California Historical Society Quarterly/Volume 22/Steam Navigation on the Colorado River
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THE EXPLORER ON THE COLORADO RIVER, 1858
From Joseph C. Ives, Report upon the Colorado River of the West (Washington, 1861)
Courtesy of the Society of California Pioneers
Steam Navigation on the Colorado River
By Francis Hale Leavitt
Experimentation and Development, 1850-1864
ON DECEMBER 31, 1852, the San Francisco Alta California carried the novel announcement that a steamboat had ascended the Colorado River and was then lying at anchor at Fort Yuma, Arizona, loaded with supplies for the military post.1 This heroic precursor of river transportation was the small steam tug Uncle Sam. Ten days earlier the Alta California had reported that she was unable to get up to the fort, but after a persistent struggle of almost two weeks she succeeded in reaching her destination. Her arrival presaged a new period in the history of the Colorado River—an era of steam navigation which, before it came to a close early in the twentieth century, played an important role in the development of Arizona.
The voyage of the Uncle Sam was in no sense the first voyage up the Colorado River. Indeed, her arrival might be considered the termination of more than three centuries of intermittent activity on the river, during which the Spanish conquistador, the padre, and the American trapper all played important parts. Space does not permit a detailed discussion of these early years of discovery and exploration. This paper is concerned primarily with the period of steam navigation which was ushered in by the discovery of gold in California. After 1848 thousands of emigrants crowded every conceivable trail to the gold fields. On the southern route alone, by way of the Gila, it is estimated that in 1851 between twenty and sixty thousand immigrants entered California at the Gila-Colorado junction.
Clearly one of the first needs at Yuma, once this westward rush of emigrants began, was a ferry to carry across the Colorado River the gold seekers and settlers bound for San Diego. The first person to realize this need was Dr. A. L. Lincoln, who in 1849 had come from Mexico via the river to California. Returning to the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers about the first of January 1850, with the aid of several emigrants from Sonora he soon began the operation of the first commercial ferry on the Colorado.2 Trouble with the Indians ensued when a member of the party, John J. Glanton, confiscated a small boat which had been given to the Indians by a General Anderson from Tennessee, and mistreated their chief. Later, in revenge, the Indians massacred eleven of the men connected with the ferry, including Glanton and Doctor Lincoln. They then located and seized, in addition to the personal belongings of the ferrymen and their boats, an estimated fifty thousand dollars in silver and between twenty and thirty thousand in gold, which had been collected between March 1, when the ferry began to operate, and April 23, 1850, the date of the massacre. The three survivors (William Carr, Joseph A. Anderson, and Marcus L. Webster) escaped down the river in a boat. Their sworn depositions were recorded before Abel Stearns, alcalde of Los Angeles, on May 9, 1850.3
The amount of money collected in less than two months by the operators of the ferry was ample proof of a lucrative business, and shortly thereafter a new company of twelve members was organized in San Francisco to revive the ferry business at Yuma. This party, with several additional employees, chartered a boat from San Francisco to San Diego in June 1850 and purchased ox teams for the overland journey to the river. According to Louis John Frederick Jaeger, one of the members of this company, they took no iron or lumber with them, but had only food, equipment, and a supply of hand tools to be used in preparing cottonwood timbers for the boat.4 They arrived at the river on July 10 and began work immediately. On August 10 the first ferry, a small scow 12 feet wide, 35 feet long, and 2 feet deep, was put into service. Later a second and larger scow 12 feet wide and 60 feet long was constructed. Since no nails were available, wooden pegs or pins were used to hold the boats together. The ferry rates usually charged were $10 for a team and wagon and 50c for single animals, except sheep, which were generally carried across at the rate of 12½c. Business was good. Profits amounted to $884.50 in one record day when, in twenty-five trips within seven hours, 7,076 sheep were ferried across the river.5 Toll was collected generally in kind rather than in cash. For example, in November 1856 the ferrymen received three hundred sheep as payment for taking across eight hundred head. Before the end of 1850 Jaeger and William Ankrim bought out the interests of the remaining members of the company. In addition to operating the ferry business Jaeger held contracts for supplying the army post with meat and sold supplies to the immigrants. He carried on a profitable business until 1877, when the railroad reached Yuma.
The second pressing need on the Colorado, once a ferry was established, was the protection of immigrants from Indian attacks. Realizing this need, the United States Government detailed Major Samuel P. Heintzelman and a detachment of troops to the Gila junction, where they arrived in November 1850 and established Camp Independence. The troops were withdrawn the following year, but returned in February 1852. The post was then moved to the site of the missions San Pedro y San Pablo del Bicuñer and Concepcion, where Padre Francisco Garces and others had been massacred in 1781, and the ruins of which could still be seen. The new location was given the name Fort Yuma.6
From the beginning, the problem of supplying this military post proved more difficult than that of controlling the Indians. Food, equipment, and
military supplies had to be transported across the desert more than two hundred miles, in summer temperatures well above 100°. This was a new task for the United States Army. Even before Major Heintzelman's detachment was sent to Yuma, the War Department had considered establishing a water route to and up the Colorado River. At the same time that Major Heintzelman and his detachment left overland for Fort Yuma, Lieutenant George Horatio Derby was ordered to proceed by boat to the mouth of the Colorado in order to map all points important for its navigation. The object of the expedition was to "open a route of transportation by water to the mouth of the Gila, for the supply of the post to be established there."7
Derby was assigned to the 120-ton schooner Invincible ^ Capt. Alfred H. Wilcox, with a crew of thirteen. He left San Francisco on November i and sighted the mouth of the river on December 23, 1850. Proceeding upstream, he took soundings and charted the river for a distance of thirty miles before he was forced to anchor. An Indian was sent overland to Camp Independence with a note announcing the arrival of the party, whereupon Major Heintzelman left the fort with five men, reaching the Invincible on January 14. The army supplies were unloaded at Howard's Point on the Sonora bank and hauled overland by wagon to Camp Independence. After completing his survey of the river. Lieutenant Derby made the following report to the War Department:
... I have no hesitation in saying that it [the Colorado] may be navigated at any season of the year by a steamboat of eighteen or twenty feet beam, drawing two and a half to three feet water. A small stern-wheel boat, with a powerful engine and thick bottom,
I would respectfully suggest to be a proper . . . vessel for this navigation At the present
season (January, February and March) supplies from vessels arriving from the gulf may be landed near Arnold's point, upon the eastern bank, and a road being made from the post . . . they might be transported by wagons across in three days. It would be preferable, however, to establish a depot . . . from which a small steamboat could carry more to the post in twenty-four hours than a hundred wagons could transport in a week. Either of these methods would be far preferable to the present slow, laborious and uncertain mode of supplying by wagons and pack mules . . . from San Diego.8
The effect of the Derby report was far-reaching, first, because it expressed a conviction that the river was navigable, and secondly, because it led directly to the first step in the introduction of steam navigation on the Colorado River, the testing period. It was upon the outcome of these tests during the next decade that the success or failure of the experiment was to be determined. Meanwhile the stock of supplies at the post was reaching the point of depletion. Government action was characteristically slow, and on June 5, 1 85 1, with no relief in sight, it was necessary to abandon the Yuma post. Major Heintzelman returned to San Diego with the majority of his forces, leaving only a guard of one officer and ten men at the fort to afford protection to the ferry company.9 After the withdrawal of the troops, Indian hostilities increased, and on December 6 the remaining guard under Lieuten ant Thomas William Sweeny was forced to retreat to San Diego.10 It is probable that the ferrymen also left at this time, as they were few in number and the Yumas were in a threatening mood.11
The abandonment of Fort Yuma was to be temporary, pending the solution of the supply problem. In the meantime a number of the ferrymen, realizing the significance of the Derby report and having sold their ferry interests to Jaeger in 1850, determined to organize a navigation company. Chief among these was George Alonzo Johnson.12 In 1851 he secured a contract to provision the military post. The Army cooperated in the venture, and before the end of October the U. S. transport Sierra Nevada, under command of Captain A. H. Wilcox, left San Francisco for San Diego. Here two months were spent fitting out the expedition, which finally put to sea for the Colorado on January 24, 1852. The aim was to ascend the river, if possible, to Fort Yuma.13 Should the Sierra Nevada find it impossible to reach that point. Captain Johnson, who was on board, planned to transport the cargo the remaining distance on two flatboats which were to be made on the Colorado from frames which had been constructed in San Francisco. Commenting on this new enterprise, the Herald states, "More than ordinary interest is felt by our inhabitants in this, the pioneer vessel in a new avenue of trade. . . ."14 Meantime a detachment under Major Heintzelman was dispatched overland to the fort from San Diego.15 Reoccupation was effected on February 28, 1 852, and before the end of that year the military command numbered 11 officers and 188 men.
