Early Years
John was born in 1854 in the suburb of Irvington in Portland, Oregon, the second child and only son of William and Elizabeth Irving.
The family moved to New Westminster, British Columbia in 1859 and John's father began work on the Fraser River. William Irving became a partner in the Victoria Steam Navigation Company and built two sternwheelers, the Governor Douglas and the Colonel Moody to serve between New Westminster and Victoria. However, he did not have a monopoly on the route and rate wars soon erupted between him and his main rival, Captain William Moore who was running his Henrietta on the same route.
In 1862, news of the gold strikes in the Cariboo Gold Rush brought 4,000 miners to the area and William Irving sold his boats to John Wright and had another sternwheeler built, the Reliance and later the Onward which were kept busy shipping miners and supplies to Yale where they could travel on the nearly completed Cariboo Wagon Road to the goldfields at Barkerville.
John Irving was only eighteen when his father died on August 28, 1872 at New Westminster. He inherited the Onward and the Reliance and soon proved that he was capable of following in his father's footsteps.
Read more about this topic: John Irving (steamship Captain)
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