The Fantastic Voyage of the ELIZA ANDERSON

Sidewheeler Eliza Anderson
ON 7967
Built in Portland, Oregon in 1859.
This photograph, undated. 
Credit line to the 
Steamship Historical Society of America, Inc.
7967-1859.
Photo postcard from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"She was the ungainliest vessel ever to undertake such a daunting journey. The voyage was to be her last, and for her passengers, the terrors of near-disaster on the open seas briefly erased whatever desire for gold that prompted them to rush for the Klondike.

Her name was the Eliza Anderson, a sidewheel steamboat built before the Civil War. Operated in the fall of 1897 by the Alaska Commercial Co, the relic was one of a polyglot collection of ships hastily gathered to meet the unprecedented demand engendered by the Yukon gold rush. Her destination was St. Michael, Alaska – 850 miles from Seattle via the North Pacific to Kodiak, thence 650 miles to Unalaska, navigating 750 miles on the turbulent Bering Sea. At St. Michael, the passengers would rendezvous with riverboats for the additional 1,700-mile journey up the Yukon to Dawson City.

In Seattle, hoots and jeers of on-lookers greeted the incredulous passengers who had paid exorbitant rates for passage on the all-water route. Typical of the feverish times, the ungainly 140-foot-long sidewheeler was sorely overloaded. Wooden-hulled and 279 gross tons, the Eliza Anderson was built in 1859 in Portland, OR. She now hardly inspired confidence, propelled by ancient sidewheels in cumbersome paddle boxes, her 25-foot beam and nine-foot depth designed for shallow northwest rivers. That she would risk a 2,300-mile ocean voyage speaks of the audacity of her owners, the gold fever of the public, and the prowess of her officers.

In charge was Capt. Tom Powers, a seasoned Atlantic skipper persuaded two former shipmates to join him - Capt. Arthur Leighton, as a first mate, and Capt. Bill Tedford, as second officer. They commanded a motley collection of able seamen well-versed in meeting the exigencies of the high seas. It was the experience that compensated for the vessel's woeful inadequacy, for the Eliza Anderson lacked modern boilers, water condensers, and electricity. Her top speed was barely eight knots an hour. To augment her meager carrying capacity, she was joined by the ocean-going tug Richard Holyoke, which towed the large Politkofsky a cut-down, 1866-vintage Russian man-of-war, the river steamer W.K. Merwin, and Seattle businessman John Hansen's pleasure yacht Bryant. The Eliza Anderson Expedition was underway, and an odd cavalcade it was.

By the time they reached the first leg up the Inside Passage to Metlakatla, AK, the decrepit condition of the Eliza Anderson was manifest. Passenger discontent, however, got nowhere with Capt. Powers, who bluntly announced that passage would not be refunded to anyone who left ship before St. Michael. What fight his passengers possessed, promptly dissipated into seasickness as the ancient craft and her retinue lumbered through Dixon Entrance into open sea.

Five days later, black storm clouds loomed as the expedition entered Kodiak. There she commenced coaling, while cannery and government port officials vainly remonstrated with Capt. Powers to wait out the gathering storm. Vowing to make St. Michael on schedule regardless of weather, the Eliza Anderson cast off followed by the Richard Holyoke and her triple tow. Their departure was observed by five passengers who had lost their appetite for gold-seeking and abandoned the expedition.

And now the terror began, as the antiquated sidewheeler struggled in the growling swells. Like a child's toy, she skidded and tossed, wallowing in the troughs, threatening to be crushed at any moment by the massive waves sweeping across her. Kerosene lamps were extinguished in the social hall, as knots of frightened passengers huddled in the darkness to exchange solace, liquor, or prayers.

The superstructure cracked and groaned, the pumps choked with coal dust and the hold threatened to fill with water. China pumps were jury-rigged and manned by shifts of passengers anxious to do something active for the preservation of the vessel and their lives. The port rudder chain parted, and steering was restored only by the precariously accomplished rigging of relieving tackle.

On the second day of the storm, rockets were ordered fired, but the Eliza was separated from her accompanying tow. As the storm intensified, word came from the engine room that the coal supply was nearing depletion. As doors, furniture, and partitions, were ripped down for the furnace, two stewards boys were lashed to the bow structure to dash cups of crude oil against the on-rushing waves. Helpful for a while, this supply, eventually ran out. 

At this juncture, with all but one lifeboat swept away, and the skipper preparing to order abandonment of the ship, that a storybook miracle occurred. A powerfully built stowaway with the visage of an ancient Norse mariner emerged from somewhere out of the cramped, reeling ship. Making his way to the pilothouse, he wrested control of the wheel from the astonished mate, turned the Eliza Anderson around, and made straight for the rock-lined shore of Kodiak Island. Just as disaster seemed imminent, the beleaguered vessel rounded a point and entered a sheltered cove, the size of an abandoned cannery. Later he vanished when the grateful passengers sought to present their mysterious savior with a collected reward. 

After completing repairs and hauling a coal supply aboard from an on-shore bunker, the Eliza Anderson limped into Unalaska. Ther the company purser ordered the ship abandoned due to lack of coal and the absence of the Politkofsky. Fearing the sidewheeler lost with all hands, the towline skipper aboard the Holyoke had reported the loss at Unalaska and had steamed on for St. Michael the week before. While Capt. Powers colored the air with rage, vowing St. Michael would otherwise have been reached on schedule, his trusted mates and exhausted passengers and crew transferred to the whaling schooner Baranoff. The Klondikers would reach their goal, albeit a year later, after a winter spent in steamboats locked in Yukon River ice. Others with a change of heart departed immediately for Seattle, spilling the story of the Eliza Anderson's fantastic voyage to eager newspapermen.

And what became of the Eliza? Beached and forgotten, the relic of a bygone era, she was quickly stripped of anything salvageable. But she had weathered the storm, a fitting climax to a long career of Pacific Northwest service, and a wonderous footnote to the story of the Klondike Gold Rush."

Words by Scott Eckberg for The Sea Chest, membership journal of the
Puget Sound Maritime Society, Seattle, WA.