Page:California Historical Society Quarterly vol 22.djvu/169

 $45 steerage at this time, soldiers were transported at a special rate of $40 each. This would make an income of $64,440 from troops alone. In addition to military personnel, there was a continual movement of travelers, adventurers, and miners to and from Arizona, although figures showing the extent of this travel are not available. Albert H. Payson states that during the nineteen months from May 1877, to January 1879, the company transported 2,286 passengers, which again indicates the volume of travel to Arizona.^* Obviously a business such as that conducted by the Colorado Steam Navigation Company required a large personnel. More than one hundred men were engaged in this service, their number fluctuating with the amount of business being transacted. During the spring months, when water was high and business brisk, this number was often exceeded, while in the fall, during low water and slack business, large numbers were discharged. In May 1874, the Miner announced that the company had discharged forty-five men and laid up all but one steamer and a barge,^*^ and a similar occurrence was noted in 1866.

Of paramount importance in the personnel of the company were the river pilots, upon whom largely depended the success of steam navigation. On the run from San Francisco to Port Isabel perhaps the most experienced captain was A. N. McDonough. He was in command of the brig Josephine running to the Colorado as early as 1 867 when sailing vessels were being used. In 1 87 1 he went aboard the Newbem as captain and continued in command until transferred to the Montana in 1873. Captain William Metzger was then given the Newbem, and a year later McDonough was replaced on the Montana by Captain George M. Douglass. These two continued in command until the company retired from business in 1877. Prominent among the names of the river pilots were Captains George A. Johnson and A. H. Wilcox, founders of the Colorado Steam Navigation Company; D. C. Robinson,^*^ Charles Overman, Isaac Polhamus,^*^ Steve Thorn, A. D. Johnson, and others. In the rival company of 1864 were Thomas E. Trueworthy, Robert T. Rogers, Paddy Gorman, and most famous of all, John ("Jack") Mellon. Mellon joined the Colorado Steam Navigation Company soon after his arrival on the Colorado and acted as captain on the river steamers until 1887.^*^

To the average river pilot, steam navigation on the Colorado presented a number of problems which were fundamentally different from those of most other streams, and although a captain may have navigated the waters of the seven seas, he was not granted a position of importance among the pilots of the Colorado until he had mastered the "tricks of the trade" there. The initial experience which he invariably met with on approaching the Colorado was the tidal "bore," often called "el borro grande" by the natives. From the time of Hernando de Alarcon it had always presented a problem to the prospective navigator. Spring tides at Montague Island rise vertically about ten and one-half feet, which is almost double the height of those at Cape San