Portland

Type

Paddle Steamer

Period

19th Century

Nation

United States

Overview: Portland was a small wooden-hulled side-wheel steamboat built in 1853 to serve the early Willamette River trade between Portland and Oregon City, Oregon. She is remembered chiefly for her dramatic end, being swept over Willamette Falls in 1857 with the loss of her captain and a deckhand. Specifications: Portland was a small sidewheeler, 90 ft (27.4 m) long, launched at Portland, Oregon on July 2, 1853, and built by Alexander S. Murray and Jack Torrance. She was of wooden-hulled, shallow-draft inland/coastal steamboat construction with side-wheel propulsion, typical of early Willamette River vessels of her era, and was owned by Murray, Torrance, and Capt. Archibald Jamieson. Service History: For a brief period starting in 1853, Portland, under Capt. A.S. Murray, was paired with the steamer Multnomah as the "People's Line" on the Portland-Oregon City run, an arrangement that continued at least through March 1856. In October 1856 she was moved above Willamette Falls to run the upper-river trade between Canemah and Dayton on the Yamhill River. On March 17, 1857, under Capt. Arthur Jamieson, rudder failure in the swollen spring river left the boat uncontrollable and she was carried over Willamette Falls stern first, destroying the vessel and drowning the captain and a deckhand. Notable Facts: Captain Arthur Jamieson was one of at least four Scottish immigrant brothers, all steamboat officers on the Pacific Coast, who were killed in three separate steamboating accidents between 1857 and 1861 in Oregon and British Columbia. No photograph of Portland is known to survive; the best surviving period artifact is an 1854 newspaper advertisement for the "People's Line" pairing Portland with the Multnomah, held on Wikimedia Commons and used as the reference image here.