these attacks Bartlett replied through the same medium, and took occasion to reprove the Oregonians for their lack of enterprise in failing to sustain a pilot service at the mouth of the Columbia, which service, since the passage of the pilotage act, had received little encouragement or support,[1] and also for giving countenance to the desertion of his men.
The work accomplished by the Ewing during the summer was the survey of the entrance to the Columbia, the designation of places for buoys to mark the channel, of a site for a light-house on Cape Disappointment, and the examination of the coast south of the Columbia. The survey showed that the "rock-ribbed and iron-bound" shore of Oregon really was a beach of sand from Point Adams to Cape Arago, a distance of one hundred and sixty-five miles, only thirty- three miles of that distance being cliffs of rock where the ocean touched the shore. From Cape Arago to the forty-second parallel, a distance of eighty-five miles, rock was found to predominate,
- ↑ Capt White, a New York pilot, conceived the idea of establishing himself and a corps of competent assistants at the mouth of the Columbia, thereby conferring a great benefit on Oregon commerce, and presumably a reasonable amount of reward upon himself. But his venture, like a great many others projected from the other side of the continent, was a failure. On bringing his fine pilot-boat, the Wm G. Hagstaff, up the coast, in September 1849, he attempted to enter Rogue River, but got aground on the bar, was attacked by the Indians, and himself and associates, with their men, driven into the mountains, where they wandered for eighteen days in terrible destitution before reaching Fort Umpqua, at which post they received succor. The Hagstaff was robbed and burned; her place being supplied by another boat called the Mary Taylor. The Pioneer, i. 351; Davidson's Coast Pilot, 112–13; Williams' S. W. Or., MS. 2. It was the neglect of the Oregonians to make good the loss of Captain White, or a portion of it, to which Bartlett referred. For the year during which White had charge of the bar pilotage 69 vessels of from 60 to 650 tons crossed in all 128 times. The only loss of a vessel in that time was that of the Josephine, loaded with lumber of the Oregon Milling Company. She was becalmed on the bar, and a gale coming up in the night she dragged her anchor and was carried on the sands, where she was dismasted and abandoned. She afterward floated out to sea, being a total loss. George Gibbs, in Or. Spectator, May 2, 1850. The pilot commissioners, consisting at this time of Gov. Lane and captains Couch and Crosby, made a strong appeal in behalf of White, but he was left to bear his losses and go whither he pleased. Johnson's Cal. and Or., 254–5; Carrol's Star of the West, 290–5; Stevens, in Pac. H. R. Rept., i. 109, 291–2, 615–16; Polynesian, July 20, 1850. The merchants finally advanced the pay of pilots so as to be remunerative, after which time little was heard about the terrors of the Columbia bar.