Two months passed, but still no word was received concerning the Sierra Nevada. The fort was destitute of provisions, and word soon reached San Diego that Major Heintzelman would "soon be obliged to resort to mule steaks, unless he gets supplies . . . shortly."16 As it turned out, the Sierra Nevada reached the mouth of the river on February 17, although word of her arrival was not received in San Diego until April 2. 17 Proceeding upstream, Wilcox anchored his boat some seventy miles from the fort. Nine days were spent in constructing the two flatboats, each of which was 50 feet long, 1 8 feet wide, and 3 feet deep. They were immediately loaded, and an attempt was made to pole them up to the fort. The difficulties experienced were anything but heartening. On the first trip one boat was "swamped" and the boat and entire cargo were lost. The contractors persevered in their efforts, but the Alta California reported that "Major Heintzelman's command at Camp Yuma uses up the stores about as fast as the contractors can deliver them."18
It soon became evident that flatboats could not meet the requirements of the post.19 Consequently it is not surprising that a new contract was awarded to Captain James Turnbull for the period from July to the end of the year. It called for a payment of $120 a ton for the first cargo delivered at Fort
Yuma and $50 a ton for all that might be needed for the remainder of the year.20
Captain Turnbull decided to meet the problem of supplying Fort Yuma by steam navigation. In an effort to carry out the terms of his contract with dispatch, he had parts for a river steamer shipped to the mouth of the river on the U. S. transport Capacity, which the Alt a California lists as sailing from San Francisco on August 2, under command of Captain Driscoll.21 She probably arrived at the mouth of the river near the end of that month, for on October 18, 1852, Sweeny writes: "The supply steamer has been two months on the river without sending us anything. I expect that they found more difficulty than they anticipated with the steam tug ... I think they'll be lucky if they ever get up here."22 By November the first steamer to operate on the Colorado was completed and honored with the name Uncle Sam. She was not an imposing craft, even when judged by the standards of her day, and was more correctly called a steam tug than a river steamer. She is described as having no deck and measuring 6^ feet in length, 12 to 15 feet in width of beam, and 3 feet in depth. She was a "side-wheeler," equipped with a twenty to twenty-five horsepower steam locomotive type engine, and had a capacity of forty tons.
December 3, 1 852, was a momentous day at Fort Yuma, occasioned by the arrival of the Uncle Sam. Sweeny, an eyewitness to the event, wrote: "The steamer Uncle Sam, so long expected from below, arrived at the post on the 3rd with about twenty tons of commissary stores etc. She was fifteen days coming up the river from where the schooner Capacity is lying, 1 20 miles from the post."23 To celebrate the occasion Captain Turnbull invited the officers from the fort and several others to join him in a short excursion up the Gila and Colorado rivers on the eighth. Sweeny, a member of the party, reports: "The trip was rather pleasant than otherwise, more on account of its novelty than anything else, . . . for we got pretty well sprinkled [from the two side paddle-wheels] during the voyage."24
The immediate problem, however, was to discharge the Capacity and transport the supplies to Fort Yuma. A second trip to the post was completed on the twenty-fifth, twelve days having been consumed in the ascent, and a third one on January 20, 1853, with about forty tons of commissary stores.25 In March it was reported that she was making faster trips, only twelve days being consumed in the round trip to the mouth of the river and back. However, there still remained three loads aboard the Capacity to be delivered, and that boat already had been at anchor on the river for some seven months. The Uncle Sam, it seems, never had been able to supply the entire needs of the post, for wagon trains were constantly engaged in freighting goods overland from San Diego. 26 There can be little doubt that she was deficient in power and her success became more and more a matter of question.
To overcome the problem of her lack of power, Captain Turnbull returned to San Francisco, where he secured a new store of supplies for the post and a more powerful engine for the Uncle Sam. He left San Francisco on the schooner General Patterson and arrived at the mouth of the river in May 1 853.-^ To his disappointment he reached the fort only to learn that the Uncle Sam had sunk. The Herald reported that she had been moored at Ankrim's Ferry to be cleaned out preparatory to putting in the new engine, and that a hole had been bored through the bottom to let the water in. Through neglect, "the boat filled and sank and was carried off down the river by the strong current."-^ Twice thwarted in his enterprise, Turnbull returned to San Francisco on May 28, this time to acquire a boat in which to install the new machinery left on the river. ^^ In San Francisco he refuted the story of the sinking, saying that no hole had been bored in the boat but that she had been snagged by drifting timber and had sunk. From this point Captain Turnbull is heard of no more in connection with the navigation of the Colorado.^*' It is probable that the risk and expense incurred were more than he was prepared to meet, and that consequently he was forced to abandon the project. Again the former method of transportation by mule team from San Diego had to be resumed to supply the fort with provisions. Although the first attempt at steam navigation had failed, it proved more conclusively to those on the river that it could becorne an established institution. Moreover, there were others willing to take the risk.^^
The failure of Captain Turnbull provided an opportunity for Johnson to resume his attempts at navigation on the Colorado. Because of his own experience and the information gained through the efforts of Captain Turnbull, he felt sufficiently confident to organize the George A. Johnson Company in 1853.^- Other members of the firm were Benjamin M. Hartshorne and Captain A. H. Wilcox. On October 7 of that year, Johnson sailed from San Francisco on the brig General Viel^ carrying parts for a new steamer to be erected on the Colorado. By January 1854, the new boat, the General Jesup, was completed. Like the Uncle Sam she was a side- wheeler equipped with a seventy horsepower engine, was 104 feet long, 17 feet in beam or 27 feet over her paddle boxes, and had a capacity of fifty tons. To her belongs the honor of being the first vessel to navigate successfully the Colorado River. Her trial runs were satisfactory, and by April Captain Johnson was back in San Francisco, where he reported that she had successfully carried the entire cargo of supplies up to the fort and was then tied up at Yuma awaiting the arrival of other ships.^^
The early years of navigation on the river were difficult ones. Fate was not kind to boats on the Colorado. On September 20, 1854, the boiler of the General Jesup exploded while she was tied up at Ogden's Landing on the Sonora bank below Yuma, killing one man and scalding others. To add to this disaster, the schooner General Patter son j in attempting to enter the
mouth of the river, ran up the wrong channel, struck a sand bar, and was left hanging in a precarious position. Troops were rushed to the scene of the accident to discharge the cargo, as it was feared that she might break up. Meanwhile Captain Johnson returned to San Francisco for additional supplies and the necessary parts to repair the damaged General Jesup. At the fort the explosion proved a serious drawback, and for a second time wagon supply trains were dispatched from San Diego to provision the garrison. By December the damage was repaired, and the steamer was again running regularly to the mouth of the river from Yuma.^*
With the successful operation of the General Jesup, steam navigation on the Colorado became an established fact. However, the real test to determine whether trade could be carried on profitably over a period of time still had to be made. The Johnson Company was determined to make a success of the venture and began the construction of a third river steamer, the Colorado. Her hull was laid in San Francisco, but she was taken to the mouth of the river to be completed and to have her machinery installed.^^ She was longer than either of the first two steamers, being 1 20 feet, and was much more powerful. The most important revolution in her design, however, was the stern-wheel, which had been recommended four years earlier by Lieutenant Derby. Tests soon proved that to operate efficiently in narrow channels, through shallow water or for cutting through sand bars, the stern- wheel was indispensable. The Colorado began operating in December 1855, as evidenced by the following comment from Yuma on the fourteenth of that month: "The express rider informs us that the new steamer Colorado . . . had been completed and had arrived at the Fort. She is said to be a fine boat, and well adapted for the navigation of that river."^®
Within five years after steamboats had been successfully introduced on the Colorado, substantial progress had been made in developing steam navigation both to the mouth of the river and upstream. The opening of the ocean route from San Francisco to the river's mouth was greatly furthered by United States naval vessels ordered to the Colorado with supplies for the Yuma garrison.
