S CHOONE.RS OU'J.' OF COOS BAY 

by 

ROBERT E. JOHNSON 

A '1'HF.SIS 

Presented to the Department of History 
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon 

in partial fulfiliment 
of the requirements for the degree or 

J.\a ster of Arta 

June 1953 



APPROVED : 

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PREFACE 

The Cooa Bay Times of January 17, 1953, devoted an 

entire page to some pictures and an article entitled 11 000s 

Bay 'a Founding Era of Wooden Ships Makes Lively History.11 

In conclusion the story stated: 11 .but all that is past now. 

It lives only in long memories and pages of history. 11 There 

can be l ittle doubt of the truth of this statement, but 

neither the memories nor the pages of history have been 

compiled in such a fashion as to be available to one who 

would relive the days when Coos Bay-built ships were frequent 

visitors to the seaports of the Pacific Coast and to foreign 

waters as well. It is the aim of this study to remedy the 

situation . 

The era. of shipbuilding in the Coos Bay region covered 

nearly a. century, from 1859 when Asa. M. Simpson ha.d the 

Arago built until 1944 when the mines,,eeper and rescue tug 

building programs of World War II were completed. Du.ring 

this period upwards of 180 sea-going vessels slid from 

builders ' ways into the waters of Coos Bay and the Coquille 

r iver, and at the zenith of activity, during World Viar I, 

shipbuilding bade fair to dethrone that perennial monarch 



ii 

of southern Oregon occupations, the logging and lumber 

industry. 

Any account of shipbuilding must be concerned with the 

ships themselves, and the following pages include details 

of their characteristics and final dispositions, as well as 

a description of their construction. Sea.faring men generally 

are prone to anthropomorphism with regard to ships, and the 

writer, diffidently naming himself to their company, chooses 

to follow their course; these vessels, both sailers and 

steamers, merchant ships and warships, have lived for him. 

This account ma.ke·s no attempt to describe the building 

of the myriad boats and launches which have been so essential 

to the fishing industry and transportation on Coos Bay. 

The writer considers the work of such small craft builders 

as John Swing and Frank Lowe beyond the scope of a study of 

the shipbuilding industry because their activity neither 

provided employment for many men nor produced ocean-going 

vessels. With few exceptions, only the established ship­

yards and the ships launched from their ways are the subjects 

of this wcrk . 

Unfortunately, the information on tbis topic is severely 

limited. The records of the Simpson Lumber Company were 

consumed by the fire whiob destroyed the L. J . Simpson home 

at Shore Acres, and the bookkeeping methods of the other 



iii 

builders usually were quite haphazard. Therefore the writer 

has had to content himself with newspaper accounts and 

scattered references in various publications. Wherever 

possible Fred Kruse, the last vice president of the :Kr-use 

and Banks Shipbuilding Comrpany, has corroborated these 

accounts. But for his willingness to talk ships and ship­

building at any time the task of research would have been 

insuperable. 



TABLE OF CONTENT~ 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I PACIFIC COAST SHI PBUILDING GETS UNDER WAY••••••••• l 

II 

III 

THE ERA OF SAIL 

STEAM SCHOONERS 

••••••••••••••••• •••••••••••••••••• 

................................... 
16 

:58 

IV WAR- BORN PROSPERITY ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 60 

V THE CLIMAX OF COOS BAY SHIPBUI LDING •••• • •••••••••• 71 

VI BECALMED BETWEEN WARS ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 91 

VII WARSHIPS AND THE END OF AN INDUSTRY ••••••••••••••• 108 

BIBLIOGRAPHY ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 121 

' 



LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS 

SUBJECT PAGE 

Four-masted schooner Annie~• Smale ••••••••••••••••••••• 127 

Steam schooner Casco ready for launching at Ferndale .••• 128 

Casco ready for launching ..••••••..•..•.•.••••.•...•..•• 129 

Part of the men who built the Casoo ••••.•.•••..•..•••.•• 130 

Steam schooner R. D. Inman ready for launching at 
Ferndale ....... : .. -;..................................... 131 

Steam schooner Fifield on the ways at Porter•••••••••••• 132 

Gas schooner Wilhelmina•••••••••••·••••••••••••••·•••••• 133 

Martba Buehner (ex-A. M. Simpson), a typical s1ngle-
ender ..•••••••••••• : •• : •••..•••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 134 

Launching the steam schooner Stanwood.•••••••••••••••••• 135 

Hough type Emersency Fleet Corporation vessel Kickapoo •• 136 

Inside of the~ Lewis when she was in frame .••••••••• 137 

Ferris type Emergency Fleet Corporation vessel Fort 
Leavenworth ready for launching. Bow view ••••• --;:-;; ••••• 138 

~ Leavenworth, port quarter view••••••••••••••••••••• 139 

Working on the rigging of the five-masted scbooner 
K. V. Kruse...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . • • . 140 

K. V. Kruse alongside a wharf••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 141 

Standing out under lower sails with no cargo aboard •..•• 142 

Stearn schooner Ryder Hanify. A typical double-ender 
with three cargo gears•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 143 



LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS (CONTINUED) 

SUBJECT 

Sailing schooner North Bend j~st after launching •.••••• 

North Bend under sail•••••••••••••••••••·•••••••••••••• 

PAGE 

144 

145 



CHAPTER I 

PACIFIC COAST SHIPBUILDING GETS UNDER WAY 

Shipbuilding on the West Coast of North America was 

carried on by the earliest explorers to reach the area. 

Cortes' Spaniards built four small vessels in Mexico in 

1527 for use in exploring the coast and in developing pearl 

fisheries. &ome few ships were built by the Russians after 

they oooupied Alaska, but shipbuilding was of little impor­

tance until Alexander Baranof arrived as governor in 1799. 

During bis tenure, ending in 1818, fourteen vessels were 

launched, mostly at Sitka. His aucoessors allowed this 

activity to lapse and few ships were built during the 

remainder of Russian control. The small schooner North West -
Amerioa, launched at Nootka by John mearea in 1?88, was the 

first British vessel built on the Pacific Coast. Later 

several small oraft were built near Fort Vancouver on the 

Columbia ~iver, but few ever went to sea. Neither Spain, 

Russia, nor Great Britain ever established shipbuilding as 

a continuing industry on the West Coast.1 

lJobn w. Caughey, History .2.£ ~ Paoi£io Coast of North 
America (New York, 1938), passim. 



While Baranof's activity was at its height, the little 

thirty-ton schooner Dolly was built at Astoria in 1811 for 

the Pacific Fur Company. Tbirty years passed before the 

next American ship was launched in the Oregon territory. 

2 

She was the ~tar 0£ Oregon, a schooner, sailed to Cali£ornia 

by her builders who sold her there and drove a herd 0£ 

cattle baok overland. During the next few years ships 

sailing from the Atlantic by way of Cape Horn remained the 

most important carriers in coastal shipping. Not until after 

the Urnited States gained control of the Pac1f1o Coast trom 

Cape Flattery to San Diego were small shipyards established 

in some 0£ the northwestern ports .l 

One of these was Coos Bay, a harbor on the southern 

Oregon coast. Virtually unknown even after Perez explored 

the coast in 1773-1774, Coos Bay was mentioned in the report 

of Lieutenant w. P. McArthur of the u. s. Coast Survey 

schooner Ewing. This officer, commanding the surveying 

party in 1849-1850, stated that the 11Kowes river" had not 

yet been explored, but the appearance of its mouth made it 

seem likely that the "river" would prove useful for steamers.2 

In January, 1852, the schooner Captain Lincoln, carrying 

1Hubert H. Banorort, fil.storz Ef_ Oregon (San Francisco, 
1888), II, passim. 

2 L .• P. McArthur, 11 Tbe Pacific Coast Survey of 1849 and 
1860, 11 Oregon Historical Q,uarterlx, XVI (1915), 266. 



troops and supplies to avenge an attempted massacre by 

Coquille river Indians, was wrecked on the beach north of 

Coos Bay. The survivors of the wreck were removed four 

months later by the Nassau, the first ship known to have 

entered the bay itself'. The reports carried back by these 

men were probably not as accurate as the following Coast 

and Geodetic Survey description, but they were enough to 

stimulate interest in the region.1 

From the entrance (43° 21 1 North latitude) the 
bay extends northward for about 6 1/2 miles, 
with an average width of about 3/4 mile, and 
then bends sharply southeastward for 3 3/4 
miles, terminating in a shallow basin about 
l 1/2 miles in width, surrounded by marshland 
intersected by several sloughs. The western 
shore of the bay as far as the bend is formed 
by a sand spit, covered with sand dunes, reach­
ing in some places a height of 100 feet. On 
the eastern shore and above the bend are low, 
rolling hills covered with timber.2 

In May, 1853, Asa M. Simpson visited the area and 

decided that it could be developed easily. This California 

shipowner and sawmill operator, originally from Maine, 

noted tbe wealth of timber around the bay and decided to 

establish a sawmill there. his equipment arrived in 1856, 

but the ship carrying it was wrecked while entering the 

bay and one of Simpson 1s brothers lost his life in the 

mishap. Owing to this delay, the first sawmill in the 
I 

area was built by another man, H. H. Luce, at Empire City, 

lsinger Herman, "Early History or Southern Oregon," 
OHQ, XIX (1918), 61-62. 

2united States Coast Pilot, Pacific Coast (Washington, 
1903), lll-112. 



4 

a small settlement on the eastern shore of the bay about 

i'our miles north of the entrance. S,impson salvaged his 

machinery soon after and set up a mill at North Bend, on 

the east side of the point around which the bay bends. 

By 1861 these two mills were capable of sawing about 

15,000 feet 0£ lumber a day.1 

Coos Bay was completely dependent on the sea for trans­

portation and communications. San Francisco, the only city 

worthy of' the name on tbe coast in 1860., was 376 miles away 

by sea, a voyage which could be made in two or three days 

if winds were favorable. Coos Bay became the port of' entry 

for many of the settlers and much of the merobandise for 

south we stern Oregon, but the barriers presented by the 

Coast and Cascade ranges limited the carriers to mule trains 

for several years. During the seventies the Coos Bay wagon 

road to Roseburg was opened and the carrying trade inland 

increased. More important at first was the port of Sootts­

burg, which was located at the head or navigation on the 

Umpqua river. Ooean-going ships of light draft oalled here 

to discharge their cargoes which moved by mule train into 

the interior. ~oottsbll!'g 1s brief period or prominence as 

a seaport was ended by the flood of 1861-1862 which washed 

1James F. Imray, Sailing Directions for the West Coast 
of North America between Panama and gueen7lliariotteis1and 
Ttondon, 1868), 255. -



5 

away much of the town.1 

Coal, lumber, and farm produce were the important 

exports of the Coos Bay area, but today only lumber is sbipped 

in any quantity. Moat of the agricultural produce now 

travels overland; and the Coos Bay ooal mines, producing a 

type of lignite, were abandoned after oil from the California 

wells supplanted coal as fuel for stationary engines and 

steam schooners soon after 1900. 

