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December 29, 1854: Tillamook’s Morning Star is Completed

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Morning Star 2 (replica of the original)Unable to find a captain willing to risk his ship on the Tillamook Bay bar in the 1850s, the denizens of Tillamook County faced a dilemma. They had plenty of milk, butter, and cheese, but no sugar, flour, or coffee – they had to laboriously grind wheat kernels in their coffee grinders to bake bread, and they resorted to drinking a toasted-wheat beverage instead of coffee or tea.

So they decided to build a boat.

Instead of seeing their products go to waste, the settlers set to work. With no lumber mills nearby, they started with standing timber. From native Douglas fir, they shaped a 37-foot keel and built a 6-foot hold using 6-foot by 8-foot timbers spaced 10 inches apart. These were then covered with a 2-inch thick planking of Douglas fir, sawed by hand into 40-foot lengths.

Metal needed for spikes and fittings was hand-forged from materials left by the wreck of the Shark, a 12-gun U.S. sloop of war, which broke up on the Columbia River Bar and drifted south to the beach at Arch Cape in 1846. It took six trips with four horses to pack it on the trail over Neah-Kah-Nie Mountain, across the Nehalem River and south to Kilchis Point in Tillamook Bay — a total of 289 miles by today’s roads.

The rigging and sails were made from bolts of canvas, rope and blocks bought for $10 from the Tillamook Indians, who salvalged them from an 1851 wreck that drifted to Netarts Bay west of Tillamook. [Source: The Morning Star of Tillamook (pdf)]

The Morning Star was completed on December 29, 1854, and launched soon after.

Further reading:

December 28, 1978: United Airlines DC-8 Crashes in Northeast Portland

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The Oregonian front page, 29 December 1978Originating at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, United Airlines Flight 173 stopped in Denver, and continued to Portland on Thursday, December 28, 1978. The pilot reported a problem with the plane’s nose landing gear to the Portland tower, and, according to the National Transportation Safety Board report (pdf), failed to monitor properly the aircraft’s fuel state and to properly respond to the low fuel state. The DC-8 ran out of gas and crashed in Northeast Portland at about 6:15pm.

The Oregonian reported the next day:

The jetliner, reportedly carrying 172 adult passengers, five infants and eight crew members, apparently lost power after circling Portland International Airport and crashed into two vacant houses and a grove of trees at East Burnside Street, five miles southeast of the airport and about 200 feet east of 157th Avenue.

The last known dispatch from the pilot was: “We’re going down. We’re not going to make the airport.”

Further reading:

December 27, 1901: French Bark Henriette Sinks in Astoria Harbor

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Morning Oregonian headline, 28 December 1901The French bark Henriette sank in Astoria’s harbor on December 27, 1901 (Morning Oregonian, 28 December 1901).

ASTORIA, Dec. 27. – The French bark Henriette, with a cargo of redwood lumber for Europe, is at the bottom of the river a short distance out from the wharves opposite Kopp’s brewery, in Uppertown. Yesterday afternoon and the night previous, the bark had dragged her anchors, and was well outside the river channel toward the shore, and a tug went to her to taker her to a safe anchorage in the lower harbor, but the tug’s service was declined. At low water last evening, shortly after 8 o’clock, the bark settled on some hard object and immediately began to leak. The tide at the time was extremely low, registering 1.9 feet below zero, one of the lowest of the year.

The pumps were manned, but the water began to make headway until 2 o’clock, this morning, when the officers and crew left her, and shortly afterwards she keeled over and sank.

Built on the Seine in 1874, the Henriette was a diminutive craft of the old school. She had been loaded with 400,000 feet of redwood lumber from California, which had been brought to Portland by steam schooner.

Within days agents for the bark called for bids to release her from the harbor. Green redwood lumber differs from fir and pine in the respect that all of it will not float, making the task of saving the cargo quite difficult (Morning Oregonian, 29 December 1901).

By March she had been raised and her cargo recovered (Morning Oregonian, 6 March 1902)

December 26, 1897: Peter French Shot Dead

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Morning Oregonian headline, 28 December 1897
John W. “Peter” French, Cattle King of southern Oregon in the late 1800s, was shot dead by a young cowboy named Ed Oliver on December 26, 1897.

The Morning Oregonian published the following article two days after the shooting.

BAKER CITY, Or., Dec. 27. – A telephone passage to the Democrat from Canyon City says Peter French, a prominent cattlman and landowner of Harney county, was killed by a man named Oliver. It is reported that the deed was a cold-blooded murder. The victim was shot in the back of the head, the bullet coming out between the eyes. A land dispute is said to have been the couse of the trouble.

Oliver was indicted for murder, but just before the trial, which took place on May 19, 1898, the charge was reduced to manslaughter (Morning Oregonian, 7 June 1898). Sixteen witnesses were called by the state and nineteen by the defendant, who pleaded self-defense. The jury began deliberating the case at 4pm on May 28, and three hours later returned a verdict of not guilty.

Further reading:

December 25, 1850: Lot Whitcomb, First Steamboat Built on the Willamette, is Launched

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The Lot WhitcombThe first steamboat built to ply on the Willamette River, the side-wheeler Lot Whitcomb, was launched at Milwaukie on December 25, 1850 (Morning Oregonian, 25 December 1888). She was named for her principal owner, Lot Whitcomb, who was also founder of Milwaukie.

Designed along the lines of Hudson River boats, she was 160 feet long with 18 feet diameter side wheels. She operated on both the Willamette and Columbia Rivers between Milwaukie and Astoria until 1854, when she was renamed the Annie Abernethy and transferred to California to ply the Sacramento River.

Lot Whitcomb’s captain was John C. Ainsworth, and Jacob Kamm was the engineer.