in many of Cooper's institutions including Cooper Union
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
and Cooper-Hewitt. Hunt was born in 1804 as simply Wilson Hunt but attached the middle initial 'G' to distinguish himself. He died in 1892 at age 88.
Design and Construction
The steamer Wilson G. Hunt was built in New York in 1849 by the Collyer yard for the excursion trade to Coney IslandConey Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
. The vessel was185.5 ft (57 m), 25.8 ft (8 m) and 6.75 ft (2 m) depth of hold.
The Hunt had an old style "steeple engine" with an enormous single cylinder of 36" bore by 108" inch stroke. The Hunt had a low-pressure boiler, which at the time was advertised as being safer than high-pressure boats.
The most unusual feature of the Wilson G. Hunt was the unusual steeple housing for her engine, which looked like an enormous slice of cheese:
Wilson G. Hunt was powered by a single-cylinder, steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
36" bore by 108" stroke, steeple type, with a low pressure boiler., 250 horsepower
Horsepower
Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...
nominal This power plant could drive the vessel at 15 knots.
The Hunts steeple engine was the only recorded use of this type on the West Coast. With this type of engine, as well as the more common walking beam type, there were special mechanical dangers. If the engine, powered by a single piston, should ever hang at dead center, the only way to move the piston to discharge the steam was to lever the paddle wheel forward with a long bar. This was extremely dangerous, as should the piston start pumping again, the bar could be flung out of the control of the men pushing it, killing them or breaking bones.
California Gold Rush steamer
For a while the Hunt ran on the New York to Haverstam route. Shortly after her completion word of the California Gold RushCalifornia Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
reached New York and the Huntwas sent round the Horn to San Francisco. The vessel nearly sank on the way.
Hunt finally arrived in San Francisco early in 1850 The journey took 322 days. The trip simply to Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
was difficult, with the Hunt arriving at that colony on March 11, 1850, in deplorable condition, having just barely survived a gale on March 9.
On arrival in San Francisco Hunt was immediately placed in the Sacramento River trade, and proceeded to make a fortune for her owners, the California Steam Navigation Company, clearing in a single year over $1,000,000. Her first owners were Richard Chenery and R.M. Jessup. Competition was fierce on the California rivers, and while "racing" as such was forbidden, steamboat captains were expected to "do their best" which in practice amounted to the same thing. A boiler explosion occurred on board the sidewheeler New World just above Benicia, California
Benicia, California
Benicia is a waterside city in Solano County, California, United States. It was the first city in California to be founded by Anglo-Americans, and served as the state capital for nearly thirteen months from 1853 to 1854. The population was 26,997 at the 2010 census. The city is located in the San...
during a race with the Wilson G. Hunt. The resultant lawsult generated a clear picture what such a contest was like during the gold rush times in California:
Later Hunts owners combined with Charles Minturn, Capt. David Van Pelt, and others to form the California Steam Navigation Company, with the objective of forming a monopoly on river transport on the Sacramento river system.
Fraser River Gold Rush
When news of the Fraser Canyon Gold RushFraser Canyon Gold Rush
The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River. This was a few miles upstream from the Thompson's confluence with the Fraser River at present-day Lytton...
reached California, Hunts owners sent her north to take advantage of the situation. Hunt arrived in Victoria in the middle of August, 1858. Because there was a shortage of British vessels, the colonial government at Victoria had decided to license American steamers to move the resultant gold rush traffic up the river. and ran for a short time on the New Westminster route. Another vessel running on the same route was the Sea Bird, which on September 7, 1858, caught fire en route and was destroyed, with the loss of two lives. Fortunately the Hunt was not far behind her and was able to take off her surviving passengers and crew.
Mails and early rate war on Puget Sound
In October 1858, Wilson G. Hunt was withdrawn from the Fraser River service and the following year plied on Puget Sound under Capt. A.M. Burns, with Daniel B. Foster as purser. Hunt had been chartered by the Olympia steamboat agent John H. Scranton, who held the mail contract for Puget SoundPuget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...
. Previously the mails had been carried by the steamer Constitution but she had been taken off the route to be repaired preparatory to being transferred to San Francisco. The shallow-draft inland steamer Hunt was regarded as being more suitable for the route than the deeper-draft ocean-going Constitution. In July 1859, the sternwheeler Julia Barclay was brought around to Puget Sound from the Columbia River, arriving on July 9 in Olympia, Washington. John H. Scranton had arranged to have her carry the mail contract which he continued to hold. For about a month Captain Burns tried to complete against the Julia on the Olympia to Victoria run, but Julias mail contract gave her an advantage and when there wasn't enough business to sustain both boats, the Hunt was tied up in Victoria for about a year.
Columbia River service
Oregon Steam Navigation Company
The Oregon Steam Navigation Company was an American company incorporated in 1860 in Washington with partners J. S. Ruckle, Henry Olmstead, and J. O. Van Bergen...
and taken to the Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
. There the Hunt operated on the route from Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
to the lower Cascades in command of Capt. John Wolf. On the Columbia, Hunt was part of a chain of steamers that transported traffic between the portages around the rapids at the Cascades of the Columbia and the second longer set of rapids to the east of The Dalles. Each set of rapids enforced a requirement to portage traffic around the obstacle and control of the portages and ready transport across them was the key to control of the river traffic. Hunts role in this system was to carry traffic up to the first portage at the Lower Cascades. She continued running on the Columbia until 1869, and during that time enjoyed a flourishing business, repeatedly carrying from 50 to 300 passengers, 100 head of stock and plenty of freight on a single trip. Her operating costs were high, but the demand for transport on the Columbia during the 1860s was so great that she was a very profitable boat. In 1869 the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, having achieved a monopoly on the Columbia River, decided to extend their steamboating ventures to Puget Sound.
