Historic Hood River
Steamer Tahoma
1-15-2015
Notes
Here’s a good view of the steamer Tahoma at Sheridan’s Point. Check out the covered wagons on the foredeck.
The Tahoma didn’t get nearly as much press as the Bailey Gatzert and the Dalles City, but we know she was in service about 1900, and in 1916 she spent five weeks frozen in the ice near Cape Horn. In 1911 the White Collar Line announced the Tahoma would carry automobiles to any point on the mid-Columbia for those who wanted to tour the area with their machines.
Sheridan’s Point is on the Washington side, just downstream from Bridge of the Gods. It played an important role in the Cascades Massacre.
Buzz
The lack of freeboard on these old paddlewheelers has always amazed me. They must have been very stable.
l.e.
What a neat photo! Especially with those covered wagons.
This was probably taken after the flood of 1894 which did a lot of damage to this area.
Arlen probably already know this, but Point Sheridan was also where the last spike was driven for the North Bank Railroad.
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~westklic/drivespike.htm
l.e.
I didn’t check history on this, and I probably should before I accuse Sheridan of this, but I think he lived with a Klickitat Indian woman from this area for a few years and produced a child.
Then, like so many men of this era, moved on to a more public lifestyle, forgetting to mention the previous lifestyle. I think the woman later married another White man from the area, but the child knew her father was Sheridan.
Charlott….do you know if she married an Underwood?
Kenn
Beautiful photo, single stack, wood fenders and covered wagons. Obvious the flat bottom required much less free board. What a historical location, the SP&S golden spike ceremony and the middle blockhouse..
Longshot
She looks to be running a bit heavy in the bow.
Charlott
Chief Chenowith that a daughter who married William Lear, a white man stationed in the area. They had a daughter named Isabelle. Lear left to go to another post, story has it that he did wish Taswatha/Ellen to go with him. She didn’t wish to leave her family, and probably figured it would be hard for her living the "white man’s way. So she stayed. Chenowth was a good friend with Amos Underwood and prior to his hanging he asked Underwood to take care of his daughter and grand-daughter. Amos Underwood married intitally Ellen in the native custom. Eventually Isabelle grew up and married his somewhat younger brother Ed Underwood. At the time that Ed and Isabelle married Amos and Ellen were married in the white man tradition.
I don’t know that "Little Phil" had an indian wife. However, George Pickett of the famous "Pickett’s Charge" at Gettysburg did. While stationed up in Washington this Indian wife and him had a son, James Tilton Pickett. The wife died and at the onset of the Civil War Pickett went east. He knew his son would have problems fitting in, so left him with a family there. After he married back east and died, his wife Sally kept in touch with James. James became quite a painter and there is at least one of his painting in Portland.
Custer supposedly had an Indian wife and fathered a child called Yellow Bird.
So it was quite common.
Charlott
Just an added note here…..Lear never forgot his daughter Isabelle, because I know for fact that years later after she was married to Ed Underwood he returned to see her. Now whether there was any communication between them over the years from when she was born until he saw her again I don’t know.