❖ Faithful Sidewheeler GEORGE E. STARR with Liverpool Tin ❖ 1896

The Steamer GEORGE E. STARR,
launched 1879 at William Hammon's shipyard on the Seattle
waterfront between Cherry and Columbia Streets.
Original photo inscribed from the Marine Salon, Seattle
in the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

"The steamer GEORGE E. STARR made the initial run on the UTOPIA's old route, viz; Tacoma and Seattle to Vancouver via the San Juan islands, last Monday. She left Seattle at midnight Sunday night and arrived here early Monday morning. She had aboard about 100 Chinamen, forty-five of them for the Island Packing Co., of this place, and fifty-five en route to the Alaska Packers Assoc. Canneries at Point Roberts. The tin which has been expected for several days past, arrived on the Thompson yesterday; the Chinamen will at once begin the work of making the cans to be used for the season's pack. The tin, which comes from Liverpool, England, by sailing vessel around the Horn, arrived at Astoria several days ago and came from there by rail to Seattle and here [Friday Harbor] by steamer LYDIA THOMPSON. The STARR will make one round trip a week calling here both ways, and will likely run all summer. The UTOPIA has been put on the Alaska route".
The Islander, Friday Harbor, WA., April 1896

At age 100, Joshua Green (1869-1975) was proclaimed "Commodore of all Puget Sound Fleets", as he looked back on the happiest days of his life, his steamboating for forty years on Puget Sound. 
The head of Puget Sound Navigation Company commented on the GEORGE E. STARR--

"There was a faithful little boat. If you put a load on her, the side paddlewheels went so far down in the water she would hardly go ahead at all! She ran from Bellingham to Seattle. We had a full load of canned salmon on her and she was so slow that it cost us more to feed the passengers than the passage money amounted to. We had a peck of troubles in those days too. It wasn't all easy sailing."

Three photos from the cannery in Friday Harbor, WA. 
Undated.
From the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©.