The Colorado statesman., 1924-08-02
THE BEAVER


In a heap of rubbish from which
emerged some damp rat-gnawed manu-
script books. From morning to eve
ming, and far into the dusk, sat read
ing there the story of q great adven-
turess, a heroine of tonnage and dis
placement, the first steamer which ever
piled on the Pacific ocean.
Her builders were Messrs. Boulton
and Watt, and Watt was the father
of steam navigation. She was built
at Blackwell on London river in the
days of George ". She was launched
by a duchess in n poke bonnet and
shawl, who broke a bottle of wine
against the ships nose and christened
her the Beaver. Then the merchant
adventurers of the Hudson's Bay COM
pany, in bell toppers, Hessian boots
and white chokers, gave three hearty
cheers.
The Beaver was as ugly as 1t was
safe to make her, but built of honest
oak, and copper bolted, her engines
packed in the hold, and her masts
brigantine-rigged for the sailing vOy-
age round Cape Horn. She went un-
der convoy of the barque Columbia, n
slow and rather helpless chaperon, who
fouled and nearly wrecked her at Rob
inson Crusoe's island. Her master, to
Judge by the ships books, was a pep
perry little beast, who logged the mate
for liar: mot correct d. Home :"
drove his officers until they went sick,
quarreled with the Columbia's doc
tor found his chief engineer 'in a
beastly state of intoXication," and
,Nnally, at the Columbia river, hound
ed his crew into mutiny.
"NIr. Phillips and Mr.. Wilson be-
haved," says the mate, Sin a most
mutinous manner" So the captain
had all hands aft to witness their
punishment with the cato '-nine-tails.
Phillips called on the crew to rescue
him, and they went for the captain.
Calling for his sword, the skipper de-
Tended himself like n man, wOunding
one seaman in the head. Then he
succeeded in tying up Phillips, and
Furnishing him with two dozen lashes
with ropes end over his Clothes"
whereupon William Wilson demanded
eleven strokes for himself, so sharing
the fun, for better or worse, with a
shipmate.
river, an old stockade of the Nor'west-
ers, was at this time the HudsOn's
Bay companys capital on the Pacific
coast, where reigned the great Doc
tor McLauchlan, founder of Oregon.
Here the Beaver shipped her paddles,
started up her engines, and gave an
excursion trip for the ladies. SO came
her voyage under steam out In the
open Pacific of eight hundred miles
to her station on the British Columbi-
an coast She sailed on the last day
of May in 1886, two years before the
Atlantic was crossed under steam. On
the Vancouver coast she discovered an
outcrop of steam coal, still the best
to be had on the Pacific ocean.
In her days of glory, the Beaver
was a smart little warship trading
with the savages, or bOmbarding their
villages, all the way from Puget Sound
to Alaska. In her middle age she was
a survey vessel exploring Wonderland.
In her old age the boiler leaked, so
that the engineer had to plug the
holes with rag on pointed stick.
She was a grlmy tug at the last, her
story forgotten; and after fifty-two
to lie a weed-grown wreck within a
mile of the new city of Vancouver, un-
til a kindly storm gave her the honor
of sea burial.
II was in 1851 that the Beaver
brought to the factor at Fort Simpson
some nuggets of the newly discovered
Californian gold. At first he refused
to take the stuff in trade, next bought
1t in at half its value, and finally
showed 1t to Edenshaw, head chief of
the Haida nation. AS each little yell
low pebble was worth a big pile of
blankets, the chief borrowed a speci-
men and showed it to his tribe in the
Queen Charlotte islands.
There is a legend that in earlier days
trader found the Haidas using gold
en- bullets with their trade guns, which
they gladly exchanged for lead. Any
way an old oman told Edenshaw that
she knew where to find the stuff, so
next day she took him in small dug
out canoe to the outer coast. There
she showed him a streak seven inches
wide, and eighty feet in length, of
quartz and shining gold, which crossed
the neck of n headland. They filled
bushel basket with loose bits, and
left them in the canoe while they
went back for more. But in the stern
of the canoe sat Edenshaw's little
son watching the dog fish at play down
in the deeps. When the elders came
back Charlie had thrown their first
load of gold at the dog fish, and later
on in life he well remembered the
hands of blessing laid on by way of
reward.
Still, enough gold was saved to buy
many bales OF blankets. Edenshaw
claimed afterward that, had he only