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construction were obtained from Fort Vancouver, at the request of Lieutenant Wilkes. Wilkes further gave Gale papers necessary for ocean navigation, a set of instruments and—equally important to his enterprise—an American flag.
The Star of Oregon, clinker-built, of Baltimore clipper model, 53 feet 6 inches long, 10 feet 9 inches at her widest, and drawing 4 feet 6 inches of water in ballast, was launched from Swan Island on May 19, 1841. Her frame was of white oak, her knees of red cedar, and she was planked with cedar to the waterways. After further refitting on Oak (Ross) Island, the Star set sail on August 27, 1842, proceeding cautiously down the Willamette, and two days later dropped anchor before Fort Vancouver. Hoisting her colors, she proudly declared that Uncle Sam, as well as John Bull, had a vessel in Oregon waters. A few days later, far down the Columbia, she dipped her colors before Fort George. She remained in the Columbia estuary for two weeks, while Gale, who alone knew anything of navigation, instructed his novices in seamanship.
Thus on September 12, the Star of Oregon, her sails confidently set, slipped across the Columbia bar on her thousand-mile journey to California. Despite the fact that Gale's crew of five men and a ten-year-old Indian boy were seasick almost all the way, the hazardous voyage was safely made in five days. On September 17 the vessel sailed through the Golden Gate.
At Yerba Buena, Gale disposed of his young vessel to a French sea-captain, obtaining in an advantageous deal 350 head of desirable cattle. These Gale and his man grazed locally until spring, when they herded their half tame cattle over the mountains into the Willamette Valley.
Transportation by flatboat on the Willamette was first undertaken commercially in the summer of 1844. Aaron Cook, an Englishman, believed there was profit to be made from a craft that would operate regularly up and down the river, replacing the numerous Indian canoes and settlers rafts. He built the Callapooiah, thirty-five tons burden, a cross between a scow and a schooner. Jack Warner, a young Scotsman with a good education and some practical knowledge of the sailor's craft, did much of the caulking and