Difficulty was encountered wben the two-decked, Atlantic 

Coast-built ships called at Coos Bay for lumber cargoes. It 

was all but impossible to handle long timbers in their holds, 

so temporary ports had to be out in bow or stern and the 

cargo was loaded through these.2 Simpson, with a Maine man's 

knowledge of shipbuilding, thereupon decided to build bis 

own ships for the lumber trade. The necessary requirements 

for a shipyard at this time, plentiful timber and a suitable 

launching place, were easily met by Coos Bay. An area was 

cleared right beside the sawmill (now known as Old Town) and 

the ship ways were laid down. These oonsisted of wide planks 

firmly plaoed on bed logs in somewhat the manner of railway 

traoks, the whole structure sloping toward the water so that 

tbe force of gravity would be sufficient for launoh1ng tbe 

1Banoroft, History ,2! Oregon, II, 711. 

211wooden Shipbuilding on the Pacific Coa.st, 11 Inter­
national Marine Engineering, XXI (1916), 401-407. 



6 

completed bull. An outfitting wharf and small buildings to 

house the material and equipment were built and a spar yard 

and mold loft were established.1 

The origin 0£ the design of the ships built for the 

lumber trade on the Pacific Coast is obscure, but its influ­

ence was clearly visible in vessels of the area for the next 

seventy-five years. Henry Hall depicted the ships as "flat, 

one-decked vessels, with long bows, handsome square sterns, 

and broad beam, ••• excellent sea boats • 112 The f'irst ships 

were small and carried only about 200,000 feet of lumber,3 

two-fifths stowed in the hold and the remainder lashed on 

deck. The increased demand for lumber required larger ships 

and the biggest built carried upwards of two million feet 

when fully loaded. 

As in other parts of' the country, there were no special 

skills within the shipbuilding industry on Coos Bay at first. 

The master builder was in charge of the construction and to 

him fell the responsibilities of instruction, leadership, 

and management. The Simpson yard had no permanent master 

builder until 1868. Eleven ships had been built up to this 

1Harvey w. Scott, History of the Oregon Country (Cam­
bridge, 1924), III, 51. 

2Henry Hall (Special Agent). Report on the Shi~building 
Industry of the United States (Washington-;-1SB4}. l 3. Here­
after referreato as tbe Hall Report. 

0A. M. Simpson, "Lumber History of the Pacific Coast," 
Coos Ba_y Harbor, September 25, 191~. 



7 

time with six different master builders supervising at 

various times.l Most of tbese men had learned their trade 

on the Atlantic Coast of the United States or in the aoan­

dinavian oountries. The shipwrights were expected to perform 

any duties which might be assigned and were usually few in 

number~ one of the reasons why tbere was no attempt on their 

part to organize into a union until the twentieth century, 

although a few such groups already existed on the Atlantic 

coast. Only one shipyard ever recognized a union during the 

entire period of shipbuilding activity on Coos Bay. Union 

members .frequently were employed at the other yards, but bad 

the same status as non-union men. Wages and hours for the 

shipbuilders generally were comparable to the union scale. 

Very little power equipment was used in Coos Bay ship­

yards at first, but later innovations inoluded power drills, 

lathes, and steam driven saws £or all purposes. Steam cranes 

and derrioks were used to hoist heavy timbers into position, 

and teams of horses or bulls furnished the power for moving 

loads around the yard. In all respects the Coos Bay builders 

followed the general practice, but they were usually a few 

years behind the East Coast shipyards.2 

lKeith v. Kruse, 11 Sb1pbu1lding on Coos Bay" (1945). In 
tbe possession of Fred Kruse. 

2In conversation with Fred Kruse. 



8 

The hulls were generally built of Douglas fir and white 

cedar, and long, smooth-grained sticks of Oregon pine were 

used for masts and spars. The underwriters at first refused 

to insure r1r-built ships because they deteriorated rapidly. 

This prejudice was overcome, however, when it was found that 

fir was very durable if out in the winter and salted heavily.l 

The West Coast ships frequently lasted longer than their 

sisters of the Atlantic because timbers and planking of 

greater length were available to the shipbuilders of the 

Pacific Coast.2 The timber for tbe Eastern yards had to be 

transported long distances because the heavy shipbuilding in 

that region bad seriously depleted the forests near the 

shipyards. 

The first step in building a ship was construction of 

a model from which the lines could be transferred to the 

mold loft floor at their actual size. Light wooden forms 

were made for all frames and other ourved pieces and tbe 

actual frames were shaped from these. All of these timbers 

were out down to their final size with broad axe and adze 

during the early period of shipbuilding on Coos Hay, but 

later it became the practice to saw them to proper dimensions. 

lHall Report, 249. 

2Hall Report, 248. 



9 

The heavy timber which formed the keel was laid on the keel 

blooks and the stem and sternpost were raised into position. 

Next the floor timbers which outlined the bottom of the ship 

were bolted in place and a derr1ok hoisted the frames or ribs 

to their proper stations. Attaining the correct position and 

angle for each frame was the most diffioult part 0£ the 

building of the ship and called for all of the skill of the 

master builder. The heavy keelson, which contributed much 

to the longitudinal strength of the ship, was hauled into 

place on top of the floor timbers and bolted to the keel. 

When the ribs had been braced, the ship was said to be "in 

framen and the work of ceiling and planking her oould be 

started. 

The ceiling or internal sheathing was put on before the 

outside planking. The planks were heated so that they could 

be bent more easily and screws and wedges were used to force 

them into place. Planking was started with the garboard 

strakes (the planks oe:xt to the keel) and continued up the 

sides of the vessel. Last to be fastened in their positions 

were the sheer strakes (planks immediately below the rails). 

When the planks had been forced into the desired place a 

hole was bored through plank, frame, and ceiling and a 

treena1l was inserted. 'l'h1s was a tapered wooden peg, usually 

made of locust, the smaller end of which was split to receive 



10 

a wedge. After it was hammered into tbe bole any unnecessary 

length was cut off and a wedge was driven into the split to 

seoure it in plaoe. Properly seasoned treenails would last 

longer than the ship in most oases. ~he seams in the bottom 

and side planking were oalked with oakum, while tar or pitoh 

was used in the deck seams. When tbe planks swelled slightly 

after tbe ship was launched, a watertight seal was formed 

which would last for years. After the planking and oalk1ng 

had been completed, the entire hull was smoothed with planes 

and its watertight integrity was tested by filling the space 

between the planking and ceiling with water from a pump. 

Leaks caused by failure to insert treenails in the holes 

bored for them or by other sins of omission or connnission 

were thus discovered before the ship was launched. 

When satisfied that the vessel was ready for launching, 

the master builder would choose a time when the flood tide 

assured a sufficient depth of water to float her. Prepara­

tions were simple: the ways were greased and hawsers were 

readied to stop the ship after she was afloat. The shores 

were then knocked out and the keel blocks were removed. If 

everything had been calculated properly, tbe ship would begin 

to slide down the ways before all of the keel blocks had been 

removed, splintering the others as she gained speed on her 

way to the water. Quite often, however, the incline of the 



-------------------------------- ---- - --

ways had been misjudged and the vessel would stop before 

reaching the water. In this case the inshore end of tbe 

ways bad to be jacked up to finish the launching. If the 

ship refused to move even after the shores and keel blocks 

bad been knocked out, the builders used a huge wooden ram 

against the atem to push her down the ways. Once afloat, 

the vessel was stopped by snubbing the hawsers on piles 

driven for the purpose. Even the most experienced master 

builder must have felt a thrill of achievement when he 

beheld his latest creation riding out on the waters of Coos 

Bay.1 

ll 

The new ship was towed alongside the outfitting wharf 

where eaoh mast was hoisted above the deok by a crane and 

then eased into theh::>les in the decks. After the lower end 

was wedged into the step cut in the keel to hold it, the 

standing rigging which supported the mast was set up. Masts 

on which square sails were set normally consisted of three 

sections (lower mast, topmast, and topgallant mast), while 

schooner masts were in two pieces or, in the oaae 0£ a 

bald-headed sohooner,2 one piece. ~'he lower masts were 

lDescription adapted from John G. B. tlutchins, The 
American Maritime Industries and ~ublic Policy, l789-:r9'14 
(Cambridge, 1941), 116-119, ana"cheaked by F'red Kruse-.-

2A fore-and-aft rigged vessel having two or more masts. 
A bald-headed schooner has no topmasts or topsails. 



12 

always stepped first and the topmasts and topgallant masts, 

if oarried, were hoisted into place later. Once tbe masts 

bad been stepped and rigged, the various spars on which the 

sails were spread were put aboard and tbe running rigging to 

hoist and control them was rove. When the sails had been 

bent on, the ship was ready to be towed to the mill where 

she was to re~eive her first cargo. 

While the ship was being rigged all of the other work 

in her outfitting was completed also. 'l'he early vessels 

probably had only crude aocommodat1ons for tbe master and a 

few passengers, but later Coos Bay-built ships were noted 

for the cabinet work and panelling which went into the 

officers' and passengers• quarters. Myrtle wood, highly 

polished, was used extensively for interior finishing. 

The cost of the early ships cannot be calculated accurately, 

but it seems likely that it was about the same as that of 

ships built in Maine during the same period--around seventy 

dollars per gross ton.l The very low cost of lumber for the 

t'aoifio Coast yards was offset by the higher labor cost and 

the necessity of shipping all metal fittings and other 

equipment from San Francisco. 

l~ Report, 133. 