A check of these vessels engaged in the ocean trade includes the U. S. schooners Invincible, Capacity, Monterey, General Patterson, and Humboldt, the U. S. transport ship Sierra Nevada, and the brig General Viel, all operating before the end of 1855. In that year privately owned vessels, at least three in number, began commercial activity." The naval vessels, however, did not cease operation immediately. The schooner Patterson ran until 1857; the Monterey until 1858; the Floyd made trips in 1859 and 1860; and the General Jesup carried on from 1862 to 1865.^^ On the river itself two steamers, General Jesup and Colorado, made regular runs from Fort Yuma to the mouth,^^ where they customarily awaited the arrival of the oceangoing vessels. When the latter arrived, they cast anchor in mid-channel and
transferred their cargo directly to the river steamers.40 These in turn transported both freight and passengers upstream to the post. This operation required from several days to as many weeks, depending on the stage of the river and the good fortune of the pilot in getting through. Meanwhile the ocean-going vessels were required to ride at anchor until the entire cargo was discharged.41
Up to 1856, trade was confined entirely to Fort Yuma, but when miners began to open claims along the river Johnson became interested in the possibility of navigating the river above this point. In 1856, after obtaining the support of the Callfornia legislature, he went to Washington, where he succeeded in getting an appropriation of seventy-five thousand dollars to determine the navigability of the Colorado above Yuma. The money was not spent, and when a change of administration occurred. Lieutenant Joseph C. Ives was appointed to carry on this investigation. Ives wrote to Johnson asking for particulars about the river and inquiring about the probable cost of transporting a party to the head of navigation. Johnson replied that he believed $3,500 would cover the cost and offered the use of one of his boats. Ives, however, determined to act independently.42 On November 1, 1857, he left San Francisco for the mouth of the Colorado River on the 120- ton Monterey. His party included technicians for the study of the surrounding country and was prepared to make extensive observations and maps of the area.
On board the Monterey were parts for the fourth boat to operate on the river, the small iron-hull steamer Explorer. She was built in Philadelphia and was so constructed that after her trial runs on the Delaware River she could be dismantled and shipped to San Francisco by way of Panama. Assembly took place at the mouth of the river during December, and just a month from the date of her arrival she was launched by moonlight at high tide on the thirtieth. In spite of the fact that she had been an expensive and unnecessary investment and that she was less than half the size of Johnson's Colorado^ Ives proudly surveyed her and wrote: "This morning the 'Explorerunderwent a critical inspection. She is fifty-four feet long from the extremity of the bow to the outer rim of the stern wheel. Amidships, the hull is left open, like a skiff, the boiler occupying a third of the vacant space. At the bow is a little deck, upon which stands the armament— a four-pound howitzer."43
Captain D. C. Robinson was secured from the Johnson Company to pilot the Explorer, since he had had considerable experience on the river. The expedition got under way on December 31, 1857. After proceeding some distance, Ives left the boat and proceeded overland to the fort, where other members of his expedition were awaiting him. Here he experienced a great disappointment, one which he scarcely mentions in his voluminous report.
Johnson, who had been instrumental in getting the government appro priation, naturally felt disgruntled when he was entirely disregarded by Ives. Consequently, he explained, "I determined to take the steamer I first built and go up the river. So, while he was putting his craft together, I fitted up the steamer Ge?ieral Jesup, and applied to the commanding officer of Fort Yuma for an escort."** Captain William A. Winder granted his request and detailed a certain Lieutenant White to take command of fifteen men and a mountain howitzer to accompany the expedition. On December 20, 1857, eleven days before Ives started from the mouth of the river, Johnson and his party left Yuma for the stated purpose of determining whether a route could be opened by way of the Colorado to Utah, by which troops could be sent to the aid of General Albert Sidney Johnston in putting down the Utah rebellion. The ulterior motive of the expedition was to win for Johnson the credit expected by the Ives party.
Contrary to the popular belief that he reached Las Vegas Wash and probably the Virgin River, Johnson states that he got only as far as El Dorado, seventy-four miles above Fort Mohave.*^ He determined this to be the head of navigation and returned.
Meanwhile Lieutenant Ives had taken aboard the remainder of his personnel at Fort Yuma and started on. To his embarrassment the Explorer floundered on a sand bar a short distance above and in plain sight of the fort. Here he was forced to remain for an entire afternoon and night, much to the amusement of the garrison. It must have been with heightened feeling of chagrin that, as his crew struggled upstream somewhat later in the small Explorer J he met Johnson steaming along homeward with a much larger boat, already having explored most of the territory that he, at great expense, had been sent to examine.*^ The expedition continued up the river until March 8, when the Explorer ran onto a sunken rock in the vicinity of Black Canyon, ripping her bow apart. She was repaired near the scene of the accident three days later. Ives had now reached a point on the river higher than that attained by Johnson, but because of the accident he decided to go no farther with the boat. Launching a skiff, a small party proceeded on to what later proved to be Las Vegas Wash. Mistaking it for the long looked for Virgin River, the party turned back confident that they had fully accomplished what they had set out to do.
As a result of these two expeditions, not only was much learned about the character of the river and the surrounding region above Yuma, but both Johnson and Ives expressed the belief that the Colorado was navigable for river steamers as far as the Rio Virgin, although neither of them had reached that point.*^
After returning to Yuma the Explorer was sold at auction to the George A. Johnson Company. She proved very unmanageable and consequently saw little active service on the river.*^ She is said to have got out of control at the mouth of the Gila and was finally hauled in at Pilot Knob. During
high waiter she broke away from her moorings and drifted into a slough some sixty-five miles below Yuma. Finally her machinery was removed, but no attempt was made to salvage the hull. She was probably lost sometime before 1865. In 1873 the Sentinel reported that due to the changing course of the river she was then one hundred and fifty yards from the stream but could not be seen, owing to the height of the weeds surrounding her.*^ In 1929, a surveying party discovered and identified her patched hull, then more than a mile away from the river.^^
Thus, by 1859, tests carried on by the United States transport schooners had opened the ocean route to the mouth of the river, the experiments of Turnbull and Johnson had established the beginnings of steam navigation on the Colorado, and the explorations of Johnson and Ives had demonstrated the possibility of navigating the stream several hundred miles above Yuma. But the testing period was not over. Up to this time ocean-going vessels to the mouth of the river had been the smaller, wind-driven type, not exceeding two hundred tons capacity. The possibility of using fifteen-hundred to twothousand-ton steamers was next advanced. The chief question was whether these larger craft could enter the mouth of the river. The answer to the problem was sought in the much publicized voyage of the ocean steamer Uncle Sam, a. vessel of 1,438 tons, owned by Charles K. Garrison of San Francisco. She was chartered by the army to carry troops to establish a new post at Fort Mohave and left San Francisco on February 10, 1859, with five companies of troops numbering 350 men, 200 mules which were later discharged at San Diego, and 300 tons of freight. She arrived at the river on February 27 and anchored some twenty miles below the mouth.^^ The river must have presented a picture teeming with activity during her stay, for in addition to the two river steamers, the General Jesup and the Colorado^ assisting in the discharge of her cargo, there were the schooners Monterey, Flying Dart, Raymond, and the Mexican barque Carmelita all actively engaged in trade.^^
The experiment proved successful, and later that same year the 295-ton steamer Santa Cruz made a similar trip to the Colorado. In 1 866, the 103 1 -ton steamer Oregon made two trips. She left San Francisco for the Colorado on February 18 and returned on March 25 with 330 soldiers and 42 passengers. A second trip was made in May, when she returned with 307 soldiers and 23 passengers. After this time she was advertised to make regular sailings and the date for a third voyage was set, but for some unknown reason the plan did not materialize.^^ A third steamer, the Continental, left San Francisco in October 1869, transporting a command of three hundred troops to the mouth of the river.^*
Meanwhile development on the river kept pace with the expanding military and mining activities. Owing to the need of supplying two military forts and also because of the discovery of rich gold and silver deposits along the Colorado in 1862, an added impetus was given the river trade, and as a result, the George A. Johnson Company was forced to increase its carrying capacity. In May 1859, construction was begun on a machine shop at Colorado City, opposite Yuma, and this same year the fifth steamer to operate on the river was launched. She was constructed at the Gridiron, thirty-five miles north of Robinson's Landing, and arrived at Yuma on her maiden voyage on September 1, 1859.^^ She was 140 feet long, had a capacity of 100 tons and was named the Cocopah in honor of the Indian tribes on the river delta.
