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.Newell, Gordon R., ed., H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, at 14, 15, 40, 130, 265, and 369, Superior Publishing, Seattle, WA 1966 She was generally known as the Old Anderson and was considered slow and underpowered even for the time. Even so, it was said of her that "no steamboat ever went slower and made money faster." She played a role in the Underground Railroad and had a desperate last voyage to Alaska as part of the Klondike Gold Rush.
Construction Eliza Anderson was launched on November 27, 1858, at Portland, Oregon for the Columbia River Steam Navigation Company. She was a sidewheeler driven by a low-pressure boiler generating steam for a single-cylinder, walking-beam steam engine. She was built entirely of wood, measuring 197 feet long, 25.5 feet on the beam, and rated at 276 tons' capacity.Newell, Gordon R., Ships of the Inland Sea, at 22-27, Binford and Mort, Portland, OR (2nd Ed. 1960)
Fraser River and Puget Sound service
Allowed to run in Canadian territory After her trial run on the lower Willamette and Columbia rivers, she was sold to a consortium of John T. Bradford, some Canadian stockholders and three brothers, Tom, John T. and George S. Wright, who were early steamboat operators in the Pacific Northwest. Under Capt. J.G. Hustler,Carey states she was taken across the Columbia Bar by Captain Wells. This may be a conflict in the sources. Carey, Sound of Steamers, at 55 she was brought around to Victoria, arriving in March 1859. Because of the Fraser River Gold Rush, there was a shortage of steamboats in British Columbia in 1858–1859. This had a number of effects on the Canadian west coast, perhaps the most important of which was the establishment of British Columbia as a separate colony from Vancouver Island. For the American steamboats, they benefitted by decision of Canadian governor James Douglas to grant "sufferances" to them to allow them to work on the Victoria to Fraser River route at a levy of $12 per run.Hacking, Norman R. and Lamb, W. Kaye, The Princess Story – A Century and a Half of West Coast Shipping, Mitchell Press, Vancouver, BC 1974
Initial work on Fraser River Eliza Anderson arrived just at the right time, making her first run to Fort Langley on the Fraser river, just one day after her arrival at Victoria from the Columbia River. From Fort Langley, the sternwheeler Enterprise, under Capt. Tom Wright (1828–1906), took or at least endeavored to take, goldseekers up to the head of navigation at Yale By March 30, Eliza Anderson had completed two round trips to Fort Langley, and returned to Victoria carrying $40,000 in gold dust.
By May, 1859, three vessels were operating in competition on the Fort Langley route, the Eliza Anderson, the Beaver, and the Governor Douglas. Enterprises captain, Tom Wright, thought he could do better by moving Enterprise down to the Chehalis River. In June, 1859, Captain Wright brought Enterprise down to Victoria, and arranged in July to have Eliza Anderson tow the sternwheeler around to Grays Harbor, where the Chehalis River flows into the Pacific. Shortly after setting out, Enterprise developed mechanical problems and both vessels were forced to turn back to Esquimalt to await the arrival of new parts for the Enterprise from San Francisco. Returning to Victoria, Eliza Anderson picked up a load of miners bound for Olympia arriving there for the first time on July 9, 1859.
Extension of service into Puget Sound
Once she arrived in Olympia, her owners put her on the Olympia–Victoria mail run during the month of August, 1859. This was arranged by her agent, John H. Scranton, who had the mail contract. Scranton was also the agent for the steamer Julia, the first sternwheeler to operate on Puget Sound. Scranton seems to have been an interesting character, as he was openly referred to in Olympia's newspaper as "Crazy Jack" and "Commodore Scranton."Pioneer Democrat, Olympia, Washington Terr., July 15, 1859 (available in DjVU format from the Washington Secretary of State historic documents website)
In September 1859 Scranton arranged to have Julia take over from the Anderson place on the Olympia–Victoria mail run, which resulted in the Andersons being returned to the Fraser River route. In mid-September, 1859, a wedding was held on the Anderson just off Queenborough, one of the early settlements on the Fraser River, between Carrie A. Gray, from Hope, British Columbia, and Jacob Kamm, one of the earliest, and later among the most successful of the steamboat men. The couple were already sufficiently noteworthy to warrant a 13-gun salute following the ceremony.
At that time Anderson was fighting one of her many fare wars, this one with the Canadian steamboat Otter. Fares were driven down from 50 cents per passenger and 50 cents per ton of freight. The Otters owners, who had before advertised rates at $10 per passenger and $12 a ton, were forced to pull Otter off the Fraser run, at least temporarily. With Otter gone, fares shot back up to $6 per passenger and $6 per ton. Beaver and Labouchere made some runs on this route, but neither did well at carrying passengers.
Julia, then running the mail, was a shallow-draft riverine vessel not fit to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca during the winter. On November 1, 1859, she was taken off the Olympia–Victoria mail run, and shortly thereafter she was replaced by the Anderson, with Capt. Tom Wright (returned from the Chehalis river) as her new master. In December 1859 Captain Wright set the Andersons schedule at one trip to Olympia and one trip to the Fraser River every week. Every Monday at 7:00 a.m., the Anderson left Olympia bound for Victoria. On Tuesday, she left Victoria for New Westminster, on the Fraser River, and returned to Victoria on Wednesday. On Thursday at 3:00 a.m. she'd steam back to Olympia, laying over there to repeat the journey at the start of the next week.