13 

The first of the lumber ships were rigged as two-masted 

sohooners or brigantines.1 As the increased trade brought 

about the building of larger lumber oarriers, three, four, 

and five-masted schooner and barkent1ne2 rigs were adopted 

for them. Few full-rigged ships3 and barks4 were built on 

the Paoific Coast because they were not able to compete 

with the fore-and-aft rig on the coastwise runs. Not only 

could the schooner sail closer to the wind, but her less 

elaborate rig required fewer men to handle it. The barken­

t1ne, which won great favor on the West Coast, was a compro­

mise between the sobooner and the full-rigged ship. The 

square sails on her foremast, set when the wind was abaft 

the beam, were extremely useful in tbe long stretches of 

trade winds found in the Pacific. When running close-hauled, 

the square sails were furled and the barkentine was sailed 

1n much the same fashion as a schooner. A barkentine 

required as.lightly larger crew than a schooner of comparable 

size. 

lA two-masted vessel, square-rigged on the foremastt and 
fore-and-aft rigged on the mainmast. 

2A vessel with three or more masts, of which the foremast 
1s square-rigged and t he other masts are fore-and-aft rigged. 

3usually a three-masted vessel with all masts square­
r1gged. 

4A three-masted vessel carrying square sails on all 
masts exoept the after mast which is fore-and-aft rigged. 

I 1'•\.. I t 



The hazards faced by the little sailing ships built 

for use along the Pacific Coast ware numerous. A sudden 

shift of the wind or an inshore current while she was 

becalmed might push her into the breakers at any time that 

she was close to the beach. Frequently windjammers piled 

up on the shore during a period of fog or storms when 

accurate navigation was impossible. Driven far off his 

course by a gale, the first warning many a master mariner 

14 

bad of his peril was the lookout's scream, "Breakers ahead!" 

In such circumstances the ship was almost certainly doomed. 

Even if the water was shoal enough for the anchors to be 

dropped, by the time they had been cleared for letting go 

the ship would be aground. She could only come about and 

try to claw her way off the lee shore, but in low visibility 

there was usually too little sea room to permit this. A 

lee shore was particularly dangerous for the ship headed 

northward in ballast or carrying general cargo which was 

generally lighter than the lumber carried on the southward 

voyage. Riding high in the water~ she was prone to make a 

great deal of leeway and could not sail nearly so close to 

the wind as when heavily laden. Many of the small ports 

along the coast were difficult to enter and the prudent 

master waited f'or a steam tug to tow his vessel to her 

mooring. Coos Bay itself had a bar that was almost 



15 

impossible to cross if more than a moderate wind was blowing. 

Yet another danger was that caused by the tendency to carry 

the smallest possible crew. The schooner which could not 

shorten sail quickly enough when hit by a squall would be 

lucky to escape with a few sails split; more often she would 

capsize or, if poorly rigged, be dismasted. Although there 

was less danger of collision than later when speed became 

a paramount object, collision was not unknown in the days 

of sail. 

Coos Bay was typical of the am.all shipbuilding centers 

on the Pacific Coast in that the industry depended almost 

entirely on orders for lumber carriers. General fluctuations 

in tbe business on a national scale might be reflected on 

Coos Bay, but far more important was the condition of the 

lumber market. Among West Coast shipbuilding ports, Coos 

Bay was unique in that its leading builder of ships for 

nearly a half-century built largely for his own use. 

Practically all of the ships launched from the Old Town 

yard sailed under the Diamond Shouse flag of the &impson 

Lwnber Company. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ERA OF &AIL 

From 1859 to 1867 the Simpson shipyard had no rival 

on Coos Bay. Its first ship was the brigantine Arago, 

bu1lt in 1859. No desoription or this £irst launohing on 

Coos Bay baa survived, but no great imagination is required 

to picture the stubby little ship slipping down the waya 

with a few white men and some e'lll"ious Indians as spectators; 

and on every hand the vast rain £orest of t he region pressing 

to the water's edge, seemingly ready to puab tbe nondescript 

buildings of the shipyard right into the bay. 

Ten more ships were built and £1tted out at Old Town 

by 1867: the brigantines Blanoo and Advance; the two-masted 

schooners Florence~• Walton, Mendocino, Hannah Louise, 

Enterprise, Isabella, and Juventa; and the three-masted 

barkentines 0ocidant and Me lanchthon, all small vessels of 

about 200 tons and a little over 100 £eet in length .1 The 

Arago outlived all of these younger sisters, remaining in 

lorvil Dodge, Pioneer History of Coos and Curry Counties, 
Oregon (Salem, 1898), 158. - - -



17 

the lumber trade for years. She was finally retired from 

this occupation because of her small capacity, and, rerigged 

as a schooner, she sailed north to work in tbe Alaska fishing 

industry.1 lier name last appeared in the Annual List of 

Merchant Vessels£!: the United States in 1907, a tribute to 

the endurance of Douglas fir and white cedar and to the 

craftmanship of master builder Donaldson. By way of contrast, 

the Blanco, the second ship built on Coos Bay, met with 

disaster 1n 1864. Her wrecked bull was discovered on the 

beaoh near the mouth of the Siletz river and there was no 

traoe of her crew. 

The second shipyard on Coos Bay was established at 

Marshfield, four miles south of North Bend, in 1867. John 

Pershbaker sent Captain James Magee to sta»t a sawmill and 

tbe shipyard. Magee built the steam tug Escort ff! and the 

two-masted schooners Staghound, Louisa Morrison, and Ivanhoe 

before 18?3.2 Also built at Marshfield but by another 

master builder were the schooner Annie Stauffer and the 

barkentine Amelia. In 1873, E. B. Dean and Company took 

over the mill and shipyard and continued to build ships for 

the lumber and coal trade until 1884. These vessels were 

lcoos Bay Harbor, September 25, 1915. 

2E. w. Wright, ed., Lewis and Dr~den 1s Marine History 
.£! ~ Pacifio Northwest (Portland, l 95), p. 177, n. 55. 



muoh like their contemporaries from the North Bend yard, 

but probably had more sheer tban ~impson allowed on his 

vessels.1 

Luce entered the shipbuilding field at Empire City 1n 

1868. His first oonetruotion was the steamer Alpha, which 

was used for towing and passenger service around the bay. 

18 

In the next thirteen years seven more vessels, sail and 

steam, were launched at Empire City, all, like the Alpha, 

intended for use on inland waters. The eight ships totalled 

only 900 tons.2 

Meanwhile the Simpson yard was not idle. In 1868, mill 

superintendent John Kruse was named master builder, a positioo. 

whioh he beld until just before his deatb in 1896. He was 

from Denmark and had spent some time at sea before settling 

at San Francisco. The Oregon ooast attracted him and he 

built a few small schooners on the Umpqua river before 

entering Simpson's employ at North Bend.3 His first ship 

was tha three-masted schooner Bunkalation~ and the three­

masted barkentines Web Foot and Portland, the two-masted 

1sheer 1s the amount of rise from a level, of the 
lengthwise lines of a vessel's hull. 

12.ll 

2Bancroft, History of Oregon, II, 728. 

3Joseph Gaston, Centennial History .2f Oregon, 1811-
(Chicago, 1912), III, 339-340. 



19 

schooner Gotama, and the three-masted schooner Oregonian all 

left the yard before 1874. The Portland, 493 gross tona,l 

was the largest of these ships. The Bunkalation was the 

first of the Kruse-built vessels to be lost. She was 

hardly two years old when set afire by a sea washing down 

an open hatch while she was discharging a cargo of lime at 

Cape Arago lighthouse.2 The~~, on the other hand, 

sailed until 1904, when her crew abandoned her in sinking 

condition off Tillamook light a~ter a severe gale. Even 

then she did not sink, but was towed into Portland where 

her unrepaired hulk laid for several years.3 

One of the few ships built on Coos Bay for something 

other than the lumber trade was the Western Shore of 1874. 

This beautiful two-decker was the only true olipper built 

on the West Ooast4 and one of the three full-rigged ships 

to bail from there. In her, A. M. S:impson designed a. ship 

much more nearly akin to the deep oargo carriers of his 

native Maine than to the shallow lumber schooners of the 

Paoific Coast. Although she was much smaller than most of 

the Maine-built clippers, her 1,188 tons made her the largest 

lAnnual List 0£ Merohant Vessels_.£!~ United States 
(Washington, Tim5);-l64. 

2Bancroft, History 2f Oregon, II, 728. 
3James A. Gibbs, Jr., Pacific Graveyard (Portland, 

1950), 169-170. 
4Bas11 Lubbook, The Down-Easters, American Deep-Water 

&.111ng Ships, ~-1929 (Boston, 1929), 87 . 

.. 



20 

vessel yet built on the Pacific Coast. Her rig7 designed by 

Captain R. w. Simpson, was worthy of the largest clipper as 

she crossed skysail yards on all three masts.l Double 

topsails were fitted to facilitate her handling by a rela­

tively small crew. lier outfitting was as beautiful as tbe 

rest 0£ the ship. The master 1s oabin was finished in 

polished myrtle wood relieved by doorposts of tamana from 

the Hawaiian Islands.2 A. M. Simpson owned half the stook 

1n the ship, Captain J. w. McAllep one-eighth, and San 

Francisco and Coos Bay parties the remainder. The total 

oost of her building and outfitting was $80,000, slightly 

leas than would have been required to build a comparable 

vessel in Maine at the time.3 

The Western Shore's career was as brilliant as that of 

a meteor and nearly as brief. Almost every passage sailed 

by this magnificent ship approached or broke a record; 

probably the greatest run she made was ninety-seven days 

trom the Columbia river to Liverpool.4 Despite her swi~t 

lSkyaails were light sails set above the royal sails 
on a squa~e-rigged ship. Few ships other than clippers 
carried them beoause they neoessitated very high masts. 

2Banoroft, History of Oregon, II, 728. 

3 coos Bay Harbor, May 13, 1915. 

4.!!!,ll Report, 153. 



21 

sailing and excellent cargo carrying qualities (in three 

years she paid the extremely small amount of forty dollars 

for cargo damage)l she was considered an unlucky ship. 

Several narrow escapes from disaster were responsible for 

this reputation which was enhanced when her master was 

killed by a falling spar in 1878. A few months later she 

stood out from Seattle with coal for San Francisco. Racing 

along at twelve knots on the night of July 11, 18?8, the 

Western Sllore struck Duxbury Reef, a few miles fi'om her 

destination. The impaot tore practically all of the bottom 

planking from her port side and her crew abandoned ship 

just before she broke up.2 Her owners apparently decided 

that the coal and grain trade did not warrant the expense 

of another such ship although she had made money during 

her short life and was partially covered by insurance. 

