The manufactured products exported are: first, lumber, the chief article of commerce; lime, a valuable product on account of its almost entire absence over a great extent of Oregon and California; barrels, staves, wooden pipe, the proper trees for which manufactures abound in the small valleys about the Sound; canned fish, and coal-if that may be named with manufactures. The other products exported are wheat and other grains, flour, wool, hides, livestock, potatoes, and hops.
Puget Sound, from its position, extent, depth of water, and its contiguity to the materials required, should be one of the greatest shipbuilding stations in the world. In addition to the bodies of iron and coal lying adjacent to navigable water, the immense forests that skirt its shore line for more than 1,100 miles furnish abundance of excellent timber for constructing every part of seagoing vessels, from the tough knees of the tide-land spruce to the strong durable planks of red fir, abies douglasii, and the tall tapering masts of yellow fir, allies grandis. Oak, arbutus, myrtle, and maple furnish the fine-grained woods required for finishing the interior of vessels.
The great merit of the firs is their size and durability, with their habit of growing close together like canes in a brake, and to an immense height without knots or branches. It is not uncommon to find a tree having a diameter of four feet at a distance of ten feet from the ground, which has attained an altitude of 300 feet; nor is it unusual to find spar timbers 150 feet long with a diameter of eighteen inches, perfectly straight and sound. The mills on Puget Sound find no difficulty in furnishing squared timbers of these dimensions, and often cut plank from 00 to 90 feet in length. The fir has not the corrosive acid qualities of the oaks, and therefore iron bolts are not subject to corrosion, but are held so tenaciously by the strong and pitchy fibre of the wood that they will break sooner than be drawn out.
Numerous tests have been made by the French of the strength of fir spars, as compared with those of Riga, which showed that while the bending and breaking resistance of the two were about the same, the American wood possessed a notable advantage in density, having a flexible and tenacious fibre that might be bent and twisted several times in contrary directions without breaking. Nor has the fir been found lacking in durability. It has been the only wood in use for repairing sea-going vessels on the northwest coast, as well as for building numerous riverboats and sea-going vessels, which remain sound after many years of service. “White cedar, another valuable timber for ship-building, is found in certain localities about the Sound and on the Columbia River.
Want of familiarity with the materials to be found on the Pacific coast made ship-builders cautious, and it was only gradually that they gained confidence.
The first vessel built on Puget Sound was the schooner H. C. Page, at Whatcom, by Peabody & Roder, in 1853. Her first business was a charter offered by the H. B. Co. to carry sheep to San Juan Island in 1854. Roder’s Bellingham Bay, MS., 29-30.
The same year Bolton & Wilson built the clipper sloop Rob Roy five miles below Steilacoom. Olympia Columbian, Oct. 15, 1853. H. D. Morgan established a shipyard at Olympia in 1854, and launched the Emily Parker, a schooner of 40 tons, built to run between ports on the Sound. She was chartered by J. G. Parker. Parker’s Puget Sound, MS., 4.
The schooner Elsie, 20 tons burden, built at Shoalwater Bay in 1854 by Capt. Hillyer, Swan’s N. W. Coast, 282-3, completes the list of vessels that were put up in Washington waters for these two years.
About April 1855 the little steamer Water Lily, owned by William Webster, and built at some port on the Sound, commenced running between Olympia and Port Townsend with passengers and freight. Olympia Pioneer and Dem., April 7, 1855.
The first steamer of a good size built on the Sound was the Julia Barclay, known commonly as the Julia, at Port Gamble. She was a stern-wheel boat built for the Fraser River trade, and owned by George Barclay of S. F., but subsequently sold to the O. S. N. Co. Victoria Gazette, Sept. 18, 1858; Ebey’s Journal, MS., vi. 171.
The first ocean steamer constructed of native woods in the waters of the Sound was the George S. Wright, launched May 12, 1860, at Port Ludlow. She was originally planned by William Hammond, Jr, and partially built by him. It was the intention to have named her the A. V. Brown, after the postmaster-general. But her frame being sold to John T. Wright, Jr, who enlarged it, she was called first after him, and then George S. Wright, after another member of the family. It was as the George S. Wright that the vessel was known on the coast. Port Townsend Register, May 16, 1860; Portland Times, April 30, 1860. She ran from Portland to Victoria for some years, and then from Portland to Sitka. She was wrecked in Jan. 1873, returning from Sitka, it was supposed, in the vicinity of Cape Caution, at the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound. Every soul on board perished, either by drowning or at the hands of the Indians, and no reliable account of the disaster was ever received. Among the lost were Maj. Walker and wife, and Lieut Dodge of the army. Port Townsend Argus, March 18, 1873.
