Page:The Pacific Monthly, volumes 5 and 6.djvu/442

 Some time in 1849 Captain White and his son, Cornelius, bought the schooner Mary Taylor and put her on the bar as pilot-boat, with himself and J. G. Hustler as pilots. She was really the first craft acting as pilot-boat on the bar worthy of the name and position. Both Captain White and Hustler hailed from New York.

Not long after the Mary Taylor made her appearance. Captain George Flavel arrived in from San Francisco with the fine schooner California, and put her on the bar as an opposition pilot-boat. Aided by a longer purse and perhaps better management, the Mary Taylor was forced to retire. I think she went to Puget Sound. After that, for more than a quarter of a century. Captain Flavel had almost undisputed possession of the pilotage at the mouth of the Columbia, which was notorious as a dangerous bar, principally from the description of it as given by Washingtotn Irving in relating the stupid adventures of Captain Thorne, while trying to get the Tonquin in. Irving's glib pen, vivid descriptions and fascinating style, though doubtless unintentional, gave the Columbia bar a bad name and did it great damage. The first legislation in Oregon territory regulating pilotage on the Columbia bar allowed enormous fees for such service. Prior to 1862 the fee for piloting a ship in over the bar and up to Astoria or from Astoria out over the bar was $15 per foot draft up to 12 feet and $18 per foot draft for every foot above 12 feet draft.

That year, 1862, I was chosen to represent the counties of Clatsop, Columbia and Tillamook in the Legislature. At that time the population of those counties was so small that it took all of them to make a representative district. I will quote from a newspaper article of mine published some years ago on the subject: "Knowing that the commerce of the Columbia River had grown to such a magnitude that the fees allowed by law were excessively high, were oppressive to every industry in the state and were enriching the few to the injury of the many, I introduced a bill, which became the law, reducing pilot fees on the bar and on the river between Astoria and Portland one- third, which still left their fees more than double what they now get. And it left them ample remuneration for their services. They had been so long in possession of the business, and knowing it must pass through their hands anyway, they had become too independent and too neglectful of their duty. They seldom ever went outside in bad weather to look for ships, no matter how many were due, or how important a speedy arrival might be. Vessels often had to lay outside in stormy weather one, two, three, four, five and sometimes six weeks, waiting the pleasure of the pilots.

In 1864 I was again elected to the same position, and believing that the growing commerce of the state required an improved system of pilotage, introduced a bill, which soon became the law, giving the exclusive right to pilot on the Columbia River bar to the owner or owners of a steam tug of sufficient power to tow ships in or out of the river. Heretofore only small sailing schooners had been used as pilot-boats. At the same session I had a "joint memorial" adopted by both houses, asking the Washington territory Legislature to enact a similar law, so as to prevent the pilots from getting license on the Washington side, to use sail vessels for pilot-boats on the bar. Fearing that Legislature might not act promptly in the matter, I went to Olympia on the 1st of December, 1864, over those almost impassable roads, in person, to ask the passage of this important measure. In ten days my bill was passed by both houses and was signed by Governor Pickering and was the law of both Washington and Oregon, making it impossible for any one to act as pilot on the Columbia River bar unless he was the owner or connected with a steam tug.

"I will always remember with gratitude, pride and pleasure the promptness with which the Washington Legislature took up my bill, and the kind, courteous and generous manner in which I was treated by them during my stay in Olympia." I insert here what the leading Olympia paper said on the subject to show how willing all of the Sound papers are and always have been to publish the dangers of the Columbia River bar:

"The Hon. P. W. Gillettte, member of the Oregon Legislature from the lower