By 1861 the General Jesup was scrapped, and the demands of increased mining activity made it imperative that she be replaced by a larger and more powerful steamer. Two years later the Mohave, the sixth steamer to appear on the Colorado, was launched at Yuma.^e She was 133 feet long, 28 feet in width of beam and had a capacity of 192.61 tons. By 1864 the Colorado Steam Navigation Company had been on the river for ten years.^^ It was operating three vessels, the Colorado, the Cocopah, and the Mohave, each costing from twenty to forty thousand dollars, and trips were being made as far up the river as Fort Mohave, three hundred miles above Yuma.^^
The last years of the period of experimentation and development were marked by an increasing demand on the part of the citizens of Arizona for more adequate transportation facilities. During both the flood season and low water, goods often piled up at the mouth of the river awaiting shipment to the interior while the populace fumed at the delay. Writing in December 1863, a correspondent commented:
The steamer left here some eighteen days since to go to Fort Mohave, for seventeen of which she has lain high and dry on a sand bar, about thirty miles above La Paz. Provisions are very dear. ... It is reported here that over one thousand tons of freight are now lying at Fort Yuma and at the mouth of the river, waiting for conveyance hither . . . the steamer cannot possibly bring more than thirty tons of freight per trip. Articles that were shipped on the Ford about the first of September have not arrived yet.^^
A similar letter written in December of that year states that it took eight days to make a round trip to the mouth of the river from Yuma and about forty days to Fort Mohave. There were then six hundred tons of freight at the mouth of the river awaiting shipment.^° It was this dissatisfaction which led to the founding of a rival company in 1 864 and the opening of the second phase of steam navigation on the Colorado River, a period distinguished by keen commercial rivalry and by an attempt to extend the commerce of the river north to the Utah settlements.
Rivalry and Expansion, 1864-1870
Almost from the time of their arrival in Salt Lake Valley in July 1 847, the Mormon people took measures to establish economic connections with the Pacific Coast. In November they sent Porter D. Rockwell, Jefferson Hunt,
and some thirteen others to Los Angeles to obtain provisions, seeds, and livestock. This marked the beginning of the Utah-California trade.
The plan of Brigham Young for building a self-sustaining empire in the West called for an outlet to the sea on the Pacific Coast. A portion of the seacoast in the vicinity of San Diego was to serve as the desired outlet for the State of Deseret, organized in March 1849 and designed to include all of Utah and parts of present day Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. It was the plan of the church to connect that harbor with Salt Lake by a line of posts along the Old Spanish Trail. The idea, however, was abandoned when an act of Congress on April 9, 1850, organized the Territory of Utah and set California as the western boundary. Young's idea of economic independence, however, was not abandoned. He needed cotton for his followers, and consequently, in 1850, the church purchased the San Bernardino ranch. In June of the next year two hundred settlers arrived, and way stations were established from San Bernardino to Utah along the route approximating the present U. S. Highway 91. The plan was further advanced in June 1855, when Las Vegas Mission, at what is now Las Vegas, Nevada, was founded. Here a fort was constructed, crops were planted, a lead mine w^as developed, and missionary work was carried on among the Indians. However, when the United States Army came to Utah in 1857, both of these posts were abandoned and the settlers were recalled.
A third attempt to unite the Utah Territory with the sea was made in 1864. This involved transportation on the Colorado River. The plan was to establish a warehouse at the head of navigation with the hope of bringing goods from the coast to that point, whence they could be carried overland to Salt Lake City. Such a plan had long been developing in the minds of church leaders. In 1851 the church presidency wrote to Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich, ecclesiastical heads of the San Bernardino Mission:
. . . we learn that there are some surveys making from the mouth of the Colorado to the mouth of the Gila, and upwards, and some trading posts, or settlers in that vicinity but we have not particulars enough to form a just estimate of the practicability of navigating the Colorado, above the Gila, or of making settlements anywhere in that vicinity If light steamers can pass up the Colorado opposite our southern settlements, or the south east portion of Utah territory, we want to know it, together with all other information which can be obtained respecting facilities for passing the Saints from any part of the world, up said river; and wish you to be on the alert for any such information, and give us all the news you can get every mail.61
Again in 1853 the Deseret Neivs observed that boats were running on the river and that a plan was under way to start operations above Yuma in an attempt to facilitate Utah trade.62 A similar plan was advanced at Colorado City the following year.63
With the colonists who were called to settle Las Vegas Mission in June 1855 came an exploring party of five headed by Rufus Allen. Allen was instructed to explore down the river, beginning at the point nearest Las Vegas,
and to determine its navigability. Selecting two additional members from the mission, he proceeded to the Colorado and explored it from June 18 to 22. He reported that Las Vegas was twenty-eight miles from the nearest point on the river, and that the stream was, with one exception, navigable.64
A second expedition was sent out by the church to examine the river in 1858. Under the leadership of Amasa M. Lyman and Ira Hatch, an Indian interpreter, the party of nineteen left Southern Utah and, going by way of Las Vegas, arrived at the river on April 13. They explored downstream to the military crossing at Mohave, examined the river, and returned to Las Vegas.65 A third exploring party was sent out by way of the Grand Wash, Arizona, in 1867. They brought a sixteen-foot skiff from St. George, Utah, and, with Jacob Hamblin as guide, navigated the Colorado from the Wash through Boulder Canyon to Callville, a distance of sixty miles.66
Meanwhile Salt Lake authorities were negotiating with San Francisco merchants for the transporting of goods to Utah by way of the Colorado River. A company was organized early in 1861. It was represented in San Francisco by R. E. Raimond and in Salt Lake by Jefferson Hunt and Ebenezer Hanks.^^ The company's advertisement for freight, first appearing on July 7, occasioned considerable interest among San Francisco merchants and continued to run in the Aha California until August 16. No shipments were made, however, and enthusiasm for the project died. A year later a similar project was revived at La Paz, and a correspondent wrote that "parties . . . have offered to deliver Salt Lake freight at the mouth of the Rio Virgin ... at the rate of seven cents a pound. . . ."^^
On December 12, 1853, John and Enoch Reese of Salt Lake dispatched twenty-four wagons and eighty head of stock to San Bernardino, opening trade with California on a large scale.^^ During the next sixteen years, business between Salt Lake and Los Angeles continued in an amazing volume. In January 1864, the Alta California reported: "It is a common occurrence to see trains of from 5 to 20 wagons . . . from Salt Lake on their way to Los Angeles after goods";^^ and a month later an observer wrote that he "counted some sixty-seven eight- and ten-mule teams, from Great Salt Lake City bound for San Pedro for merchandise and machinery. Fourteen of these wagons were loaded with cotton from the Santa Clara settlements, Utah.'"^^ It was estimated that 1 1 50,000 in merchandise left Los Angeles for Salt Lake between November 1863 and May 8, 1864.^^
Up to 1864, the George A. Johnson Company held a complete monopoly of the river trade. In that year a small group headed by Samuel Adams, of Arizona, more familiarly known as "Steamboat" Adams, began action to induce a second company to begin operations there. Adams devoted the next six years almost exclusively to the development of the river trade. His activities led him to California, Utah, and finally to Washington, D. C. In a letter to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, under whose orders he was
supposedly acting, he claimed to have descended the Colorado some three hundred miles on a raft in the spring of 1 864, and reported that the river was navigable. He made his way to San Francisco, where, acting as a selfappointed chamber of commerce for Arizona, he succeeded in arousing interest in trade with Utah. Just when his voyage was made, or whether it was made at all, is a matter questioned by many. It is known, however, that, on January 8, 1 864, at a meeting of San Francisco merchants interested in "increasing the facilities for steam navigation on the Colorado," a committee of six, with Caleb S. Hobbs as chairman, was appointed to investigate the subject of transportation on the Colorado.'^^ A week later the committee reported that it had found evidence of monopolistic practices on the part of the Johnson Company, that provisions and tools had accumulated at the mouth of the river until there were then twelve hundred tons lying exposed to the weather, some of which had been there four months, and that ten to fifty tons of ore were awaiting shipment at each of the river landings. On January 25 the Aha California carried the committee report that the barque Hidalgo J then at the mouth of the river, would be detained some ninety days with three hundred tons of freight for want of river transportation inland.
As a result of these investigations the committee recommended an independent organization; consequently a company was formed. Thomas E. Trueworthy, then engaged in steam transportation on the Sacramento, was interviewed and agreed to begin operations on the Colorado within sixty to seventy-five days. Trueworthy acted immediately, and on February 1 7 his combination barge-schooner Victoria sailed for the Colorado, where she was to act as a store ship for freight until it could be sent to the interior. '^^ The first river steamer belonging to the new company put out from San Francisco shortly after the Victoria. She was the 130-foot, 50-ton Esmeralda, which had been constructed in San Francisco in 1862 and was operating on the Sacramento.^^ By March she reached the Colorado. Trueworthy was ready for business, and on the eleventh of that month, the Alta California carried the first advertisement of vessels scheduled to sail for the "New Union Line" to the Colorado.
