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rigging. One day while pitching the hull of the Callapooiah with a kettle of hot pitch and a long-handled comb , he was accosted by an "uncouth Missourian” who had evidently never seen anything of the kind before , and asked Jack what he was about. “I am a landscape painter by profession,” the replay came in broad accents,“ and I am doing a wee bit of adornment for Captain Cook's schooner!”

Rigged for sails, the Callapooiah was launched in August and let down -river for Astoria . She reached there in four days . Thereafter she ran between Willamette and Columbia River points , on a frequent and more or less regular schedule. But twenty-one months after launching , Cook offered the Callapooiah for sale . By that time the competition of similar though smaller craft had become so keen that lowered transportation rates yielded small profit . One of these crude vessels , running between Oregon City and Astoria in 1847, charged a point-to-point fare of $20, provided the passenger boarded himself and helped pull the boat! Operated by B. C. Kindred, the Callapooiah made regular stops at the river-side landing called Portland , but contemptuously referred to by non-residents as “Little Stumptown.”

Meanwhile , other men built and operated similar flatboats above the falls . There the Mogul and Ben Franklin were in use as early as 1846, running between “the falls” and Champoeg, center of trade on the middle river. The distance was eighteen miles, and transit time of those Indian -powered , paddle-driven craft was from seven to ten hours. It was claimed that they had “good sailing and pulling qualities.” The passenger fare was fifty cents and trips were made twice weekly. Business grew so rapidly that in May of that year a third flatboat, the Great Western , went into operation . Principal owner of the three boats was Robert, more familiarly called “Doc" Newell, Rocky mountain trapper.

A few ocean-going vessels , some of note , entered the river in those years . Among them was the bark Whiton from New York, in 1847. The following year came the brig Sequin, which, returning in 1849, brought the first United States mail sacks to Portland from San Francisco and inaugurated regular mail service.

Late in July 1848 the schooner Honolulu put into Portland