At any rate, her design was never repeated. 

Until this time Coos Bay had been keeping pace with 

Puget Sound as £ar as shipbuilding was concerned. These 

two centers were not the only points on the coast where 

ships were built; indeedp every cove large enough to float 

a vessel was turning out a few small schooners for ooastwise 

1 coos Bay Harbor, May 13, 1915. 

2wright, ~~~Marine History. 264. 



or inland use. These yards, however, were very temporary, 

usually just a set of ways and a small shack or two; and 

22 

they ware often abandoned as soon as the ship was oomplated. 

California builders were bandioapped by a laok of timbe~ 

at first, and only the Hwnboldt Bay region in northern 

California could claim praninence as a shipbuilding center.l 

After 1875 both Humboldt Bay and Coos Bay were outstripped 

by Puget Sound both in nwnber and size of ships built. 

The northwestern corner of Washington possessed many more 

excellent shipyard sites and bad the advantage of deep 

water in most of its ports. The industrial development of 

that area contributed to the expansion of shipbuilding 

while A. M. Simpson, who owned most of North Bend, did not 

desire that Coos Bay become a thriving metropolis. He 

wanted only a small town sufficient to bouae the employees 

of his sawmill and sbipyard.2 Moreover, sinoe most of his 

mills were situated on small harbors, the ships built for 

his ooastwise lumber fleet were never very large. Henceforth, 

although Coos Bay shipbuilding did beoome more important and 

the ships themselves increased in size, Puget Sound steadily 

increased its lead over tbe southwestern Oregon reg1on.3 

11!!!,! Report, 132. 

2 Marshfield~ Annual, January, 1901. 

3~ Report, 134-136. 



A new addition to tbe ranks of Coos Bay shipbuilders 

was Hans R. Reed, a Norwegian who had previously built 

several ships at Port Madison on Puget ~ound. Reed worked 

23 

as a master builder and oalker at the bay yards and occasion­

ally built a ship himself at one of the small yards about 

the area that he owned at various times. His first job was 

the steamer Eastport, which he built for the eoal and 

passenger business. noward and Pool of San Franoisco were 

the owners of this Marshfield-built vessel.l 

During the years between 1874 and 1880, twelve ships 

were built on Coos Bay: seven schooners at Marshfield, 

one two-masted schooner by John Murray at Empire City, and 

two schooners and two barkentinea at the Simpson shipyard. 

The first construction at tbe latter yard after the Western 

Shore was launched was the lovely barkentine ~ Q' Sbanter. 

Although much smaller than her illustrious predecessor, 

this three-master was even more beaut1:t'u.lly finished and 

was designed to better the clipper's record on the run 

between Portland and San Franoisoo.2 There is no indioation 

that this hope was ever realized, but the Tam 0 1 Shanter --
rendered good service for thirty-two years. 

lwright, ~ ~ !2 Marine History, P• 201, n. 50. 

2 coos Bay !!!t!!, August 11, 1875. 



24 

The career of the three-masted schooner Sunshine was 

far shorter tban that of the Scottish-named barkentine. 

Like the winter sunshine in Marshfield where she was built 

in 1875, this little ship vanished after only a brief 

appearance. E. B. Dean and Company owned the oontrolling 

interest in the schooner and the remainder of the stock was 

held among various parties including her master. The aunshine 

carried lumber to San Francisco on her maiden voyage, and 

oleared that port for Coos Bay on November 3, 1875, with 

machinery, general cargo, passengers, and $10,000 in gold 

ooin whioh the San Franoisoo stockholders were sending to 

her builder in Marshfield. Fifteen days later her capsized 

hull was sighted off Cape Disappointment and she drifted 

ashore on November 22. There was no sign of the twenty-five 

persons who bad sailed nor of the $10,000. Shipping men 

thought that she was oversparred and that the mast-hoops 

were too small, causing her to capsize when her crew was 

unable to shorten sail promptly. Sometime later a rumor 

had it that some of the Sunshine's passengers had learned 

of the money and seized control of the ship. They were 

supposed to have murdered the other people aboard and then 

driven the schooner ashore just north of Coos Bay. After 

being abandoned, according to the rumor, the flood tide and 

wind had set her adrift and, vith no one to tend her sails 



25 

and helm, she capsized and floated north to Cape Disappoint­

ment. The gold was said to be buried on the beach near where 

she was abandoned, and searchers rushed to the scene, but 

nothing was ever found to substantiate the story. The nature 

of the disaster which befell the Sunshine remains a mystery.l 

The development of the great schooner which brought on 

the last revival of wooden shipbuilding on the East Coast 

bad much influence on that industry on the Pacific coast. 

Tbe yards where wooden ships were built in the latter area 

bad not experienced the period of inactivity which ruined 

so many builders on the Atlantic seaboard, but the trend 

toward larger fore-and-afters was obvious. The great sobooners 

of four, five, and six masts, among them some of the largest 

sailing ships ever built of wood, supplanted the square­

riggers and steamers as carriers of bulk cargo on ooaatwise 

runs. Requiring neither the expensive machinery and fuel 

of the steamer nor the large crew of the square-rigger, the 

schooners were the most economical ships of their day for 

transporting wheat, coal, timber, and other bulk cargo.2 

The West Coast builders lagged behind the Eastern 

yards in oonstruotion of great schooners and only a few of 

the Puget Sound ships rivalled their Atlantic contemporaries 

1Gibbs, Pacific Graveyard, 103-105. 

2Hutch1ns, American Maritime Industries and Public 
Policy, 545 ff. 

l 
I 

! 



26 

in size. The first four-masted schooner, the William f• 
White of 996 tons, was built at Bath, Maine, in 1880. Six 

years le.ter Coos Bay's first four-master, the 592 ton 

Novelty, left the ways at the Simpson yard. The Pacific 

Coast schooners differed from those built in Maine in 

several respects. Generally they had higher forecastles 

and more sheer, but the Simpson ships were exceptions to 

this rule.l The West Coast ships were rigged with a compara­

tively abort spike bowsprit instead of the usual long bow­

sprit and jib-boom and a jib-headed after sail replaced tbe 

customary gaff sail of the Down-Easter.2 Most of the West 

Coasters crossed a yard on the foremast on which a square 

sail was set when the wind was abaft the beam. This sail 

was divided in two halves, only the weather part of which 

was set since the lee side would have been blanketed by the 

fore-and-aft sail also set on the foremast.3 Oocaaionally 

a raffee, divided in the same manner as the square sail, was 

oarried.4 A feature 0£ the great schooner era peculiar to 

lrn conversation witb Fred Kruse. 

2B. B. Crowninshield, Fore-and-Afters (Boston, 1940), 
52. A jib-boom projects beyond the boY1spr1.t so that more 
l ight headsa11s may be carried. A jib-headed sail is 
triangular while a gaff sail is quadrangular. 

5captain P.A. McDonald, "Square Sails and Raffees, 11 

.American Neptune, V (1945), 142-146. 

4A raffee is a triangular topsail set above the square 
sail on a schooner's foremast. 



27 

the Pacific Coast was the building of several large barken­

t1nes, also of four, five, or six masts. West Coast builders 

estimated that the foremast complete with spars, sails, and 

cordage cost as much as the remaining masts and their 

equipment together, but with a quartering wind the barkentine 

could leave a large schooner hull down on the horizon astern 

in a day's run.l These big barkentines were among the most 

beautiful and able ships built during tbe declining days or 

the wooden shipbuilding industry. 

In the six years before the Novelty was built, twenty­

three ships were completed in the Goos Bay area. Three 

schooners and six small steamers, most of which were tugs, 

departed from the Simpson yard; five sohooners, two barken­

t1nes, and two steamers, one of tbem a tug, were built at 

Marshfield; and the Coquille river was the building site of 

five schooners. Most of the tugs built at North Bend were 

intended for use at the various ports where Diamond & ships 

frequently called for lumber cargoes, and the Marshfield­

built steamer Goos Bay was built to carry freight and 

passengers along the coast.2 

Shipbuilding on the Coquille river began witb the 

construction 0£ the schooner Nora Harkins at s. Danielson's 

lHoward I. Chapelle, History Et_ American Sailing Shipe 
(New York, 1935), 292. 

2coos Bay News, June 18, 1884. 



28 

Parkersburg yard in 1882. Eight more small ships left this 

sbipyard in the next twenty years, and the same builder 

launched one ship at Bandon and two at Prosper during this 

time. These vessels were all two or tlwee-ma.sted sohooners, 

somewhat smaller than the ships built on Coos Bay during the 

same period. Most of them ran between San Franoisoo and 

Bandon and bad to have a shallow draft to cross the Coquille 

river bar. A sailing ship drawing little water is very apt 

to drift to leeward, so the Coquille-built schooners were 

equipped with centerboards which increased their draft when 

lowered. As the ships increased in size it became necessary 

to divide tbe centerboards so that they could still be 

raised easily when entering the river.l 

After the~ Bay was launched in 1884 the Marshfield 

shipyards fell idle and, with the exception of Henry Seng­

stacken 1s little two-masted schooner Alton of 1886, no sea­

going ship was built there for the next sixteen years. 

Hans Reed moved to tbe Coquille river and John Ross built 

the steam schooner Maggie Ross for Otto Greenewald and 

H. Levi of San Francisco in 1888. Ross launched this ship 

from a small yard which he had established at his ranch on 

Isthmus Slough, south of Marshfield.2 North Bend continued 

1Bandon Recorder, September 23, 1901. 

2Marshfield Daily Mail, August 25, 1892. 



29 

to turn out ships every year. The tug Ranger and the steam 

schooner ~gnal were completed in 1887,and the Louis, 

designed as a steamer, was launched in 1888. 

&team.ere built at the small coastal yards were usually 

sailed to San Francisco under a jury (temporary) rig for 

the installation or their boilers and engines.l The Louis 

was no exception, but she was unique in that she was rigged 

as a five-masted bald-headed sohooner for her maiden voyage. 

On the run down she bogged2 and her owner feared that she 

would be unable to carry the weight of her machinery, so her 

sail rig was made permanent. She was a better-than-average 

sailer and could not be considered a railure. The Louis 

was the smallest five-master ever built3 and oarried lumber 

to all ports o! the Pacific from Grays Harbor until she was 

lost on a reef in 1907. 