Renewed rate war on Puget Sound
The monopoly sent the old steamer around to run in opposition to Duncan B Finch and the Wright family, who were operating the Eliza AndersonEliza Anderson (sidewheeler)
The PS Eliza Anderson operated from 1858 to 1898 mainly on Puget Sound, the Strait of Georgia, and the Fraser River but also for short periods in Alaska. She was generally known as the Old Anderson and was considered slow and underpowered even for the time...
, reputedly one the slowest but most profitable vessels ever to traverse the Sound. Hunt arrived in February 1869 in command of Capt. W. I. Waitt, with Josiah Myrick, purser, Frank Dodge, freight clerk, Thomas Smith, chief engineer ; James Gallegher, assistant, J. Smith, mate, and J. J. Holland, carpenter. The Hunt had been rebuilt in Portland in I865 and was in good condition, but the company could not do much with her, and to save themselves from further loss sold her to Finch in October 1869. Finch and the Wrights had, in the meantime, built the steamer Olympia, afterward called the Princess Louise, and when the competition ended, the Hunt was sent to San Francisco where she remained for ten years.
Return to Fraser River service
In 1878, the Hudson's Bay CompanyHudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
was running the Enterprise on the Fraser River run from Victoria. The Company's rival on this route was Captain John Irving
John Irving (steamship captain)
John Irving was a steamship captain in British Columbia, Canada. He began on the Fraser River at the age of 18 and would become one of the most famous and prosperous riverboat captains of the era...
, who held a monopoly on steamboat traffic on the upper Fraser routes but was hindered by the Company's activity on the lower river. In early 1878, Captain Irving travelled to San Francisco, where he found the Hunt and bought her for a cheap price. In February 1878 she was brought up by Captain Stoddard, cleaned up, repainted, and placed on the New Westminster route against Enterprise. (The Hunt 's Canadian registry number was 72676.
New Westminster's newspaper, the Mainland Guardian was impressed by the appearance of the then 30 year old steamer:
In July 1878 the Canadian government announced its decision that the transcontinental railroad would run down the Fraser River valley. There were over 5,000 tons of rails that had been piled up at Esquimalt for the construction of the Canadian Pacific's extension on Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...
. On July 23, 1878, Wilson G. Hunt transported the first shipment of these rails to New Westminster, where they were loaded on Royal City and taken up to Yale. During 1878 the Hunt , under captains Irving, Insley, and Rudlin, continued to do well against the Enterprise. In October 1878 Hudson's Bay Company bought Hunts old rival, Olympia, renamed her Princess Louise and after a put her on the New Westminster run against the Hunt Princess Louise was a far superior boat, and by the fall of 1879 the Company forced Captain Irving to come to terms, under which he and the Company operated Princess Louise, Wilson G. Hunt and Enterprise jointly under Irving's management as the Royal Mail Line.
Vancouver Island service
Chemainus, British Columbia
Chemainus is a community on the east coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.Founded as a logging town in 1858, the town is now famous for its 39 outdoor murals. This outdoor gallery has given birth to 300 businesses, including a theatre, antiques dealers, and eateries. The tourist...
. By the end of 1883, Captain Spratt was forced to sell his East Coast Mail Company to Captain Irving's Canadian Pacific Navigation Company, in part because of serious mechanical problems with Wilson G. Hunt. While the public announcement by Captain Spratt, issued in the Victoria Colonist on December 8, 1883, was that the Wilson G. Hunt was only being withdrawn for repairs, in fact she had broken a shaft and was probably beyond repair. There was a story that Captain Spratt had two men bailing her out to keep her from sinking at the dock in Victoria while he negotiated the sale to Captain Irving This may have been true, but Spratt surely did not intend thereby to attempt to fool the astute Irving, who as Spratt well knew, was an excellent steamboat captain and had owned and commanded the Hunt before him. Irving replaced Hunt on the east coast route with Yosemite
Yosemite (sidewheeler)
The steamboat Yosemite operated for almost fifty years on San Francisco Bay, the Sacramento River, inland coastal waters and the lower Fraser River in British Columbia, and Puget Sound.-Design:...
, another former California Gold Rush sidewheeler.
Scrapped and burned for metal
in 1884, Hunt was laid up in Victoria's inner harbor. She stayed on the beach in front of Cook's shipyard until 1890, when she was broken up where she lay by the San Francisco junk dealers Cohn & Co., and burned for her metal.Further reading
- Faber, Jim, Steamer's Wake—Voyaging down the old marine highways of Puget Sound, British Columbia, and the Columbia River, Enetai Press, Seattle, WA 1985 ISBN 0-9615811-0-7
- Gibbs, Jim, and Williamson, Joe, Maritime Memories of Puget Sound, Schiffer Publishing, West Chester PA 1987 ISBN 0-88740-044-2
- Newell, Gordon R., and Williamson, Joe, Pacific Steamboats Bonanza Press, New York, NY 1958
- The New Mills' List, “Registered Canadian Steamships 1817-1930 over 75 feet” (accessed 06-17-11)