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The MASSACHUSETTS Postcard copyright 1896 Click image to enlarge. Published by the Metropolitan News, Boston. from the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society© |
"The Spring 1970 issue of Steamboat Bill, the quarterly of the Steamship Historical Society of America, carried a story on the "The Auxiliary Steam Packet MASSACHUSETTS." This historic vessel, built in 1845 at the East Boston shipyard of Samuel Hall, was given detailed chronological treatment of her rig and power plant changes with abbreviated accounts of her West Coast activities in between. The narrator related that she was transferred by the War Department to the Navy at Mare Island, CA., on 1 August 1849 and that she served as a storeship until 1853 when she returned to Norfolk, VA., to have new boilers installed. Then, he says, she sailed to the Pacific in July of the following year, and in 1855, she was listed as a storeship at Acapulco. Then he concluded that her name had been changed, and in 1862, she became the FARRALONES, which was still a storeship and coal ship in San Francisco.
Some of the most colorful chapters in the vessel's history were largely concerned with the Pacific Northwest, where her name loomed big in maritime movements. The MASSACHUSETTS performed so many important government duties in these parts that it seems fitting to give readers some details about these activities.
The MASSACHUSETTS was first heard of in this region when she arrived off the mouth of the Columbia River on 8 May 1949 with the first important contingent of American troops to be stationed in this area. On 13 May, the force arrived opposite Fort Vancouver and was landed the following day.
This was the end of a month's voyage from New York around Cape Horn. The vessel carried 161 officers and men of the First Regiment, U.S. Artillery companies M and Lk, commanded by Brevel Major J.S. Hathaway. Some would remain at Fort Vancocuver, where they would wreck barraks. Others were destined somewhat later to establish Fort Steilacoom for the protection of settlers on Puget Sound.
On the way to the Pacific Coast, the vessel created a stir when she entered Honolulu harbor on a calm day without the help of canvas. Astonished Hawaiian natives crowded the beach to see the phenomenon, and an island newspaper headlined the went, "Arrival Extraordinary."
At that time, the sight of a vessel equipped with both sails and propeller was unusual. Steamboat Bill describes her equipment. The MASSACHUSETTS was 160 feet L on deck x 20 ft D x 32 ft B and measured about 776 tons. She was full ship-rigged and her steam power was strictly auxiliary to her canvas and was intended to be used occasionally when near land and in smooth water or to get in and out of port.
The motive power was a two-cylinder condensing engine capable of about 170 HP or a speed of nine statute miles per hour in smooth water. The engine and boilers were in the lower hold, with space in the wings for oal bunkers. The propeller was a six-bladed Ericsson screw 9 1/2 feet in diameter that could be lifted out of the water when the ship was under sail.
The MASSACHUSETTS was the first American steamship to visit Puget Sound. She anchored off Fort Nisqually on 25 April 1850. The story of how she got here goes back to the plea of Governor Joseph Lane of Oregon Territory for better aids to navigation and more protection for settlers and shipping.
On the last night of the 1850 session of Congress, Samuel P. Thurston, delegate from Oregon Territory, succeeded in founding up and getting into their seats enough representatives who would vote for his bill to set aside $53,140 for erection of lighthouses at Cape Disappointment, Cape Flattery, and new Dungeness, also installation of 12-iron-can buoys in the Columbia River. The measure passed, but the money was not spent immediately.
Meanwhile, the MASSACHUSETTS had brought the troops to the Columbia River and, after delivering the soldiers, had been sent back to San Francisco, where she was transferred to the Navy to transport a newly appointed commission. Its purpose was to examine the coast of the western United States lying upon the Pacific Ocean concerning points of occupation for the security of trade and commerce and for military and naval purposes." The ship was in command of Capt. Samuel Knox.
She sailed from California and was off the Columbia River on 20 April 1850. Her visit to Nisqually was duly recorded in the journal of the Hudson's Bay Trading post. It mentioned that Lieutenant Danville Leadbetter, representing the Army, was of the Topographical Corps and that he and the doctor called at the fort.
While in the area, the MASSACHUSETTS called at Victoria and Esquimault and continued north through the Gulf of Georgia to Beaver Harbor to take on coal. She rounded the north end of Vancouver Island and followed the route south. On the coast of Washington, she stopped at the mouth of Willapa Bay, where a party was dispatched to scrutinize the harbor. (This occasion was honored later when Leadbetter Point was named.) Part of the purpose was to determine how close the bay was to the Columbia River. A whaleboat was hauled over the portage between the two bodies of water with the help of a dozen or more Natives.
The commission reached Astoria on 30 June and examined the lower Columbia, arriving at Portland around the 11th of July. The MASSACHUSETTS next sailed for the Umpqua River and arrived back on San Francisco Bay around 1 September.
The Steamboat Bill article accounts for the MASSACHUSETTS next activity. After her return from Norfolk, VA., she came back to Puget Sound to replace the DECATUR, sent here during the Native American troubles of 1854.
In April 1855, citizens of Port Townsend requested the government to assign a war vessel to cruise between Bellingham Bay, Dungeness, Port Townsend, and Foulweather Bluff to guard against incursions of Haida and other Northern Natives from British Columbia. The MASSACHUSETTS was immediately sent back to Puget Sound and, early in 1856, was dispatched to Port Gamble to disperse a gathering of Canadian Natives. When they refused to leave, she opened fire and killed 27, which caused the Natives to vow vengeance. They later killed Col. Isaac S. Ebay on Whidbey Island in reprisal.
The MASSACHUSETTS again played a role in local history in 1859 when she steamed out of Steilacoom with troops for the "Pig War" in the San Juan Islands. She also picked up Capt. George Pickett's company at Fort Bellingham and moved the soldiers to San Juan Island. The vessel played its final part in the unrest when Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott made her his headquarters while he was on Puget Sound on behalf of the president to settle the difficulty, resulting in joint occupation of the islands by both British and American troops. Scott left on the MASSACHUSETTS after his negotiations.
After the MASSACHUSETTS name was changed to FARRALONES, she was drafted for the Civil War. In 1867, she was sold to Moore & Co. of San Francisco, and the last reference to the vessel as bark ALASKA, owned by that firm. No records of her existence after 1871 can be found but Steamboat Bill says she is reported lost on the coast of Chile in 1874."
Words by author/historian Lucile McDonald who wrote thousands of historical essays for the Seattle Times newspaper and many for The Sea Chest published by the Puget Sound Maritime Society.
Some of her sources: Steamboat Bill journal of the Steamship Historical Society of America.
Published in The Sea Chest journal of 1970 from the Puget Sound Maritime Society, Seattle, WA.
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