It bas been common for maritime historians, most of 

whom wrote on the Atlantic Coast, to award the honor of 

having built the first fi~e-masted schooner to Leavitt 

Storer of Waldoboro, Maine.4 Actually, the first ship to 

lrn conversation with Fred Kruse. 

2A sbip 1s said to bog when she sags at the ends due 
to structural weakness. 

3Jobn Lyman, "Five-masted Scbooners," American Neptune, 
v, 138. 

4B. B. Crowninahield and J . G. B. Hutchins are among 
t he men who have made this error. 



30 

carry this rig seems to have been the David Dowe, built at 

Toledo, Ohio, in 1881 to carry grain on the Great Lakes.l 

The second five-master, the first built at an ocean port, 

waa the Louis. She was built at the &impson Lumber Company 

shipyard at North Bend, Oregon, by John Kruse and was ready 

for sea on August 11, 1888.2 The Governor Ames of Waldoboro 

was not completed until some months later.3 The third sea­

going five-master was the Inca, built at Port Blakely, 

Washington, in 1896, and the only other one built on ooos 

Bay was the f• Y• Kruse of 1920. 

It is unlikely that the rig of the Louis had any 

influence on that of the~, for the five-masted schooner 

was a logical outgrowth of the four-master, and the Maine 

builders had originated that rig. A. M. Simpson, the 

designer and owner of the Louis, was born in Maine, so it 

is possible that he may have informed friends in that state 

of the success of his experimental rig, or West Coast 

1naritime writers might have oalled it to the attention of 

the Down-Easters. In the absence of any documents proving 

the contrary, however, it is likely that the little bald-

1~ Report, 140. 

2Master Builder's Account Book, ~impson Lumber Company 
shipyard (1888-1900), 3-18. In possession of Fred Kruse. 

3Lyman, "Five-masted Schooners, 11 Amerioa.n Neptune, V, 
l39. 

I 



31 

header from North Bend did not influence the Maine builders 

to try the rig for themselves. 

The Louis cost only about thirty-six dollars per gross 

ton, while contemporary Maine-built ships cost at least 

twenty dollars more.l The cost per ton of Coos Bay-built 

vessels fell steadily, in part because the prioe of lumber 

dropped as logging and sawmilling methods became more e£fi­

o1ent.2 The Louis was probably the cheapest ship of her 

size ever built on Coos Bay, and the fact that she proved 

structurally weak suggests that economy was carried too far 

in ber oonetruct1on. It must be remembered, too, tb.at she 

was built in her owner's yard and that most of the timbers 

and lumber used came £rom his sawmill. This undoubtedly 

helps to explain the low construction cost. 

After the Louis was launched Kruse supervised the 

building of six more vessels at the a11npson yard. They 

were the two-masted schooner Volante, the four-masted 

sohooner Gardiner City, tbe tug Columbia, and the £our­

maated barkentinea Willie~• Hume, Arago, and Omega. The 

Omega was well named, for her completion ma.rked the end 0£ 

the oareer of this master builder who retired in 1894. His 

place was taken by Emil Heuckendorff who built the four-

1Ma.ster Builder's Account Book, 18. 

2Bancroft, History 21, Oregon, II, 728. 



32 

masted barkentines Addenda,~, and Encore, and the four­

masted schooners Repeat and Manilla. Both the Encore and the 

Manilla were blown up at sea by German raiders in 1917.l 

In 1891 Hans Reed built the steam schooner Homer at 

Bandon and two years later be launched the little sailing 

e.chooner Winchester at Prosper. This small village was the 

building site of two more steam schooners in the next 

deoade: o. Christensen built the Coguille River in 1896, 

and Muir and Ross of San Franoisoo launched their Aurelia 

in 1902. 

The steam schooner Brunswick was built at Old Town in 

1898 under the supervision of •ustin Sperry. This small 

single-ender,2 out in half and lengthened forty feet some 

years later, was one of the very few wooden steam schooners 

to survive World War II. Heuckendorff laid the keel of the 

four-masted schooner Aguinaldo in 1899, but during the 

course other construction be became involved in an argument 

with A. M. Simpson and quit. Simpson sent to San Francisco 

for a man to replace him. The new builder was K. v. Kruse, 

originally from the same Danish village as John Kruse.3 

lLowell Thomas, Count Luckner, !a!.§!! Devil (New York, 
1928), 218. 

2A steam schooner with engines and superstructure at 
her after end. 

3K. v. Kruse's family believes that the two men were 
not related. 



33 

He bad sailed as a ship's carpenter for some time before 

settling in San Francisco. Kruse 1s new position was oompl1-

oated by tbe attitude 0£ some 0£ the older employees who 

£alt that one of their number should have become master 

builder. They made bets tbat the new schooner, renamed 

Admiral when enthusiasm for tbe Philippine insurreotionist 

dwindled, would stick on the ways when lawiobed, but Kruse 

spent boura aligning and greasing tbe ways and the Admiral 

left them so swiftly that one of the men snubbing a hawser 

to check her progress suffered a broken leg.l The Admiral 

waa wrecked in 1912 while homeward bound from Valparaiso to 

Grays Harbor. Driven sixty miles off her course by a full 

gale, she orashed over the Colwnbia river south jetty, onto 

Which her crew escaped, and then drifted ashore on PeaoDok 

ap1t after capsizing in the channel.2 

The development of the Alaska territory and the Klondike 

gold rush at the turn of the century resulted in a great 

demand for shipping. Many of the ooastwiae vessels lef't 

their accustomed traffic and were chartered for the northern 

voyage. Almost every shipyard on the ooast received all of 

the orders it oould handle, and the cry for more ships was 

increased by the expanded Hawaiian and Philippine trade. 

lrn conversation with Fred Kruse. 
2 

Gibbs, Pacifio Graveyard, 5?-60. 



34 

San Frano1soo built a larger number of vessels during this 

boom tban did any otber port on tbe ooast, but all profited 

from it.1 

At the Old Town yard Peter Legge and Victor Anderson 

built the four-masted schooner Churchill, and William 

Laokatrom launched the steam schooner Mandalay in 1900. 

Hans Reed used John Ross' Isthmus ~lough ways to build the 

steamer Santa~ wbile Hueokendorff established bis own 

yard in Marshfield and built the schooner Forest~ and 

the barkentine Joseph~• Eviston. 

Kruse completed the fast-sailing £our-masted schooner 

Alumna at North Bend in 1901 and then laid down the three-

master Advent. This vessel had a low forecastle deok over 

the windlass and directly aft of this, on the main deck, was 

the forward deck house wbere the crew would live. A. M. 

&impson, a very dignified man who was always formally attired, 

came aboard in his usual dress and told Kruse that they would 

put the orew 1s heaa2 under the forecastle deck instead of in 

the forward deokhouse. Kruse protested that the deck was 

too low, so Simpson undertook to prove him wrong. Squatting 

down, he backed into the space but was unable to lower his 

trousers. He crept into tbe open and stood ereot to balf-mast 

lnpaoif'io coast Shipbuilding, 11 Scientific American, 
LXXXIII (1900), 338. 

2Nautical term for toilet. 



35 

his nether garment and again backed under the forecastle. 

Tbis time bis bead bit a deck beam with a resounding crash. 

He considered his point proved, but directed Kruse to have 

a niche out in the deok beam so that no more heads would be 

cracked on it. Simpson was leaving for San Francisco the 

next day, so Kruse decided to wait until he had departed and 

then install the head in the forward deokhouse. Simpson 

must have sensed something of Kruse's reluctance, however, 

for early the next morning he went aboard the new vessel 

with an axe and notched the offending beam himself. As 

soon as he had saile~ the worlonen replaced the notched beam 

and put the head in the place Kruse thought suitable.l 

Heuckendorff completed the four-masted sohooners James 

Sennet and David Evans at Marshfield and built the steam 

schooner Marshfield for c. A. Hooper and Company of San 

Franoiaoo in 1901. The Sennet ran aground on Unimak I sland 

in the Aleutians in September, 1901, and Heuokendorff took 

a crew north to refloat her. The attempt failed, so the 

wreck was stripped and the salvaged gear was used to rig 

another Heuckendorff sobooner.2 The Marshfield, renamed the 

Bertie M• Hanlon, enjoyed a long career in the lwnber and 

passenger service before ending her days as a fiah-reduotion 

ship. 

lrn conversation with Fred Kruse. A. M. Simpson is 
said to have been the prototype for Peter B. Kyne 'slumber 
and shipping tycoon in Cappy Ricks. 

2 coos Bay~, September 3 and October a, 1901. 



Hans Reed established a shipyard at Bay City, east of 

Marshfield on the southeastern side of t he bay, and built 

the steamer Arctic in 1901. He then recei ved an order for 

a four-masted barkentine, to be the largest ~easel ever 

built on the bay. A crew was put to work grading the area 

adjacent to the shipyard so tbat the ways could be extended 

for tbe ship's great length. Construction was started and 

Reed went south to investigate the financial status of the 

56 

San Franoisoo parties who had ordered the vessel. Apparently 

his suspicions were well founded, because work was halted for 

three months. At the end of this time Captain Ackerman of 

S.an Francisco agreed to finance her and a crew again was 

employed. Progress was again stopped after a short time, 

and not until April, 1902, was Ackerman able to order the 

ship ocrnpleted. She was destined never to be finisbed, 

however, and the failure of his backers forced Reed to close 

his yard.l He worked for builders on the Coquille £or some 

time and then retlll"ned to Coos Bay, where he was employed 

by K. v. Kruse. The big barkentine was in frame when 

abandoned, and her gaunt skeleton remained on tbe ways for 

several years before being dismantled. Most of her timbers 

were cut up for firewood and the rest was burned for the 

bolts it contained. 

lcoos Bay News~ June ll, June 18, and September 24, 
1901, and BandonRecorder, April 10 and April 24, 1902. 



37 

1902 also marked the end of operations at two more of 

the Coos Bay shipyards. Heuckendorff built the four-masted 

schooners Polaris, Argus, and Taurus before the lease on 

his yard site expired and he was unable to renew it.l 

A. M. Simpson, now seventy-six years 0£ age, had turned 

his North Bend operations over to his son Louis and the 

latter had little interest along this line. Logge and 

Anderson completed the four-masted schooner Marconi and the 

shipyard was closed after some s1xty-s1x vessels of all types 

bad been launched from its ways in forty-four years.2 The 

Marconi was lost in 1909 when being towed out over the Coos 

Bay bar by the tug Columbia. The towing hawser parted and 

the Marconi drifted into the breakers under Coos Head where 

she soon broke up. Four years later the Advent met her 

doom at almost the same place. Her master was sailing her 

into the bay when the wind died down and she too went on the 

beach. 

