THE "FRENCHMAN"

 

"The Frenchman"
COLONEL De VILLEBOIS MAREUIL
in tow 1912,
Columbia River Bar,
caught on film by the noted 
Captain Orison Beaton
Click image to enlarge.
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

Captain Orison Beaton was born in the lumber town of Port Madison 30  August 1878, one of five children. He ran away from home at the age of fifteen and the world unfolded to him from the decks of Puget Sound steamers. Later, applying for his first job on a tugboat, he was asked his name. "That's too long and doesn't suit a seafaring man," said the skipper. I'll call you Jim." Young Jim worked up to become master of several of the Puget Sound Tugboat Co.'s tugs; it was during this time he also earned himself a reputation as a good marine photographer.

Perhaps his best-known photograph is that of the three-masted French bark COLONEL De VILLEBOIS MAREUIL passing in over the Columbia River Bar in tow of the tugs GOLIAH and TATOOSH in October 1912. Horace McCurdy recounts the experience as told him by Capt. Beaton:" I saw this enormous sea rolling up astern," said the captain, "and from the tug it appeared as if the bark was being engulfed. My camera was ready and I ducked hurriedly out of the pilot house door, snapped the picture and got back inside just as the GOLIAH herself was smothered in foam. Light conditions were very poor and it was necessary to develop the negative an extra long time to bring up an image."

Captain Beaton was the co-author of what has now become known as the Plummer-Beaton collection of marine photographs. He passed away 29 August 1938.

Short Biographies of Photographers Who Helped to Record the Maritime History of the Pacific Northwest.
By Gordon P. Jones
Puget Sound Maritime Historial Association Newsletter Supplement.
November 1966.
From the Library of the Saltwater People Historial Society.