There is no complete list of the vessels built previous to 1868. In the report of the surveyor-general for that year it is stated that 29 vessels had been completed and launched, some of them reaching 600 tons. Zabriskie’s Land Laws, 1076; and in Browne’s Resources (1869), 574, I find it stated that probably about 50 sea-going vessels bad been built, up to that time, on the Sound south of Port Townsend. The returns made in the Reports of Commerce and Navigation are imperfect.
Between 1858 and 1866 there are no returns, a deficiency only partly accounted for by the destruction of the customhouse papers at Port Angeles in 1863. The J. B. Libbey, a 70-ton steamer, was launched from the mill premises of Grennan & Cranney, Utsalady, in December 1862, built by Hammond, Calhoun & Alexander. Wash. Scraps, 98. In 1865 or 1866 a small steamer was built at Port Madison for the Coal Creek Mining Company, to be used in towing coal barges on Lake Washington. Seattle Dispatch, Dec. 2, 1876.
A steamer for the Sacramento River was built at Port Ludlow in 1866; and another three miles below Olympia, by Ethridge, the same year. Olympia Pac. Tribune, Feb. 10, 1866. In 1867 the Chehalis, for the Chehalis River, was built at Tumwater, mentioned elsewhere.
The following year a steam yacht, the Success, was built at Snohomish by Thomas Coupe, and launched in May, at which time another was in process of construction-probably the Favorite. S. E Call, May 10, 1868. In 1869 was built the popular passenger steamer Alida, at Seattle, 114 tons burden. Port Townsend Argus, Jan. 23, 1875.
Shipyards are numerous; shipbuilders William Hammond and E. S. Cheasty at Port Ludlow; Grennan & Cranney at Utsalady, and later at Snohomish; Meigs & Co. at Port Madison, under the superintendence of A. J. Westervelt, the lumbering and shipbuilding company incorporated in 1877, Port Madison and S. F., capital $1,000,000. Meigs had a shipyard in 1869 or before, as above. Olympia Wash. Standard, Dec. 1, 1867; Walla Walla Union, Aug. 14, 1869. H. Williamson at Steilacoom; Hammond, Calhoun & Alexander at Utsalady; Crowell at the same place; Thompson at Port Ludlow; Oliver Engleblom at Port Blakeley; Bryant at Port Madison; Hammond at Seattle; all before 1870, and who may be considered as pioneers in shipbuilding. After that the business declined. In 1869 18 vessels, including two steamers, were built, but the following two years witnessed great dulness in the lumber trade, affecting all other branches. Victor’s Oregon, 269; Meeker’s Wash. Ter., 34. In 1871 a thousand-ton ship was built at Port Madison the Wildwood, sold after 4 years in the lumber trade for a third more than her original cost. S. F. Alta, April 1875-and at Seattle a steamer in 1872, from which time there has been an increase in the number of yards and of vessels built. Middlemas had a shipyard at Port Ludlow in 1870; Westervelt at Port Madison in 1871; there was another at Freeport-later called Milton, in 1872; Boole had one at Utsalady at the same time; in 1873 Reed Brothers rented Yesler’s yard at Seattle and moved their business to that place from Port Madison, and in 1874 Hall Brothers from California established themselves at Port Ludlow; after which shipbuilding became a more prosperous industry. Tacoma Herald, May 28, 1875.
At Port Madison were built after 1862 the barkentine W. H. Ganley, 360 tons; the bark Legal Tender, 1863, 190 tons; bark Northwest, 1865, 315 tons; bark Tidal Wave, 1869, 600 tons; the whole four being for the use of the mill in carrying lumber. Morse’s Wash. Ter., MS., xxii. 46. Also in 1870 the schooners Margaret Crockard, 169 tons; W. S. Phelps, 90 tons; and in 1573 the Mary Rare, 64 tons, and Empire City, 732 tons. The Empire City was taken to S. F. and converted into a steamer. It was claimed that building the steamer in this manner saved $10,000 to her owners. Seattle Intelligencer, Nov. 22, 1873. In 1874 the barkentine S. H. Stetson of 707 tons was built at Port Madison, and in 1876 the sch. Robert and Minnie, 99 tons, and str Dispatch, 66 tons. Portland Board of Trade Report, 1877, 34. At Port Ludlow the seh. Light Wing was built in 1870, 101 tons; and bark Forest Queen, 511 tons; in 1873 sloop Z. B. Heywood, 107 tons; in 1874 barkentine Pio Benito, 278 tons; and schooners Annie Gee, 155 tons; Ellen J. McKinnon, 70 tons; Twilight, 185 tons; Jessie Nickerson, 185 tons; and sloop Mary Louisa, 153 tons. S. E Bulletin, Feb. 10, 1875.
The Ellen J. McKinnon in 1879 b