In August, the Philadelphia Mining Company, engaged in mining at EI Dorado Canyon, placed a second rival steamer, the Nina Tilden, on the river. She was a larger boat than the Esmeralda, with a capacity of 107 tons.^^ Under the command of Captain Paddy Gorman, she left San Francisco on the sixth of August and began operation on the Colorado before the end of the month.^^ Thus the picture of steam navigation on the river was completely altered by August 1864. Whereas in March, four months earlier, there was only one company in complete control of the river trade, there were now three advertising "immediate dispatch" to the river. '^^ Business was not sufiicient to justify the maintenance of such an increase in trading facilities, and consequently vessels often waited weeks before a sufficient cargo 
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THE COLORADO ON DRY DOCK OF THE COLORADO NAVIGATION COMPANY AT PORT ISABEL
From Charles G. Johnson, History of the Territory of Arizona and the Great Colorado of the Pacific (San Francisco, 1868)
Courtesy of Mr. Francis P. Farquhar
By 1865 the Colorado had worn out, and, in order to meet the challenge of his rivals, Johnson launched the ninth steamer to operate on the river. Like her predecessor she was named the Colorado, and in order to distinguish between them the later one will be referred to as the Colorado No. 2. She was laid out in San Francisco and put together at the Yuma yard."^^ She had but one deck, a square stern, and a capacity of 178.59 tons.^*^ The following year, at Sacramento, the Johnson Company was incorporated as the Colorado Steam Navigation Company with a capital stock of $500,000. Aided financially by his new company and materially by his fleet of three steamers, and having the advantage of twelve years of experience, Johnson returned to the Colorado determined to meet the challenge of his rivals.
Since five river steamers represented a carrying capacity more than adequate for local needs, boat owners and merchants in both San Francisco and Salt Lake City again took steps to open trade negotiations. In January 1864, an agent from Salt Lake appeared at El Dorado Canyon to investigate the possibility of obtaining supplies for Utah, but as none were there he was obliged to go to Los Angeles.^^ In October 1864, the Mormon Church and a number of Salt Lake merchants decided on a definite course of action. They appointed Anson Call as agent to locate a road from the Utah settlements by way of the Muddy River to the highest point of navigation on the Colorado, where he was to construct a warehouse preparatory to receiving freight from California. Call left St. George, Utah, on November 24, 1864, with a party of five, and, going by way of the Muddy, reached the Colorado on December 2. A suitable landing site was selected a few miles above Las Vegas Wash, on a black, rocky point well above high water mark.^^ The party explored the river south to Hardyville, 150 miles below, and, upon their return, staked out a warehouse and some forty lots for the proposed settlement which was to be named Callville. Call then returned to St. George, leaving two men to excavate for the foundations.
To serve as way stations for the river traffic, and as a source of supply for cotton and other semitropical products, the Church established St. Thomas and St. Joseph on the Muddy some distance north of Callville, in 1861.
Joining a company of settlers on their way to the Cotton Mission in Arizona, Call returned to the Colorado three weeks later, bringing a surveyor and several stone masons. The party constructed a kiln, burned lime from rock found in the vicinity, and with the aid of the Indians erected in twenty-seven days a stone warehouse seventy-five feet long and thirty feet wide, with walls twelve feet thick. Adjoining the warehouse was an office eighteen by thirty-four feet divided into two apartments.^^ Supplies were purchased from William H. Hardy, of Hardyville, and sent up the river on flatboats.^* Hardy visited the warehouse in January and selected two lots, intimating that he would "commence business in the mercantile line" at once. Shortly before the end of February the warehouse was completed.
In the meantime Samuel Adams again asserted himself in behalf of the Utah trade, and in December 1864 he induced Captain Trueworthy to attempt a trip to the Callville landing, then in the course of construction. On January 5 an Alta California correspondent stated that the Esmeralda was nearing La Paz on her way to Callville, "with freight for the Mormon settlements at Santa Clara." Nothing more was heard of her until Adams and Trueworthy arrived in Salt Lake City in March 1865. In April the California papers carried a complete account of the event.
The complete success of Captain Thomas E. Trueworthy in ascending the Colorado River to within four hundred miles of Great Salt Lake City, in the steamer Esmeralda, towing a barge and transporting one hundred tons of freight, may be considered an era in the trade of Utah and Arizona Territories. . . . Captain Trueworthy was induced by M. Samuel Adams to test the character of the river's channel, by running a steamer and towing a barge loaded up as far as possible. Arriving at Hardyville, they were assured that the river could be navigable only thirteen miles further. . . . The steamer ascended ... to within twenty-five miles of Callville, and could have reached that latter place without difficulty, and only stopped short of it because the warehouse had not been completed and the parties who were to have built it had been induced to leave through misrepresentation by interested persons.^^
According to Adams, they were met at Roaring Rapids by messengers from Callville, who informed them that the freighters from Utah who were expecting the supplies had received letters, from someone opposing the enterprise, stating that the steamer had broken down and the expedition had been abandoned. Trueworthy then returned to El Dorado Canyon, where he left his boat and cargo, and with Adams traveled overland to Salt Lake to inform the merchants of their arrival.^^ Adams then went to San Francisco, where he again took up his campaign. In a warm speech before a group of merchants there, he recited the numerous attempts of the Johnson Company to hinder their ascent of the river. Among these were charges that Johnson had induced the insurance companies of San Francisco to refuse to insure the Esmeralda, that attempts had been made to "gum" the boat's machinery, that someone had tried to fire the cabin, that timbers had been floated down the river in an effort to wreck her, and that finally the boat had been cut loose from her moorings.^^ Several similar accounts attempt to link Hardy with designs to prevent river traffic from passing above his establishment, which he desired to maintain as the center of trade on the upper Colorado. It is known that he was anxious to get a congressional appropriation of $150,000 for clearing the channel for navigation; he undoubtedly felt that his chances for doing so would be lessened if boats were already running successfully through that portion of the river supposed to be impassable.
Encouraged by the continued reports of the navigability of the Colorado to Callville and by the visit of Trueworthy and Adams, William Jennings of Salt Lake City made the second attempt to get a shipment up to the Mormon warehouse. The goods left San Francisco on the schooner Isabel on March 23, 1865, and reached the mouth of the river in April. There transfer was made to the Cocopah, of the Johnson Company, for the voyage up river. Again a long period of silence followed before an account of the voyage reached San Francisco, and again the news was disappointing.
This morning I telegraphed you that "the Colorado freight is lying at Hardy's Landing. Teams returned empty. Don't pay freight." Since then Mr. Call has reached here and gives me the following information: That the steamer with the freight for Utah Landing got up the river to within ten miles of El Dorado Cañon, where she lay a short time casting off her barges, which went up to El Dorado Cañon, unloaded a quantity of freight for that place and returned, the steamer returning to Hardy's Landing and putting my freight ashore on the opposite side of the river, where there is no protection from Indians or any one else, the Captain and Mr. Hardy stating that that was the head of navigation. . . . Mr Call . . . sent two messengers— John King and Walton Phelps— to Hardyville to see if such were true. . . . they . . . saw the freight piled up on the beach close to the water, in much danger of being swept away. . . .
... At the time the steamer reached El Dorado there were 5 feet of a rise of water, which would give from 8 to 10 feet more in the channel, so that the lack of water was no obstacle. . . . Mr. Call thinks that if Hardy had not been with the steamer the Captain would have gone up to Utah Landing.
