Page:California Historical Society Quarterly vol 22.djvu/27

 on the upper Colorado. It is known that he was anxious to get a congressional appropriation of $150,000 for clearing the channel for navigation; he undoubtedly felt that his chances for doing so would be lessened if boats were already running successfully through that portion of the river supposed to be impassable.

Encouraged by the continued reports of the navigability of the Colorado to Callville and by the visit of Trueworthy and Adams, William Jennings of Salt Lake City made the second attempt to get a shipment up to the Mormon warehouse. The goods left San Francisco on the schooner Isabel on March 23, 1865, and reached the mouth of the river in April. There transfer was made to the Cocopah, of the Johnson Company, for the voyage up river. Again a long period of silence followed before an account of the voyage reached San Francisco, and again the news was disappointing.

"This morning I telegraphed you that "the Colorado freight is lying at Hardy's Landing. Teams returned empty. Don't pay freight." Since then Mr. Call has reached here and gives me the following information: That the steamer with the freight for Utah Landing got up the river to within ten miles of El Dorado Cañon, where she lay a short time casting off her barges, which went up to El Dorado Cañon, unloaded a quantity of freight for that place and returned, the steamer returning to Hardy's Landing and putting my freight ashore on the opposite side of the river, where there is no protection from Indians or any one else, the Captain and Mr. Hardy stating that that was the head of navigation. . . . Mr Call . . . sent two messengers— John King and Walton Phelps— to Hardyville to see if such were true. . . . they . . . saw the freight piled up on the beach close to the water, in much danger of being swept away. . ..

... At the time the steamer reached El Dorado there were 5 feet of a rise of water, which would give from 8 to 10 feet more in the channel, so that the lack of water was no obstacle. . . . Mr. Call thinks that if Hardy had not been with the steamer the Captain would have gone up to Utah Landing.

This seems to endorse Capt. Trueworthy's statements and reports, viz: that Mr. Hardy would put every obstacle in the way of the river being navigated above this landing, and endeavor to monopolize the trade and freighting of the river ^8"

Thus ended the second unsuccessful attempt to reach Callville. Many would have admitted defeat, but not Samuel Adams. A year later he prevailed on Capt. Robert T. Rogers, then operating the Esmeralda for the Pacific and Colorado Steam Navigation Company, to make a third attempt to reach the Utah Landing. The leading proponent of the Salt Lake trade was the firm of R. G. Sneath, of San Francisco. Richard G. Sneath was one of the several San Francisco merchants who held stock in the Trueworthy Company, and it was largely through him that this final effort was made. In June 1866, it was reported that a branch of the Sneath Company had been established at Callville and that an agent with a large group of men had arrived "ten days ago from Salt Lake City, to place the warehouses ... in proper condition to receive merchandise which is expected in about a week."«9 In September A. P. Dibble, a San Francisco merchant, was at Callville preparing for "a shipment of goods from R. G. Sneath."^^ Preparation