❖ The Steamboat RACE ❖ 1945

Sternwheeler CITY OF ABERDEEN

Commanded by Capt. Gus Soderman.

Photographer unknown,

From the archives of the S.P.H.S. ©

"The steamboat story of early days of Puget Sound sprouted when your cruising correspondent casually mentioned to Fred Marvin, Port President, that he had conversed with old "Nick" Perring at Olympia. Exclaimed Fred:
      'Gosh all hemlock! Is Nick still alive? I am glad to hear this. You know, Nick is one of the greatest engineers Puget Sound ever had? A great steamboat man.'
      This fact was agreed to. It was added that this pioneer marine man had told a bit of the story of the famous race in which the CITY OF ABERDEEN had beaten the famous GREYHOUND in a trifle of a race between Seattle and Tacoma.
      'You can bet your life she did!' The ABERDEEN beat her. I saw the finish of the race. This was on Sunday afternoon in the very early 90s. I've got the date in one of my old log books at the ranch.'
      So the story of this Puget Sound steamboat race was authenticated by the port commissioner. This was one of the great steamboat races of the Sound. Private, to a great extent, the affair was held closely in the minds of those taking part.
      Nicholas C. Perring, 'Nick' to old associates, started his career on the Sound in 1878 on the sidewheel tug GOLIAH. In his time he served on many of the famous steamers, including the GREYHOUND.
      'That was quite a race. Old man Willey came aboard one day and asked me if I could best the GREYHOUND with the ABERDEEN. I told him I could, providing I was allowed to have the say in loading the ABERDEEN. She was a deceiving outfit when it came to speed. To run she had to be trimmed just right. I knew the GREYHOUND. She was fast and had a great reputation for speed.

Sternwheeler GREYHOUND,

Commanded on race day by Capt. Ed Darrington.

Original photograph from the Marine Salon

Archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

Preparing for the Race:
      'Well, we began to get ready for the run. I had the boys save the best of the fuel. We stowed in plenty of bark to fill up the holes in the firebox. Bark makes a terrific heat.
      The time of the race came and we went to it. I have forgotten who was engineer on the 'HOUND' or who was our skipper. The ABERDEEN hit it up at a good clip. When the boys passed the word back that the GREYHOUND's crew were heaving their cordwood overboard I knew we had them. We beat them into the dock at Tacoma by some distance--in fact, when we docked the 'HOUND' was nearer Brown's Point than the dock.'
      When questioned as to the excess steam carried in the boiler, if any, the veteran engineer parried:
      'Of course, the greater amount of steam carried will naturally increase the speed to an extent.'
      Reporting his observations, Commissioner Marvin said:
      'This race was a fixed affair between the crews of the steamers and several interests to settle the question of which of the steamers was the faster. The race was on the quiet so far as publicity went. There were not many passengers on board, but plenty of excitement. I think the ABERDEEN passed the 'HOUND' at Dash Point. But it's a fact you could hear them coming before you could see them. Both boats were wide open and the long exhausts sounded like a half dozen locomotives going up a hill. I guess the crew of this GREYHOUND lost their shirts and payrolls in that race.'
      The CITY OF ABERDEEN was built at Aberdeen, WA. The steamer was 127-ft long. The craft plied between Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia for a number of years. In later years the vessel was altered to a tug and operated out of Bellingham"
Above text by James Bashford
Tacoma Times, Sept. 1945.
"James O. Bashford was a 'roustabout' on the Tacoma waterfront, eventually becoming engineer on some of the boats plying the harbor about 1905. Apparently neither a professional reporter nor photographer, Bashford nonetheless put in a stint on the Tacoma Ledger and was ambitious in both capacities, leaving behind copious notes and photographs, many of which now repose in the C. Arthur Foss collection."
The above profile on the Ledger columnist Bashford 
by Gordon P. Jones 
Puget Sound Maritime Historcal Assoc. newsletter supplement Nov. 1966.

❖ Orcas Island built boats 2012 ❖

 New additions for the art collection of 
The Saltwater People Historical Society
  Thank you to clay artist Mike Douglas, 
Deer Harbor, Orcas Island, WA.
 Summer 2012.

❖ A Ship for Captain Louis Van Bogaert ❖

Captain Louis Van Bogaert
Original 1957 photo
from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

"Captain Louis Van Bogaert, who retired in 1957 after 54 years on Puget Sound vessels, had a special fondness for one boat, the ROSALIE.