On the route down Puget Sound, the Anderson stopped at Steilacoom, Seattle, Port Townsend and way ports. Fares on this run were $20 a person, freight $5 to $10 a ton, and cattle could be shipped at $15 a head. The Anderson also benefited from the $36,000 per year mail contract.Another source gives the value of the mail contract as $12,000 per year, at least in 1866. Carey, Sound of Steamers, at 65 The Anderson ran on the Victoria run until 1870 when she was replaced by the Olympia. Anderson continued to serve until 1877 as a reserve boat.
Underground Railroad and the Charles Mitchell case
While the events leading up to the Civil War were far away from Puget Sound, they affected the people in the Northwest just the same. The Anderson played her role in these events, including the Underground Railroad. On September 24, 1860, a 14-year-old black youth, named Charles Mitchell, hid on board the Anderson, seeking passage to Canada to escape slavery.Goodnow, Cecelia, "Displays cast Northwest light on Lincoln's time, Daily Olympian on-line, February 22, 2008 Accessed 2008-02-29 He'd been working on the vessel, and another older black man working on the Anderson as a "temporary steward" had helped him find a hiding place on the steamer. He was discovered either at Steilacoom or Seattle, and was not held right away, because he promised to work off his passage. It happened that acting territorial governor McGill and his family were also on the Anderson. Mitchell confided to McGill's son that he intended to desert the ship in Victoria, and the son told the father. Governor McGill then told the ships officers, and when they were just four miles out of Victoria, they seized Mitchell and held him in "close confinement"."Fugitive Slave Case", Pioneer Democrat, Olympia, Washington Terr., September 28, 1860 (available in DjVU format from the Washington Secretary of State historic documents website)
Once in Victoria, word got out that Mitchell was being held against his will aboard the Anderson. A group of protesters composed of both white and black citizens of Victoria marched down to the dock. A lawyer presented a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to Chief Justice Cameron, who granted the writ. Armed with the writ, sheriff Naylor and a police constable boarded the Anderson, presented the writ to the officer in charge, and demanded that Mitchell be released to them. The officer in charge told them he didn't think he could do anything until Captain Fleming returned to the vessel. When Captain Fleming returned, he in turn deferred to Governor McGill. What happened next is not entirely clear, but McGill went ashore and either acquiesced in the assertion of the Canadian court's writ over the vessel, or, as the Pioneer Democrat later insisted, protested vociferously against it. Either way, Mitchell was removed from the vessel by the Canadian authorities and became a free man. This was none to the liking of Olympia's newspaper at the time, the Pioneer Democrat, which in an article quite free with racially derogatory terms, stated that war would have been justified to prevent Mitchell's release:
Mitchell had been born in Maryland (a slave state) the son of a white man named Mitchell and an enslaved woman. His mother died and he came to be enslaved by James Tilton, who later was appointed as the territorial surveyor of the Washington Territory. Although in theory the Washington Territory was free soil, the Territorial legislature had declared that after the Dred Scott Decision, the federal government could not bar slavery in the territory. Curiously, although the Pioneer Democrat denounced the action of the Canadian court, blaming the situation on "sharp dressed" black people and misguided whites, the Pioneer Democrat also denied that he was a slave, claiming that he was some type of ward, even though the title of their article used the words "fugitive slave" and the protest by Captain Fleming that it printed described Mitchell as Tilton's "property."
Operations on the mail route
News of Lincoln's election In the early 1860s, there was no telegraph in Puget Sound, and mail carried by steamboat was the fastest way of transmitting news. Thus, on November 27, 1860, the Anderson brought to Port Townsend news that Abraham Lincoln had been elected president of the United States on November 4, 1860, even though the news had reached Olympia on November 22.Lange, Greg, "News of Abraham Lincoln's November 6 election reaches Olympia on November 22, 1860", HistoryLink.org, Feb 22, 1999 Accessed 2008-02-28
Fare wars continue The Andersons next challenge on the Olympia–Victoria route came from Enterprise, a sidewheeler under the command of Captain Jones. Enterprise had been built in California in 1861, intended for the San Francisco–Stockton run. Her owners brought her north to compete with the Eliza Anderson. The Wrights bested them, by lowering the fare to Victoria to fifty cents, with free meals. This drove Enterprise off the run after six months, and in February 1862, Captain W.A. Mowat paid $60,000 to buy her for the Hudson's Bay Company. The Anderson's owners bought the Enterprises walking-beam engine and used it to repower their boat. Another would-be competitor, the Josie McNear, similarly faltered in her efforts to compete with the Anderson.
Floating financial agency D.B. Finch, once the purser on the vanquished Enterprise, shifted over to the Anderson, and later became a part-owner and master. Captain Finch had a head for figures, and became one of leading bankers in the Washington Territory, conducting finance at every landing called at by the Anderson. Counties in those days were poorly funded, and paid their bills not in cash money, but "warrants", that is to say, paper promises to pay. Finch bought these up for 20 cents on the dollar (he paid more for better-quality debts) and eventually collected most of the principal and interest from them.