This seems to endorse Capt. Trueworthy's statements and reports, viz: that Mr. Hardy would put every obstacle in the way of the river being navigated above this landing, and endeavor to monopolize the trade and freighting of the river ^8
Thus ended the second unsuccessful attempt to reach Callville. Many would have admitted defeat, but not Samuel Adams. A year later he prevailed on Capt. Robert T. Rogers, then operating the Esmeralda for the Pacific and Colorado Steam Navigation Company, to make a third attempt to reach the Utah Landing. The leading proponent of the Salt Lake trade was the firm of R. G. Sneath, of San Francisco. Richard G. Sneath was one of the several San Francisco merchants who held stock in the Trueworthy Company, and it was largely through him that this final effort was made. In June 1866, it was reported that a branch of the Sneath Company had been established at Callville and that an agent with a large group of men had arrived "ten days ago from Salt Lake City, to place the warehouses ... in proper condition to receive merchandise which is expected in about a week."«9 In September A. P. Dibble, a San Francisco merchant, was at Callville preparing for "a shipment of goods from R. G. Sneath."^^ Preparation for the ascent to Callville was begun in June 1 866, when it was reported that the Esmeralda was tied up at Yuma waiting for flood waters to recede before going on. It was not until August that the Esmeralda, accompanied by the indefatigable Adams, was able to proceed. She reached La Paz on the eighth,^^ but it was probably near the end of October before she finally arrived at Callville. The Alta California for November 16 carried news of the momentous event.^- She towed a barge 126 feet long by 27 wide, with between 90 and 100 tons of freight, and seems not to have encountered any unusual difficulty in making the ascent. Her arrival at Callville must have been the occasion for an enthusiastic welcome, although the only report of that event states tersely: "Cannon were fired and other demonstrations of joy indulged in."^^
Meanwhile the Pacific and Colorado Stearfi Navigation Company was experiencing many difficulties in its competition with the Colorado Steam Navigation Company. River trade was not sufficient to justify Rve steamers, yet in 1867 Johnson added still another to the river fleet, the Cocopah No. 2.^^ Competition was keen. During fifteen years of shipping on the river, Johnson had built up a trade with which the Trueworthy Company was finding it very difficult to compete. Because Johnson controlled the cream of the river trade, the new company was forced to undertake the more hazardous and less profitable voyages. Furthermore the new company had begun operations with limited finances. To add to its embarrassment the company became involved in a lawsuit with the Colorado Steam Navigation Company which kept Trueworthy in San Francisco much of the time, while his boats remained tied up on the river for long intervals.^^ Consequently there is some evidence that the Esmeralda was attached for debt before September 1867.^^
In San Francisco, Sneath continued his efforts to interest merchants in the Utah trade, but with little success. Some interest was shown in October 1 866, when the following exaggerated report on cotton production on the Muddy was published in the Alta California, but again nothing was done:^^
We were, . . shown a sample of cotton received by R. G. Sneath from his agent at Callville, Arizona. . . . The sample is of the upland, or short staple variety, and ... is not to be surpassed in the most favored regions of the Southern States. It was grown by a colony of Mormons who have settled within 25 miles of Callville, and have raised this season a crop of between 70,000 and 80,000 pounds, with intent to ship to California. . . . The price of freight between San Francisco and Callville has been 5 cents per pound . . . which price competition . . . would considerably reduce. . . .^^
In September, a year later, Sneath called together a group of fifty merchants at the Exchange in San Francisco to discuss again the revival of trade with Utah. He pointed out that in 1866 he had taken goods costing $37,000 in San Francisco to Callville and, after adding a freight bill of $3 1,000 more, had been able to sell them at a profit.^^ Two more meetings were held in October at which Samuel Adams, with the aid of Captain Rogers, testified
to the unlimited possibilities of navigation on the Colorado. Following the second meeting, on the twenty-fourth, a committee was appointed to take stock subscriptions for the purpose of continuing the trade. On November 8, the committee reported that it had raised $22,000, and, although the members were charged with having property on the river from which they would benefit, the campaign continued.^^^ It is probable that as a result of these meetings, the Pacific and Colorado Steam Navigation Company was reorganized as the Arizona Navigation Company. The title did not last long, for within a few months the company sold its interest in the Esmeralda and the Nina Tilden to the Colorado Steam Navigation Company,^*^^ marking the end of four years of competition on the Colorado.^^^ Never again was the supremacy of the latter challenged; until the coming of the railroad in 1877 it remained the sole transportation agency on the river.
Although traffic on the lower Colorado was at its height in the 1870's, navigation on the upper waters of the river ceased after the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in May 1869. Little business was carried on at Callville after i %66}^^ The trip was long, the river treacherous, and freight rates high. The experiment, the brunt of which the Trueworthy Company had borne, proved too difficult and costly. As a result of the expense of the business and the competition of the Johnson Company, Trueworthy's financial insolvency and eventual withdrawal from the river trade were inevitable. The second legislative assembly of Arizona, in appreciation of their efforts, thanked Trueworthy and Adams "for their untiring energy and indomitable enterprise ... in opening up the navigation of the Colorado River,"^"* and two years later the California legislature passed a similar resolution.^^^ As for Callville, the mail rider in 1869 reported that horse thieves from St. George had "wrenched four doors from the warehouse there, constructed a raft of them, and . . . had launched out upon the turbulent stream."^^^ The old rock walls, however, remained an enduring monument to a once promising enterprise until the rising waters of Lake Mead enveloped them in their present unconventional grave.^^^
(To be continued)
NOTES
1. San Francisco Alta California^ December 31, 1852.
2. James M. Guinn, "Yuma Indian Depredations and the Glanton War," Annual Publications of the Historical Society of Southern California, VI (1903), 50.
According to Bancroft, a Mr. Howard and party descended the Gila on a flatboat which arrived at the Gila-Colorado junction on November i, 1849. Lieutenant Cave Johnson Coutts, commanding an escort to the party engaged in surveying the United States-Mexican boundary, supposedly purchased the craft and used it as a ferry during his stay there. Coutts himself mentions neither the purchase nor the ferry. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Arizona and New Mexico (San Francisco, 1889), pp. 486-87.
3. Guinn, op. cit., pp. 50-51; "Depredations by the Yumas" (deposition of W illiam
Carr), op. cit., pp. 52-56; "Origin of the Trouble between the Yumas and Glanton" (deposition of Jeremiah Hill), op. cit., pp. 57-62.
4. Bascom Ashbnry Cecil-Stevens, "A Biographical Sketch of L. J. F. laeger," Annual Publications of the Historical Society of Southern California, I (1889), 38. Louis John Frederick Jaeger (spelled also Yaeger and laeger) was born at Hamburg, Pennsylvania, in 1824. He came to California, via Cape Horn, in 1849. Members of the party organized to operate the ferry, as he recalled them, were: George A. Johnson and B. M. Hartshorne, later of the Steam Navigation Company, William Blake, and Dr. Minton, Captain Ankrim, Mr. Tough, Mr. Moses, Captain Ogden, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Potter, and Mr. Heinzelwood, whose first names he did not recall.
Edward D. Tuttle, in "The River Colorado," Arizona Historical Review, I (1928), 51, mentions Benjamin Hartshorne, George A. Johnson, Dr. Ogden, Ankrim, Minturn, Blake, Taffe, Moses, and Archibald.
5. George William Beattie, "The Diary of a Ferryman and Trader at Fort Yuma, 1855-1857," Annual Publications of the Historical Society of Southern California, XIV, Pt. II (1929), 224. The above sum is obtained by using 12V2<^ as the ferry rate. The information was taken from a record, purportedly that of Jaeger, found in 191 3 at Agua Mansa, California, where he spent his last years. This record is a brief daily account of happenings at the ferry during a two-year period from December i, 1855, to July 2, 1857.
6. A member of the company, Thomas William Sweeny, kept a journal in which he recorded important events at the fort between 1850 and 1853. He states: "We struck the Rio Colorado ... on the ist of December [1850], and after following it up for some ten or twelve miles we pitched our tents and called our position Camp Yuma, in honor of the tribe of Indians who inhabit the surrounding country. We subsequently moved to a hill a mile farther up, opposite the mouth of the Gila River . . ." On December 6, a year later, when the post was abandoned. Sweeny refers to it as Camp Independence. When the troops returned to the Colorado in February 1852, the post was probably moved to a third location and renamed Fort Yuma, for on March 12, 1853, Sweeny records: "The Colorado Ferry has moved down to within a half a mile of my old camp— 'Independence—and about six miles from here." See Thomas William Sweeny, "Military Occupation of California, 1849-1853," Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, XL VI (1909), 97-117 and 267-89.
In his report of July 15, 1853, Major Heintzelman said: "Fort Yuma was established by three small companies of the second infantry, under my command, in November, 1850." 34th Cong., 3d sess., H. Exec. Doc. 76 (1856-57), p. 34.
7. 3 2d Cong., I st sess., S. Exec. Doc. 81 (185i),p. 2.
8. Ibid., p. 20. See also George H. Derby, Topographical Reports (San Francisco: California Historical Society, 1933), pp. 61-62. The San Francisco Alta California, April 26, 1852, describes the Invincible as a naval vessel with a keel measuring 225 feet, beam of 42 feet, draft of 20 feet when loaded, and a capacity of 1,768 tons.
