Page:California Historical Society Quarterly vol 22.djvu/14



To overcome the problem of her lack of power, Captain Turnbull returned to San Francisco, where he secured a new store of supplies for the post and a more powerful engine for the Uncle Sam. He left San Francisco on the schooner General Patterson and arrived at the mouth of the river in May 1 853.-^ To his disappointment he reached the fort only to learn that the Uncle Sam had sunk. The Herald reported that she had been moored at Ankrim's Ferry to be cleaned out preparatory to putting in the new engine, and that a hole had been bored through the bottom to let the water in. Through neglect, "the boat filled and sank and was carried off down the river by the strong current."-^ Twice thwarted in his enterprise, Turnbull returned to San Francisco on May 28, this time to acquire a boat in which to install the new machinery left on the river. ^^ In San Francisco he refuted the story of the sinking, saying that no hole had been bored in the boat but that she had been snagged by drifting timber and had sunk. From this point Captain Turnbull is heard of no more in connection with the navigation of the Colorado.^*' It is probable that the risk and expense incurred were more than he was prepared to meet, and that consequently he was forced to abandon the project. Again the former method of transportation by mule team from San Diego had to be resumed to supply the fort with provisions. Although the first attempt at steam navigation had failed, it proved more conclusively to those on the river that it could becorne an established institution. Moreover, there were others willing to take the risk.^^

The failure of Captain Turnbull provided an opportunity for Johnson to resume his attempts at navigation on the Colorado. Because of his own experience and the information gained through the efforts of Captain Turnbull, he felt sufficiently confident to organize the George A. Johnson Company in 1853.^- Other members of the firm were Benjamin M. Hartshorne and Captain A. H. Wilcox. On October 7 of that year, Johnson sailed from San Francisco on the brig General Viel^ carrying parts for a new steamer to be erected on the Colorado. By January 1854, the new boat, the General Jesup, was completed. Like the Uncle Sam she was a side- wheeler equipped with a seventy horsepower engine, was 104 feet long, 17 feet in beam or 27 feet over her paddle boxes, and had a capacity of fifty tons. To her belongs the honor of being the first vessel to navigate successfully the Colorado River. Her trial runs were satisfactory, and by April Captain Johnson was back in San Francisco, where he reported that she had successfully carried the entire cargo of supplies up to the fort and was then tied up at Yuma awaiting the arrival of other ships.^^

The early years of navigation on the river were difficult ones. Fate was not kind to boats on the Colorado. On September 20, 1854, the boiler of the General Jesup exploded while she was tied up at Ogden's Landing on the Sonora bank below Yuma, killing one man and scalding others. To add to this disaster, the schooner General Patter son j in attempting to enter the