      He had gone to work on the ROSALIE as a watchman in 1910, later he was second mate, then first mate, and finally, in 1914, her skipper.
      So the captain was especially happy about a gift that he took back to his home in Alhambra, CA, after a visit in Seattle.

Ralph C. Hitchcock
Ship model maker, 1965, Lopez Island.
Original photo from the
archives of the S. P. H. S.

      It was a bottle with a scale model of the ROSALIE in it.
      The model was the work of Ralph C. Hitchcock, a retired Boeing engineer. In retirement he became a professional model builder, producing 22 models, most all of museum quality. Mr. Hitchcock and his wife lived on Lopez Island for several years and bestowed 3 ship models to the collection of the Lopez Historical Museum. His work also went to the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, the WA. State Hist. Museum and the Smithsonian.
     Hitchcock and his wife, Eva, had driven from CA to Seattle with Capt. Van Bogaert and on several occasions Van Bogaert had wanted to stop and look for a bottle with a ship model in it. But Hitchcock always found an objection.
      'I'll get you a bottle,' Hitchcock kept saying.
      But Van Bogaert was surprised when the bottle turned out to have a model which Hitchcock himself had made.
      Hitchcock made the model of the famous Puget Sound passenger ship the FLYER which is in the aforementioned State Museum at Tacoma, but the ROSALIE is the first model he ever assembled in a bottle.
      'And it only took twice as long to make as I thought it would,' he said. That made it an 85-hour job.
      The model was in 34 pieces before Hitchcock began assembling it inside the bottle, which has a neck with a diameter of only three-quarters of an inch across.
      The ROSALIE, 136 ft, was built in Alameda, CA in 1893. She carried passengers between San Francisco and Oakland when it cost only a nickel to make the trip.
      The ROSALIE came to Puget Sound, but when gold was discovered in AK she was put into service between Seattle and the North. Among her skippers, while she was owned by the Alaska Steamship Co was Capt. Johnny (Dynamite) O'Brien.
      Much of the ROSALIE's service was in the San Juan Islands as part of the Puget Sound Navigation  Co. fleet. That was where Van Bogaert served aboard her.
      ROSALIE's career came to an end 22 June 1918 when she caught fire while tied to a pier on the Duwamish Waterway and was a total loss."
The above text from The Seattle Times. 1965
Ralph HItchcock recorded that he had made 22 ship models up to this date.

 

Steamer ROSALIE, 

West Sound, Orcas Island, WA.

The captain left his Orcas home 

in 1903 to sign on the  

shrimper VIOLA. 

He worked on the water for 54 years.

When a passenger asked him if he knew 

where all the rocks were on his route--

he replied--'No, But I know where they aren't."

Photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

      
      

❖ ANACORTES FERRY DOCK 1960 ❖

The Ship Harbor ferry terminal, February 1960,

just prior to opening.

Original Photograph by Parker McAllister.

New accession from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

"A new ferry terminal is taking shape at Anacortes.
      When it is finished, the time for a trip between Anacortes, the San Juan Islands, and Sidney, B.C., will be shortened by about ten minutes and the time required for a boat to get into port, unload, load, and get out again will be considerably less than it is now.
      The new terminal is on Ship Harbor, just east of Shannon Point, about two nautical miles west of the present Anacortes terminal. It will cost c. $700,000. It is being built by the Port of Anacortes, which is leasing it to the state for 30 years. It is expected to be completed in May.
      Officials of the State Ferries are enthusiastic over the speed with which boats will be unloaded and loaded at the new terminal."
Text from the Seattle Times, 6 March 1960
   

❖ The Canadian in Deception Pass ❖ My Experiences in a Flood Tide

By Capt. Ray Quinn

Tugs MARY D. HUME and IRENE,
 Deception Pass, 1938.
Original photo from archives of the S.P.H.S.©