9. San Diego Herald, June 26, 1851.
10. Sweeny returned to the Gila with Heintzelman's command in March 1852. Sweeny, op. cit.
11. The Yuma Indians are said to have numbered 972 in October 1852. Bancroft, op. cit., p. 489.
12. George Alonzo Johnson, "The Steamer General Jesup," Quarterly of the Society of California Pioneers, IX (June 1932), no.
13. The San Diego Herald, January 24, 1852, records: "The Sierra Nevada . . . will go to sea this afternoon, in case the tide serves." See also the San Diego Herald, January 28, 1852.
14. Ibid., January 24, 1852.
15. See Sweeny, op. cit., pp. 111-12.
16. San Francisco Alta California, March 31, 1852.
17. San Diego Herald, April 3, 1852.
18. San Francisco Alta California, April 8, 1852.
19. San Diego Herald, April 30, 1852.
20. Ibid., June 28, 1852, and San Francisco Alta California, July 11, 1852. The Herald merely states that a contract was awarded to a person in Benicia, but it could be none other than Mr. Turnbull.
21. San Francisco Alta California, August 2, 1852.
22. Sweeny, op. cit., p. 276.
23. Ibid., p. 279.
24. Loc. cit.
25. Sweeny, op. cit., p. 281.
26. Sweeny, op. cit., pp. 281-86, states that a train of twenty-three wagons loaded with quartermaster's goods arrived from San Diego on January 21, 1853, four wagons on February 29, and a wagon "train" on May 8 with forage and supplies.
27. John Russell Bartlett, Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, Connected ivith the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission, During the Years 18$o, '5/, '52, and '55 (New York, 1854), p. 172.
28. San Diego Herald, July 9, 1853, and San Francisco Alta California, July 15, 1853. A notation on her register states that the Uncle Sam was lost on June 25, 1853.
29. Sweeny, op. cit., p. 287, writes under date of June 12, 1853: "The steamer Uncle Sam, while fastened at Ankrim's Ferry, filled with water from some unknown cause, and went down. O'Connell and ten men were sent down to raise her, and after two dayshard work she broke her fastenings on the third and disappeared,"
30. Yuma Arizona Sentinel, August 25, 1877. Captain Turnbull is described as "an energetic, smooth talking little fellow." Later he is reported to be running a small steamer at Mazatlan.
31. There is some evidence that the Quartermaster's Department had some intention of constructing a steamer to be operated under army supervision between the mouth of the river and Fort Yuma. The Alta California of March 26, 1853, noted that a seventyton steamer, to be used on the Colorado River, was being contracted for in San Francisco. The plan evidently did not materialize.
32. Johnson, op. cit., pp. 108-18. George Alonzo Johnson was bom at Palatine Bridge, New York, in 1824, and came to California on the steamer Panama in 1849. He operated steamers on the Colorado River until 1877 and then returned to California. He died at Old Town, San Diego, on November 27, 1903.
33. San Francisco Alta California, April 9, 1854. Many accounts list the capacity of the Jesup as sixty tons. The Record of Registers, XIII (1854-57), 28, shows that she measured 49^5 tons.
34. San Francisco Alta California, December 14, 1854, and San Diego Herald, December 9, 1854.
35. Sacramento Daily Union, August 30, 1855. Concerning the arrival of the Colorado at the mouth of the river the Union reports: "There are four vessels down the river with stores and materials for a new steamer. . . . The steamer running at present has been making five and six day trips, but can only bring thirty or forty tons. Four vessels are lying up at the mouth of the river, to be discharged by teaspoonfuls every five or six days."
36. San Francisco Aha California, December 27, 1855, and San Diego Herald, December 22, 1855. She is described as the "swiftest boat ever put on the river." Her machinery was later put in the Colorado No. 2, her boiler hauled out on the bank below Yuma, and her hull stranded at the Gridiron.
37. The private vessels, Falmouth, Captain A'leyer, George Emery, Captain Trask, and Torajjto, Captain Sangers, traded at the mouth of the Colorado during 1855.
38. The U. S. brig General Jesup must not be confused with the river steamer of the same name which operated only until 1861.
39. San Francisco Alta California, March 12 and April 7, 1856. The Colorado, although a sixty-ton boat, is reported to have brought up seventy-two tons of freight to Yuma in one trip.
40. "On April 6, 1856, George A. Johnson paid taxes on the Colorado, valued at $20,000, and on the GenH Jessup, assessed for $2,000." Jerry MacMullen, "Self-Liquidating Shipyard," Westivays, XXXIII (September 1941), 25.
41. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted citizens of the United States the right to navigate the Gulf and the Colorado River, but since Arizona had no port on the gulf, and customs duties were excessive, they avoided the latter by casting anchor off Port Isabel in mid-channel and transferring cargo and passengers directly to the river steamers.
42. Johnson, op. cit., pp. 108-18.
43. Joseph C. Ives, Report upon the Colorado River of the West Explored in iSjj and 18 $8 (Washington, D. C, 1861), p. 36.
44. Johnson, op. cit., p. in.
45. On his return trip Johnson met the Beale party returning from Los Angeles. "Saturday, January 23, 1858. We reached the Colorado river early in the morning. . . . the . . . 'General Jesup' . . . was at the crossing waiting to convey us to the opposite side." [Edward F. Beale], Wagon Road from Fort Defiance to the Colorado River, 35th Cong., ist sess., H. Ex. Doc. 124 (May 12, 1858), p. 76.
46. The Prescott Weekly Arizona Miner, May 18, 1877, and the San Francisco Alta California, February 27, 1858, carry stories of the accidental sinking of the General Jesup on her homeward voyage. She ran onto a sunken rock, breaking a hole in the bottom, and sank in the shallow water. See the account of Johnson, op. cit. Hubert Howe Bancroft, Chronicles of the Builders (San Francisco, 1891), V, 154, states that "the General Jessup was afloat again in two days." The Alta Calif orjiia, April 12, 1858, states: "the steamer Jessup, lately sunk . . . has been raised." She operated on the river until 1861. Regarding her final disposition the Yuma Arizona Sentijiel, September 28, 1878, states that her machinery was taken out and sent to San Francisco and her hull was floated into the Minturn Slough.
47. San Francisco Alta California, February 15 and 27, 1858.
48. Ibid., July 17, 1859. It was reported that the Explorer could not navigate successfully on the Colorado during high water because of the strong current.
49. Yuma Arizona Sentinel, July 5, 1873.
50. Godfrey Sykes, The Colorado Delta (Washington, D. C, 1937), pp. 91-93
51. Fort Mohave was named early in May 1859. It was deserted in April 1861, on account of the Civil War, and was not reoccupied until April 1863.
52. San Francisco Alta California, February 7, February 10, and March 17, 1859. The steamer Uncle Sam should not be confused with the small river steamer of the same name which operated in 1852-53. She was built in New York in 1852, and operated on the Pacific Coast until 1876.
53. Ibid., April 21, 1866.
54. Ibid., October 24, 1869. The Continental sailed on October 23, but discovered, after
putting to sea, that there were no rations aboard for the troops. Consequently she returned on the 24th, and was to sail that afternoon, or on the 25th.
55. San Francisco Aha California, September 9, 1859. The Alta California for March 30, 1859, describes Robinson's Landing as a single house built on stilts above high water mark, some 140 miles by water south of Yuma. There was no fresh water to be had here and the surroundings were bleak and desolate.
56. The Sacramento Daily Uiiion, June 9, 1862, contains the announcement of the launching of a "new steamer" at Yuma. In all probability it refers to the launching of the Colorado or Cocopah after they had been repaired or remodeled.
57. The name George A. Johnson & Company was discarded in 1859. The Alta California for May 17, 1859, uses the name later adopted, "Colorado Steam Navigation Co."
58. MacMullen, op. cit., p. 25. A tax receipt issued October 25, 1862, shows that the Johnson Company was assessed on three steamers valued at $15,000.
59. San Francisco Alta California, December 13, 1863.
60. Hubert Howe Bancroft, "Scraps: Arizona Miscellany." LXXXII, Pt. i, 85.
61. Latter Day Saints, "Journal History of the Church," October 23, 1851 (MS in the church historian's office. Salt Lake City, Utah) .
62. Salt Lake City Deseret News, April 2, 1853.
63. San Francisco Alta California, August 21, 1854. Colorado City later became the present-day Yuma, Arizona. It was situated across the river from Fort Yuma, California.
