page_title: James Clinton (sternwheeler)
section_title: Trouble at Woodyville
hierarchical_section_title: James Clinton (sternwheeler) / Operations / Trouble at Woodyville
caption_attribution_description: steamboat captain Leonard White
context_page_description: James Clinton was a steamboat which operated on the upper Willamette River from 1856 to 1861. Although the Clinton was said to have been "not a very good boat.", it was the first steamer ever to reach Eugene, Oregon. James Clinton was destroyed in April 1861, when a large fire broke out at Linn City, Oregon in a shoreside structure near to where the vessel was moored.
context_section_description: In 1852 or 1853, a man named Woody set up a saloon at a place on the Willamette River about two miles north of the present town of Junction City, from which Woody dispensed a type of liquor known as "blue ruin."  Woody had a large number of relatives and these and others formed a settlement which was called Woodyville, or more commonly, Woody's Landing.
  The Woodys declared Woody's Landing to be the head of navigation on the Willamette, and for a time this appeared to be the case.  However, they were prone to pilfering the goods dropped off at the landing, and if anyone complained, they were roughed up by one or more of the large and bellicose members of the Woody family, or Woody tribe, as they came to be called.
  The local shippers tired of having to deal with the Woody tribe, and established a different landing, Coffman's, up a slough which cut through a part of the Woody land claim.  The Woodys claimed the steamboat could not use the slough, and threatened a trespass action.  They also felled small trees along the banks of the slough to impede navigation, which the Clinton had to clear out, often with the help of locals who disapproved of the Woodys.
caption: Leonard White, a captain of James Clinton
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