"This is a story about takin' off through Deception Pass. We picked up a tow out of Skapna on DOUGLAS, and we'd picked up a tow in Olympia and gone for Anacortes. We'd got to Coronet Bay, which is a little bay inside of Deception Pass where you can tie up your tow  and wait for weather and tides. So we was in there for four or five days, and the weather was bad outside, so we couldn't go out. The other tugs had come in and tied up too, so when we did get good weather, we was all gonna go out at once, on the same tide.
      The Gilkey Brothers' tug SOUND, she was a tug of about 280-hp. She had a tow, and she was gonna be the first boat out. So she pulled away from the moorings in Coronet Bay. Then there was two little boats had a 12-section raft, they went around in back of the island in Coronet Bay, and they were gonna come out and go second. DOLLY C. was gonna be the third boat. Then our turn come--we's gonna be the fourth boat. We had three sections of logs. There was two little ones from Gilkey Bros., they had eight sections apiece, so they doubled their raft up. One of 'em was gonna tow the logs through the pass, and the other one was gonna tail his raft out. Then there was a coupla other little boats there that had eight sections apiece. They were gonna be the last ones out.
       So we all started out, and the tide was floodin' pretty good yet. SOUND, he got right up into the Pass pretty close to the entrance to the Pass, and he looked out, and so did I--I happened to see it , too. Here come a Canadian tug with 32 sections of cedar logs, comin' in on the last of the flood, somethin' that was unheard of. You couldn't judge the tides along there enough to do that. Anyhow, in he come, and SOUND, he pulled over behind Pass Island and got out of the way. These two little boats stayed behind the island. They were in the clear, but DOLLY C. was right off Strawberry Island. He was in the main channel, and he had a double raft of about 16 sections. So in this guy come. The Rogers brothers, they saw him too, comin', so they run out and got on the tail end of his raft and tried to help him steer it, but the last of the flood was settin' on what we call Gobbler's Knob, a point of rock on the Whidbey Island side of the Pass. The bridge pier sets on it now, comes down on the Gobbler's Knob. But anyhow, the last section hit that and spilled some logs, and he kept vomin' in. The cedar raft, the logs were floatin' pretty high in the raft, and the tow that DOLLY C. had, it was hemlock and it was pretty low in the water. The cedar raft hit DOLLY C.'s raft, and the cedar went right over the top of the hemlock logs and knocked the lantern jack down about a third of the way in on the section, and they were kind of locked together. I was right behind DOLLY C. so I could see what happened. We let our tow line run up against this Canadian raft, and he pushes off of the top of DOLLY C.'s raft and over towards Strawberry Island, but the tide was runnin' pretty hard yet, so he got clear. He hollered at me as he went by, he says, 'Where can I go? Where can I go?' I told 'im, 'You can go to hell, as far as I'm concerned!' But anyhow, we got this cedar raft off of DOLLY C.'s hemlock.
      So then we took our towline in again and started pullin'. So then SOUND, he come back in, and the tide and started to change, so he went out, and these two little boats behind--I can't remember the name of that island--they come out of the hole and went on out, then DOLLY C. went, and then it was our turn. By that time the tide was ebbin' like hell, but the Rogers brothers, they had two little tugs, and they were tailin' every tow that went out. So we cleared everything, and soon as we got outside the narrowest place, the tail end of the raft was still in the fast current, and the front end of it was in the less currrent. We's pullin' on that anyhow, but then the raft tried to tie knots in itself. Everything went all right--the gear all held. We got clear and went on up into Burrows Bay and caught the next tide in to Anacortes. Everybody did. The last two guys out, they only had a single raft apiece, about eight sections, and they really got a ride. The Rogers brothers done an excellent job of tailin' everybody and this Canadian tied up to the dolphin moorings in Coronet Bay. They told him when to leave and everything. I guess he was goin' to Seattle with them. I don't know. I don't know where he went, but nobody hit 'im.

Tugs with tails, 
towing through Deception Pass.
Date unknown.

      One guy tried years ago. He went out on the last of the ebb in Deception Pass. He got out to where the stake light is, the entrance to the place. He got that far, and the tide started to flood, and he started goin' backwards, he couldn't hold 'em, and he dropped his anchor, and the anchor finally fetched up, and it jerked the twin' machine off of the deck, and the towin' machine acted as an anchor and kinda held the raft in a straight line, and it went through the Pass backwards by itself. Nobody ever tried it after that, goin' out on the last of the tide."
By Captain Ray Quinn
Transcribed to Jean Burrows,
Courtesy of the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society
The Sea Chest
March 2008

The late Captain Ray Quinn was a well-known master mariner and tugboat captain. In 1954 he joined the Puget Sound Pilots and served in that capacity for 20 years. Many of his stories have appeared in The Sea Chest, a journal for members of the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, Seattle, WA.
click here