64. Ira J. Aliles and George W. Bean, "Record of the Las Vegas Mission, 1855-57" (MS in the historian's office. Latter Day Saints Church, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 17, 1855) . All references are made by date rather than page.
65. "St. George Stake Records, 1847-1873" (MS in Latter Day Saints Temple, St. George, Utah), I. This work contains extracts taken from Amasa M. Lyman's journal of exploration, a complete day by day account of the expedition from April 4 to May 3, 1858.
66. Salt Lake City Deseret News, July 3, 1867. A complete account of the expedition is given.
67. San Francisco Alta California, July 7, 1861.
68. Bancroft, "Scraps: Arizona Miscellany," LXXXII, Pt. 2, 279.
69. William B. Rice, "Early Freighting on the Salt Lake-San Bernardino Trail," Pacific Historical Review, XI (March 1942), 75. Extracts from a journal of a trip from Great Salt Lake City to San Bernardino, 1853-54, made by the Salt Lake merchants, John and Enoch Reese, printed in the Los Angeles Star, February 18, 1854.
70. San Francisco Evening Bulletin, January 16, 1863.
71. San Francisco Alta Calif or?iia, April 2, 1864.
72. I bid.. May 8, 1864.
73. San Francisco Evening Bulletin, January 16, 1864. Members of the committee were Caleb S. Hobbs, chairman; Samuel Adams, James S. Hatstead, John N. Risdon, Wm. R. Wadsworth, and J. B. Chevalier.
74. Yuma Arizona Sentinel, September 28, 1878. The Victoria originally was a barge intended for use on the Yang Tse in China. Trueworthy rigged her out as a four-masted schooner. She was loaded with 400,000 feet of lumber for the construction of river barges and was sent to the Colorado. Here she ran afoul of her anchor, breaking a hole in her hull. She was later towed to Port Famine Slough and was accidentally burned there when the Indians fired the slough.
75. The Esmeralda was built in San Francisco by Pat Tienman. She had one deck and a square stern. Her dimensions are listed in the Record of Registers as follows: Length 93 feet, beam 20 feet, draft 2 feet 9 inches, and tonnage ^6^%ry
76. The Nina Tilden was built in San Francisco by Martin Vice and was launched on July 23, 1864. She had one deck, a square stern, was 98 feet long, 22 feet in width of beam,
and 4 feet in depth. Her Temporary Enrollment No. 7, issued at San Diego, August 7, 1873, bears the notation, "Vessel wrecked Sept. 27/74." See also "Hayes Scraps." Ill, Arizona, Vol. 3 (Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley).
77. The agent for the mining company in San Francisco was A. F. Tilden; that for the Union Line, William R. Wadsworth; and for the Johnson Company, R. E. Raimond.
78. San Francisco Alta California, July 12, 1864. The mining company advertised the sailing of the Sarah to connect with the Nina Tilden on the river; the Johnson Company, the Storm Cloud to connect with their Colorado, Mohave, and Cocopah; and the Union Line, the Alice to connect with the Esmeralda.
79. The Record of Registers lists the Colorado No. 2 as having been built in 1865. It is possible, however, that she was constructed in 1862. The Sacramento Daily Union, July 9, 1862, carries an interesting account of a launching at Yuma which took place in May of that year, and in June the Los Angeles Star commented: "Captain Wilcox . . . arrived here on the 6th. . . . The captain informs me that he has just completed the building of a fine little steamer for the Colorado. The following are her dimensions: Length, 153 feet; 28 feet beam; 750 tons burden; draws 28 inches of water." "Hayes Scraps," VII, Arizona, Vol. 5 (Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley) . Whether it was merely a reconstruction of the Colorado No. z or a completely new vessel is unknown.
80. The most reliable information on steamer dimensions was received through correspondence with Mr. P. M. Hamer, director of research and records division. The National Archives, Washington, D. C, from files of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, Department of Commerce. The information was taken from the Record of Registers of the river steamers. For the later river steamers see also "Merchant Vessels of the United States," Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C, for the years 1892 to 1901.
81. Bancroft, "Scraps: Arizona Miscellany," LXXXII, Pt. 2, 288.
82. "Moapa Stake Records," December 2, 1864 (MS record in the office of the Latter Day Saints' church historian, Salt Lake City, Utah) .
83. Salt Lake Telegraph, March 8, 1865, and San Francisco Alta California, March 29, 1865.
84. San Francisco Alta California, January 15 and 23, 1865.
85. Bancroft, "Scraps: Arizona Miscellany," LXXXII, Pt. 2, 437. This date has been placed erroneously in 1864, but 1865 is correct. See also San Francisco Evening Bulletin, April 13, 1865, for a similar report.
86. Bancroft, "Scraps: Arizona Miscellany," LXXXII, Pt. 2, 439-40. Since the account states that they arrived before the warehouse was completed, it necessarily follows that they turned back before the end of February 1865.
87. Ibid., p. 493.
88. San Francisco Evening Bulletin, March 14 and July 8, 1865. The shipment was made by James Linforth, of San Francisco, to William Jennings, of Salt Lake City, and consisted of "Agricultural Implements, Steel, Nails, Rope, Coffee, Pepper, Groceries, etc."
89. San Francisco Alta California, June 21,1 866.
90. Prescott Weekly Arizona Miner, September 26, 1866. It is probable that the Dibble referred to was in reality Albert Dibblee, a prominent San Francisco merchant of that time.
91. San Francisco Alta California, September 8, 1866.
92. Ibid., November 16, 1866.
93. Loc. cit.
94. Yuma Arizona Sentinel, September 28, 1878. The Cocopah No. i was taken to Port Isabel, where a warehouse was built on her. Later she was accidentally burned. Her
machinery was sent to San Francisco and put aboard the Hattie Fickett, where it ran two years longer. The Cocopah No. 2 had one deck and a square stern. She measured 147.5 feet in length, 28 feet in width of beam, 3.8 feet in depth, and had a capacity of 231.37 tons. Her last Temporary Register, No. 4, issued at El Paso, Texas, October 21, 1877, and surrendered there December 31, 1881, bears the notation "vessel burned."
95. San Francisco Aha California, April 7, 1867. It was reported that the Nina Tilden and Esmeralda were laid up at Yuma, and Captain Trueworthy and Adams were in Salt Lake "imploring Brigham Young to aid them."
96. Ibid., September 28 and October 15, 1867.
97. "Moapa Stake Records: The A^uddy Mission," February 11, 1866. It was estimated by the Mormons on the A^uddy that only nine thousand pounds of ginned cotton were produced in 1866. Propaganda and repetition between Callville and California seem to have made up the difference.
98. Bancroft, "Scraps: Arizona Miscellany," LXXXII, Pt. 2, 438-39.
99. San Francisco Alta California, September 28, 1867.
100. San Francisco Alta California, October 23 and 24 and November 18, 1867.
10 1. Sykes, op. cit., p. 28. Sykes states that the Esmeralda was beached at the shipyard and her hull was used afterward as a warehouse. In 1874 the Nina Tilden, moored at Port Isabel and leaking badly, was overturned by a heavy bore. Her wreckage blocked the passage to the port and she was subsequently chopped up to clear the channel. See the Yuma Arizona Sejitinel, September 28, 1878.
102. MacMullen, op. cit., p. 25. On May 3, 1867, the "New Steamboat Co." paid taxes on "one steamboat $6,000, three barges, $6,000."
103. San Francisco Alta California, September 24, 1867. The paper reported that in 1867 a barge had gone up to Callville for a load of potatoes and other vegetables but had failed to contact the persons expected, and had taken on a load of salt and lime instead.
104. Territory of Arizona, Acts, Second Legislative Assembly, Prescott, 1866.
105. Navigation of the Colorado River, Resolution of the Legislature of California, Asking Congress to Aid Captain Truesworthy, of San Francisco, to Perfect the Navigation of the Colorado River, in the Territory of Arizona, 40th Cong., 2d sess, H. Misc. Doc. 142 (1868).
106. Salt Lake City Deseret News, June 16, 1869.
107. Callville was the county seat of Pah-Ute County for several years. Troops from Fort Mohave were stationed there and at Las Vegas after the Civil War.
THE AUTHOR
Francis Hale Leavitt is a native of Nevada. He graduated from the Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, in 1933, received the degree of M.A. from the University of Nevada in 1934, and is now working toward his Ph.d. at the University of California.