Operations On Willamette and Columbia
The first outing of the Lot Whitcomb was a pleasure expedition to Astoria. There was a problem running her on the Columbia River, and that was that she still had creditors that hadn't been paid who had an interest in the vessel. American law did not then allow a vessel to operate without a certificate and a certificate could not be lawfully issued if creditors had unpaid claims against the vessel. Worse yet, the official in charge of enforcing this law was the Astoria customs inspector, General Adair, who was a co-owner the Columbia, the only other steamboat on the Columbia River at the time, and as such the chief rival of Lot Whitcomb. More stock was sold to pay off the ship's debts, and regularized operations were finally able to begin.
Lot Whitcomb ran twice weekly on the route from Milwaukie to Astoria, making the run in 10 hours, a substantial improvement over the previous time set by the Columbia which was 24 hours. Columbia charged $25 fare for the run from Portland to Astoria, but under pressure from Lot Whitcomb was forced to drop this first to $15 per person, and later to $12. For a while, the owners of Lot Whitcomb as Milwaukie boosters, refused to stop at Portland. Portland's city founders retaliated by raising $60,000 and then buying the Gold Hunter, an actual ocean-going vessel, to come north to the Columbia River, where she ran for about a year against the Whitcomb. Shortly after launching, Lot Whitcomb struck a rock near Milwaukie, sustained damage to her paddle wheel and a hole in her hull. The vessel was hung up for a week until her owners and the resourceful Captain Ainsworth were able to pull her off and repair her. She also functioned well as a tow boat, escorting many oceangoing ships from Astoria up the Columbia and Willamette rivers to Portland.
Lot Whitcomb's agent in Oregon City was George Abernethy a former territorial governor of Oregon and a prominent early pioneer businessman.
Read more about this topic: Lot Whitcomb (sidewheeler)
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