Throughout the United States shipbuilders turned to the 

production of vessels propelled by machinery soon after the 

close of the nineteenth century. On Coos Bay, as elsewhere, 

a few more big sailers were built, but they were completely 

overshadowed by tbe new steam schooners. The era or sailing 

ship construction on Coos Bay ended with tbe closing of the 

Simpson Lumber Company shipyard. 

lMa.rsbfield Sun, November 30, 1905. 
2Edgar M. Simpson (son of A. M. Simpson) to writer, 

April 6, 1953. 



CHAPTER III 

STEAM SCHOONER& 

Emil Heuokendorff built launching ways at Porter, an 

undeveloped townsite just south of North Bend, and launobed 

the three-masted sobooner Alpha in 1903 and the gasoline 

launch Wenonah in 1904. He then left that location and 

moved to Bandon. 

Meanwhile K. V. Kruse, ex-Simpson master builder, 

came from San Francisco to build a four-masted schooner 

for California stookholders. He chose a site in Ferndale, 

about a mile north of Marsbfield,l and laid down the Annie 

E. Smale. Assisting in ber construction was Captain Golstrup, 

late of the James Sennet and prospective commander of tbe 

new vessel. The three-masted sohooner Hugh Hogan was built 

in 1904 and the gas sohooner Oakland followed a year later. 

The first of nine gas schooners to leave the Kruse 

yard, the Oakland was designed for freight service on the 

Washington coast and around Puget Sound. Her flat bottom 

allowed her to carry a large cargo on a shallow dra£t, but 

lThis site is presently occupied by the Union 011 
Company. 



39 

did not result in sea-kindliness.1 Power was supplied by 

gasoline engines, a feature that made ships of this type 

impossible to insure. Most of the gas schooners, built for 

service around the shallow bays of the Oregon coast, ware 

even smaller than the 146 ton Oakland. 

In 1905 Kruse took Robert Banks, whom he had known in 

San Franoisoo, into his rosiness as a partner. Banks, a 

native of Nova Scotia, had learned shipbuilding as a Down­

Easter but later worked on the Pacific Ooast.2 The Kruse 

and Banks Shipbuilding Company thus established became one 

of the leading builders of wooden ships on the Pacifio 

Coast, and the shipbuilding industry on Coos Bay ended 

when its yard was sold just before the conclusion of World 

War II. 

The first ships canpleted by Kruse and Banks were tbe 

gas schooner Washcalore, with a name composed of the abbre­

viated names of the three coastal states, and the steam 

schooner Casco. The former was built for the Wendling 

Lumber Company of San Francisoo at a ooet of $40,000, and 

was the largest gas schooner launched on Coos Bay. S;he 

was wrecked near Cape Sebastian in 1911 while the oa.soo was 

lRefers to the ease with wbioh a vessel rides in heavy 
seas. 

2Gaston, Centennial History~ Oregon, IV, 666. 



40 

stranded at Piedras Blancas on the central California coast 

in 1913. 

The Casoo was, of course, not the first of her type to 

be built on Coos Bay, but she was the first of twenty-two 

steam schooners built by Kruse and Banks; ships that were 

to win for their builders a reputation unsurpassed in 

Pacific Coast maritime circles. The steam schooner of the 

early twentieth oentury was the suooeasor to the sailing 

schooner of the nineteenth in importance to the lumber 

industry and to Pacifio Coast shipbuilding. In all, thirty­

six vessels of this type were built in the Coos Bay area, 

ranging 1n size from Siimpson's tiny Mandalay of 1900 to the 

sister ships Johanna Smith and~•~• Smith built by Kruse 

and Banks in 1917. 

Designed specifically for the lumber trade, the steam 

schooner seems to have been unique to the North Pacific. 

Sources disagree as to the identity of the earliest vessel 

of tbis type, but it is probable that she was a sailing 

sobooner with a small au.xiliary steam engine installed 

during an overhaul period. The early vessels were all of 

the single-ender type, carrying their entire oargo forward 

of the superstruoture and propelling machinery. This allowed 

handling of greater lengths of lumber in the cargo and also 

caused the ships to trim by the stern (draw more water aft 



41 

than forward), permitting them to nose into some of the 

smaller ports or "dogboles"l on the northern California 

coast. One or two masts and cargo gears2 handled the lumber, 

two-fifths of which was usually carried in the hold and the 

remainder lashed on deck. 

The first steam schooners rarely carried more than 

500,000 feet of lumber, but experience showed the practica­

bility of larger ships, and the aforementioned Johanna Smith 

carried 1,440,000 feet of lumber when fully loaded.3 When 

the single-enders sailing north empty or with light general 

cargo aboard encountered heavy weather, they steered very 

poorly and labored excessively. To remedy this defect and 

to speed oargo handling the double-ender was evolved. In 

ships of this type the superstructure and machinery were 

carried amidships with cargo holds both forward and aft of 

the deokhouse. Two or three masts were stepped, one on the 

forecastle forward of the cargo space and one or two on the 

superstructure. A few ships had runways through the deok­

bouse to allow extra long timbers to be carried on deck. 

It must not be supposed, however~ that all of the large 

1~o-called because supposedly nothing much larger than 
a dog could enter them. 

2A cargo gear consisted of a mast, two booms, a winch, 
and the necessary lines. One mast might have two cargo gears. 

3David w. Dickie, naval architect, to writer, January 22, 
1953. 



42 

steam schooners were double-enders. Tbe old design was 

popular, and shipping men generally dislike innovations. 

Several of the lumber shippers, among them the c. A. Smith 

Lwnber Company of Marshfield, installed double oantilever 

cranes on their wharves by whiob "packaged" lots o:f lumber 

were transported directly from the sawmill to the ship. The 

cranes could be extended over the ship's hatches so that her 

cargo handling gear was unnecessary for loading.l This 

solved one o:f the main objections to large single-enders 

and both the£•!• and Johanna Smith were of this type. 

The construction o:f the Kruse and Banks-built A. M. 

Simpson or 1911 required nearly 800,000 feet of lumber and 

timbers, eighty tons of bolts, 300 kegs of spikes, and 

11,000 treenails. The main deok planking was seven inches 

thiok and her frames were only six inches apart.2 She was 

intended to carry 7601 000 feet of lumber, slightly less 

than the amount used in her building. All of the steam 

schooners may not have been so well built, but the Simpson 

was fairly typical of the ships launched by Kruse and Banks. 

The first steam schooners always carried sail as well 

as steam power, using the former whenever favorable winds 

were blowing. Sa.11 and steam\'18re seldom used at the same 

l"Evolution of Lumber Handling Methods," Timberman, L 
(1949), 188. 

2coos Bay Harbol.', December 7, 1911. 



43 

time because their limited sail area could add little to the 

speed attained under steam alone. By 1910 most of the ships 

were appearing under 11 bare poles," their owners finding tbat 

the saving in fuel was not sufficient to warrant the extra 

cost of rigging the masts for sa11.l 

Power was furnished at first by coal burning ~cotch 

boilers and small compound steam engines.2 Coos Bay was one 

of the major sources of fuel for the coal-fired schooner 

boilers. Later vessels had more efficient water-tube 

boilers3 and triple-expansion engines.4 The Marshfield, 

laWlched by Heuckendorff in 1901, was among the first of 

these ships originally fitted with oil-fired boilers, but 

coal remained the usual fuel until about 1911.5 The older 

lJaok MoNairn and Jerry MacMullen, Ships .2f. ~ Redwood 
Coast (Stanford University, 1945), 18. 

2A cylindrical boiler in which the fire is led through 
tubes surrounded by water. A reciprocating steam engine 
works on the same general principle as an automobile engine. 
A compound engine has two cylinders; the steam expands first 
in the smaller and then is exhausted to the larger where it 
again expands as it cools. 

3A boiler in which the water is circulated through 
tubes surrounded by fire and bot gasses. 

4A reciprocating engine 
steam passes through them in 
largest and expands in each. 
because the three connecting 
acti on. 

with three cylinders. The 
order from the smallest to tbe 

Called 11 three-legged11 engines 
rods resembled legs in their 

5MoNairn and MacMullen, Ships~ Redwood Coast, 18. 



44 

engines were oomparatively feeble, but the ships built for 

the J. R. Hanify Company by Kruse and Banks in 1920 boasted 

engines rated at l,000 indicated horsepower.l Ten knots 

was the average top speed, the Hanify sisters being capable 

of thirteen. Very few wooden vessels of any type were 

equipped with steam turbines, and the only steam sohooners 

to be so powered were the big twins of the C. A. Smith 

Lumber Company. Turbines are economical as compared with 

the standard triple-expansion reciprocating engines, but the 

costly reduction gearing necessary for effi_oient operation 

was one argwnent against their use.2 Another was the fact 

that the roughest sort of mechanical skill would suffice to 

keep the 11 three-legged 11 reciprocating engines running, while 

turbines required precision engineering and maintenanoe. 

Most of the steam schooners were propelled by a single screw, 

but the Bandon and the oft-mentioned G. A. and Johanna Smith 

had tw~n screws. The greater number of the steamers built 

on Coos Bay and all of those launched on the Coquille river 

were towed to San Francisco by a sea-going tug or another 

lrHP is the power developed by the steam in the cylinders 
0£ a reciprocating engine. It does not inolude losses arising 
from resistance in the machinery. 

2For efficient operation a turbine must revolve much 
faster than is possible for a propeller. Thus reduction 
gears are necessary for transmission of the power to the 
propeller abaft. 



45 

steam schooner for installation of their engines and boilers. 

A full cargo of l-wnber was usually carried on this maiden 

voyage to help meet expenses. 

The steam schooners, able to maintain fairly regular 

sohedules, were also utilized to carry passengers, generally 

between San Francisco and the northern ports of call. 

Before the coming of the coast highway this passenger 

traffic was of some importance and the vessels had one or 

more staterooms available for passenger use. As a rule, 

they were not furnished with great luxury, although the 

Bandon was said to have well-appointed staterooms 11mo:re 

commodious than on many passenger ships."1 Her captain's 

cabin and the owner's stateroom were fitted with bot and 

cold running water and tbe ship was lighted by electricity 

throughout. Lumber or logs were usually carried on the 

southward run, while general cargo was loaded far the return 

trip north. A few of the steam schooners even had contracts 

to carry mail to their more remote ports of entry. 

The steam sohooners were staunch, well-constructed 

ships aa a general rule, and those with abort oareers usually 

came to an end through some navigational error as their 

captains followed a course perilously close to the shoreline. 

1 coos Bay Harbor, November l, 1907. 



46 

The 11dog-bark11 navigationl of the coastwise masters was 

rarely the precision science of their trans-oceanic brethern 

and their navigational equipment was frequently quite crude. 

In justice to the old sk1pper1s o:r the 11 5candinavian Navy, 11 2 

it must be remembered that the hazards of coastwise navi­

gation are much gx,eater than those faced by the deepwater 

mariner. The threat of fog was ever present on the Pacific 

Coast dwing the spring, summer, and autumn months, and the 

smoke from for1est fires added to this danger in the summer 

and early :fall. Many steam schooners became casualties of 

collision or stranding during periods of low visibility. 

Fire, that major enemy of the wooden ship, took its toll 

of the lumber carriers also, numbering among its victims 

the Coquille-built Wellesley and Daisy. Others grounded on 

the bars of the various harbors and were broken up within 

a short time, for not even the most stoutly built vessel 

was able to resist the pounding surf for long. The Coos 

Bay and Humboldt Bay bars had a particularly evil reputation 

lThe coastwise navigators were reputed to know the 
barking of every dog along the coast. All they bad to do 
when in doubt of their position was to steer inshore until 
a dog's bark could be heard and their location was revealed. 

2so many of the coastwise masters were named Olsen, 
Johnson, Walgren, Hansen, etc., tbat the steam schooner 
fleet received this name. 



47 

in this respect. The operators of the ooaatwiee fleet 

seldom had much capital to expend on upkeep of the ships 

and in their later years it was a frequent occurence for 

seams to open under the buffeting of the heavy seas encountered 

with winter gales. Lumber cargoes usually sufficed to keep 

the ships afloat in such cases until tbey could be towed 

into port by the Cai.at Guard. Often the aging vessels were 

operated only during the months when few storms were expected 

and spent the winter moored in sane out-of-the-way creek or 

slough with only a watchman aboard. 

If the steam schooner survived the perils of fire, 

stranding, foundering, and collision, reaching an age when 

further maintenance and repair seemed unjustifiable, it was 

not unusual for the owner to secure a cargo for the tropical 

islands of the Pacific. When the ship ran on a reef in 

those unfamiliar waters, as was expected, her crew bad 

little difficulty in reaching the shore and the underwriters 

covered the loss. This practice was known as "selling the 

sbip to the insurance company. 11 1 Still others of the lwnber 

carriers were converted in their later years for service as 

garbage scows, salvage ships1 gambldbg barges, a nd fish­

reduction ships, while some were sold to foreign interests. 

1In conversation with Fred Kruse. 



48 

World War II ended the era of the wooden steam schooner 

on the Pacific Coo.st of the United States. During that 

conflict most of the remaining ships were requisitioned by 

the Maritime Commission and utilized to transport general 

cargo among the Pacific islands. Practically all of them 

ended tbeir lives in the service of the country. The post­

war lumber fleet is made up of large steel freighters for 

offshore use and smaller steel steamers and converted landing 

craft which are employed in the coastwise trade.l A few 

veteran steel steam scbooners such as the little Cricket 

carry on in the old tradition, but no longer seen are aueb 

once-familiar sights as the venerable Phyllis wallowing 

down the Coos Bay ship channel, outward bound with a deckload 

of lumber seemingly larger than the ship herself, while 

Captain Jacobsen, standing on the bridge-wing, pumped 

lustily on his accordion. 

The Coquille river also experienced a renaisaanoe of 

shipbuilding activity when~ in 1905, Heuckendorff established 

a shipyard at Prosper. His first vessel at the new location 

was the three-masted sailing schooner Oregon, launched for 

local stockholders in October, 1905. Many of her fittings 

had been salvaged from the stranded schooner Onward, purchased 

lRobert c. Hill, 11 01d Lumber Vessels and New," Timberman, 
L (1949), 130. 

' ( 



by Heuckendorff after attempts to refloat her bad failed.l 

The steam schooner Raymond for Sudden and Christensen of 

San Francisco left the Prosper ways in 1906 and the sister 

ships Wellesley and Bowdoin were built in 1907, the former 

for c. A. Hooper and her sister for W. G. Tibbets, both of 

San Franoisoo. During the construction of these vessels 

from thirty to fifty men were employed.2 

A second shipyard had been established on the Coquille 

49 

by James ti. Price late in 1906. Originally employed by the 

well-known Bendixsen Shipbuilding Company of Eureka, he had 

later operated a general ship repair yard in San Franoisao. 

This was completely destroyed by the earthquake and fire in 

1906, so he moved to Bandon, a location which he felt was 

superior to Coos Bay because timber was more easily aocessible.3 

His first yard was located close by a sawmill, nearly 

opposite Prosper. The bad luck which had forced Price to 

leave San Francisco at first seemed to have followed him to 

Bandon, for soon after work in the yard started a gale 

demolished some sheds and capsized his piledriver. Matters 

then went more smoothly for several months as steam schooners 

were laid down for s. s. Freeman and A. F. Estabrook of 

lJohn Nielson of Bandon to writer, January 25, 1953. 

2Bandon Recorder, March 21, 1907. 

3Bandon Recorder, April 30, 1908. 



San Francisco and for the McKay Company of Eureka. The 

launching of Freeman's Daisy had been scheduled for July 

20, 1907, and Estabrook's Fifield was due to follow about 

six weeks later when the bad luck again took a hand. 

50 

Early on the morning of July 10 tbe watcbman discovered 

a fire on the upper deck of the Daisy and it spread rapidly 

through the yard, fed by the seasoned lumber and the pitoh 

and tar with which seams had been calked. A crew of forty 

men present at the oookbouse was unable to save more than 

a few portable tools as the Daisy, the Fifield, and almost 

all of the sbipyard buildings and equipment were consumed 

by the flames. A spark from the donkey boiler on the Daisy 

was blamed for the conflagration which did damage estimated 

at between $75,000 and $100,000. Both vessels were partially 

covered by insurance, as was the shipyard, but the loss was 

considerable. Estabrook and Freeman immediately wired Prioe 

to offer their backing so that a new yard could be estab­

lished.1 

As soon as the insurance matters bad been settled, work 

was begun on the new shipyard, this time in Bandon itself, 

beside another sawmill, where both ship timbers and fire 

protection were available. All of the machinery lost in 

tbe r1re oould not be replaced at once, so only the Freeman 

lBandon Recorder, July 11, 1907. 



51 

and McKay orders were taken, tbe Fifield order going to 

Kruse and Banks. This time Price's work was not in vain, as 

the Daisy was launohed in May, 1908, and the l• l• Loggie 

left the ways a month leter. For the next few months the 

Price yard was busy with the big tugs Kl1hyam7 for the 

Coquille Mill and Tug Company, and Gleaner, for use on the 

Umpqua river. After their completion no more contracts 

were secured and Price left Bandon, going first to Fairhaven, 

California, and then to ~t. Helens, Oregon, building several 

ships in eaoh of these locations. 

Bandon lost its other shipbuilder when Emil Heuckendorff 

died of diphtheria at North Bend on September 30, 1908. 

His last few months had been occupied by a lawsuit seeking 

to collect $10,000 due on tbe Raymond, for which Sudden and 

Christensen bad never paid in full, a not unusual occu.rence.1 

After Heuokendorff's death, his stepson, Nels P. Nielson, 

built the seventy-two foot tugboat Myrtle for use on the 

Columbia river and then the Heuokendorff yard also closed. 

A few small river craft and fishing boats were later built 

on the Coquille, but no more ocean-going ships were launched 

there for thirty years. In August, 1938, some or the more 

optimistic citi~ens 0£ Bandon foresaw a new era of shipbuild­

ing beginning with the construction of the large Di esel tug 

lBandon Recorder, Maroh 12, 1908. 



52 

~ of Bandon at Prosper. With her completion, however, 

the industry relapsed into its previous somnolent state, and 

today there is no expectation that it will ever be revived. 

Of these Coquille-built vessels, the Bowdoin was sold 

.to Eastern interests in 1917 and went to the Atlantia, the 

Raymond was broken up in 1931 as was the Wellesley some 

twelve years later after partially burning, and the.!!• I• 
Logg1e went ashore near Point Arguello, California, in 

October, 1912. Far more eventful and bizarre was the 

Daisy's oareer. Her crew oonsidered her as tempermental 

as one of the fair sex and felt that their opinion was 

verified in August, 1926, when, fully loaded, the Daisy 

sank at her moorings in China Basin, San Francisco Bay. 

owners and crew were still speculating about this latest 

whim of the little steamer when, a few days later, she 

suddenly refloated herself. Drydooking showed no major 

da.ma.ge, so ·she soon returned to her usual run, gaining 

some notoriety for plowing into wharves at her various 

ports of call. Finally the Redwood (ex-Thomae l• Elliot, 

ex-Daisy) burned off Humboldt Bay in October, 1939.l 

North Bend, without a shipyard s1noe 1904 when Heuoken­

dorrr departed after building the Wenonah, also was looking 

1McNa1rn and MacMullen, Ships of Redwood Coast, 51. 



5:3 

forward to a resumption of shipbuilding activity in 1907. 

A short article from the Harbor of July 29 demonstrates this 

attitude: 

Mr. w. s. Turpin tells us he bas started 
a new shipyard in North Bend. He has two scows 
under oonstruotion at the woolen mill dock. 
Mr. Turpin must be careful in these small enter­
prises. I t is hard to keep them down in North 
Bend and the first thing we know he may be 
building men-of-war. 

No men-of-war were ever built by Turpin, whose "shipyard" 

produced only the two scows, but the Harbor's optimism was 

not unwarranted. In 1907 Kruse and Banks obtained a ten-year 

lease on the aite where the Alpha had been built and laid 

down the steam schooner Bandon for Estabrook. At the same 

time the steamers R. D. Inman and!•...§• Loop were built at 

Fernda le yard for the Loop Lumber Company, as was the tug 

!• f• Ripley for the Santa Fe Railroad Company. After the 

completion of the Ripley the Ferndale shipyard was abandoned 

and all of tbe company's equipment was moved to the Porter 

location. 

The Inman was wrecked on Duxbury Reef in 1909, but the 

other steam schooners built in 1907 by Kruse and Banks 

enjoyed long lives. The E• s. LooE finally suffered the 

indignity of conversion to a fiab-reduotion ship for trans­

forming non-edible fish into commercial fertilizer and a 

nauseous stench, and the Bandon was towed to Mexico for 



54 

some mysterious purpose after spending most of World War II 

moored at Coos Bay in a water-logged condition, causing the 

Coast Guard port captain much anxiety lest she sink along­

side the wharf. 

Shipbuilding aotivity continued through 1908 aa Kruse 

and Banks launched two steam schooners and one gas schooner. 

The Fairhaven was built for J.E. Davenport of Sa.n Francisco 

and the Fifield, absorbing some of the timbers salvaged 

from the first Price yard, was delivered to Estabrook. 

Kruse narrowly escaped injury when knocked from bis feet 

by a trailing hawser at the Fairhave_!! launobing, but this 

apparently was not serious enough to be considered bad luck 

as the ship bad a fairly uneventful career until she foundered 

in Mexican waters some fourteen years later.l s.horter lived 

were the gas schooner Wilhelmina, built for Charles Thom of 

Marshfield, and the Fifield which were stranded in 1912 and 

1916, respectively. 

The gas schooner Oshkosh was oonstruoted for the Hamlin 

and South Coast Transportation Company of Astoria in 1909 

and cost $25,000. She was lost less than two years later 

while attempting to cross in over the Columbia river bar 

during a storm. Her fresh water supply and provisions bad 

been lost in beavy seas north of Florence, sober master 

looos Bay Harbor, April 3, 1908. 



65 

disregarded warnings from other vessels to wait offshore 

until the weather moderated, and the Oshkosh capsized with 

a loss of six men out of her crew of seven.l This was the 

most disastrous gas schooner wreck on the Oregon coast. 

A large car ferry for the Santa Fe railroad was also 

built by Kruse and Banks in 1909. She required the employ­

ment of sixty men and cost $36,000. Writing of her building, 

the Iiarbor reported that Kruse and Banks was one of the most 

important industries of North Bend, having paid out more 

than $100,000 to employees in the two years of operation at 

Porter. The workmen were pa~d an average wage or tbree 

dollars for an eight hour day; union wages and hours, but 

Kruse and Banks, like the earlier shipbuilding companies, 

did not recognize the union. Despite this, many union 

members were employed and there was no friction between 

the Company and its employees. Concluding the article, the 

Harbor stated: "The sbipye.1:•ds seems (sic) tt:o be busy no 

matter what the conditions elsewbere, or in other lines of 

business are.11 2 

This statement was belied somewhat in 1910 when only 

a tugboat for the Simpson Lumber Company and some barges 

were built. Four gas schooners and a steam schooner were 

1cooa ~ay Harbor, February 15, 1911. 

2coos Bay Harbor, April 30, 1909. 



-

launched in 1911. The Patsy and the Tillamook were built 

to the order of tbe owners of the ill-fated Oshkosh~ the 

56 

Patsy being powered by the engines removed from that vessel's 

broken hull. She reoeived her name from the initial letters 

of her expected ports of call: Portland, Astoria, '.l."illamook, 

Siuslaw, aud Yaquina.l Built for other interests were the 

gas schooners Rustler and .Q!!, neither of which was much 

larger than a fishing boat. 

Knook down your blocks and let her go! 
The flood tide soon will cease to flow, 

Then I'll baptize thee with champagne, 
And with one voioe we will proclaim: 

Simpson is thy name; ride proudly at sea-­
Neptune, God of the brine, watch over thee. 

Tuesday (December 5, 1911) noon the large 
steam schooner built by Kruse and Banks for 
the Simpson Lumber Company was successfully 
launched. The blocks were released at 12:20 
and the boat slid gracefully and swiftly into 
the water amid cheering and blasts from the 
various mills on the bay. It is said to be 
the prettiest launohing ever taken plaoe here. 

Miss Isabelle MoGenn, daughter of the well­
known skipper of the breakwater, read the verse 
quoted above and broke a bottle of ohampagne 
across the bow christening the boat the A. M. 
S1mpson.2 - -

So the Harbor depicted the launching of the last ship 

built for the Simpson Lumber Company. instead of having her 

lcoos Bay Harbor, July 27, 1911. 

2coos Bay Harbor~ December 7, 1911. 



57 

engines installed at San Francisco, the!•~• Simpson received 

the old compound engine and Scotch boilers removed £rem her 

owner's tug Astoria at North Bend. She sailed on her maiden 

voyage at the end of a towing hawser, however, because Coos 

Bay machine shops were unequal to the task of refitting the 

coal-fired boilers for the use or 011 fuel.1 Renamed the 

Martha Buehner when, a£ter A. M. Simpson's death in 1915, his 

heirs sold the lumber company and fleet, the vessel named 

for Coos Bay's pioneer shipbuilder spent her last days as a 

fish-reduction ship. 

1912 was one of the boom years for the small West Coast 

shipyards, Kruse and Banks taking so many contracts that 

work was delayed for a t11118 by a shortage of material, and 

Banks denied a rwnor that sixty families were to be brought 

in for employment in the shipyard.2 The steam schooners 

Davenport, for the Davenport Steamship Company of San 

Francisco, and Speedwell, for Estabrook, and the gas schooner 

Mirene, for the T. c. Barnes Cannery Company of Portland, 

were all under construction in the early months of the year. 

Each of the steam schooners cost over $100,000 and the 

owners of the Davenport were so pleased with her performance 

that J.E. Davenport, p~esident, made his satisfaction known 

lrn conversation with Fred Kruse. 

2 coos Bay Harbor, February 29, 1912. 



58 

in a letter to her builders~ promising them the first chance 

to bid on any wooden vessels his Company might order in the 

future. 1 Well might her owners be satisfied, for the 

Davenport continued in operation until ~aken over by tbe 

Maritime Commission during World War II. 

The launching of the Davenport and Speedwell did not 

leave the Kruse and Banks yard without orders,for tbe keel 

of a larger steam schooner had already been laid. The San 

Ramon, built for the E. J. Dodge Company of San Francisco, 

was completed in 191D, the largest and costliest steam 

schooner yet built on Coos Bay: 993 tons and $150,ooo.2 

She ended her oareer on the Humboldt Bay bar in 1941 after 

many years in the lumber trade as the Katherine Donovan. 

Also built in 1913 were the steam fisheries tender 

Akutan and the steam schooner Wilmington, which was unique 

in carrying her boilers · on her main deck so that more cargo 

could be stowed in her bold. This innovation was viewed 

with some skepticism, it being feared that she might prove 

top-heavy, but she was sucoess£ul in service, so this 

feature was incorporated in several later ships.3 The 

lJ. E. Davenport to Kruse and Banks, quoted in Coos 
Bay Harbor, January 30, 1913. 

2 ooos Bay Harbor, February 6, 1913. 

3rn conversation with Fred Kruse. 



59 

Wilmington 's owners suggested that the forthcoming wedding 

of Kruse's son be held on the vessel's forecastle just 

before she was launcbed, but Fred Kruse, feeling that Kruse 

and Banks I contract called only for the building of the 

ship, declined rather vigorously, so launohing and nuptial 

ceremonies were held separately.l The Wilmington, owned by 

the Charles Nelson Steamship Company of San Francisco, 

transported many millions of feet of timber along the coast 

before she too broke up on the Hwnboldt Bay bar in 1934. 

Completion of tbe Wilmington lert Kruse and Banks with 

no more oontraota, so all employees except the office man 

and a watoh~an were discharged in late September, 1913.2 

It was expected that the lull in activity would be short­

lived as Banks was in San Francisco furnishing estimates 

for new contracts, but the end of the year found the launch­

ing ways empty at a strangely silent shipyard. 

1In conversation with Fred Kruse. 

2 ooos Bay Harbor, October 2, 1913. 



CHAPTER IV 

WAR-BORN PROSPERITY 

Any hopes which had been held for a speed,yreopening 

of the shipyard seemed to grow dimmer as 1914 lengthened 

into spring and then summer. The Harbor was reduced to 

publishing reports that some barges and a small launch, 

under construction for a San Francisco firm and the Southern 

Pacific Railway Company respectively, were up to the usu.al 

standard of Kruse and Banks workmanship. Conversion of the 

freight and passenger boat Flyer, also for aouthern Pacifio, 

drew as much comment as had the first departure of a new 

steam schooner in earlier, more prosperous days. For the 

first time since master builder Donaldson laid the keel £or 

the little Arago in 1858, Coos Bay experienced an appreciable 

period during which there were no oaean-going vessels under 

construction. 

This inactivity was not peculiar to Coos Bay alone. 

The disorganized state of the lumber market during this 

time caused lumber operators to be very cautious about 

ordering new ships for the lwnber trade, and the steam 

sobooner builders up and down the Pacifio Coast discba~ged 



I 

61 

ell save a few employees while awaiting the end of the slump.l 

The shipbuilding industry of the United States as a whole 

was not retarded. The alight drop in the number of steam­

ships built in the nation could be attributed almost entirely 

to the idleness of the wooden shipyards on the Pacifio 

Coast.2 This was a clear indication of the importance of 

the lumber industry to West Coast shipbuilders, and espe­

cially to those of Coos Bay. 

News from Europe. however. made tbe future tor ship­

builders appear brighter as 1914 ended and 1915 brought a 

mounting toll of merchant ships lost in the war zone. 

Already some of the steam schooners were being sold to 

Eastern interests and were making their way to Atlantic 

watel"s through the newly opened Panama Cena l. Among the 

ships thus deserting the traditional steam schooner traffic 

was the Kruse and Banks-built apeedwell. which apparently 

found Central American storms more formidable foes than 

Paoifio gales, for she succumbed to a hurricane 1n the 

Gul£ of Mexico in 1920. Not until tbe end of 1915 did the 

loss of vessels in the Atlantic reach such propo~tions as 

to affect Coos Bay. 

lrn conversation with Fred Kruse. 

2F. o. Fassett, Jr., ed., Tbe Shipbuildin~ Business 
_!!!~United States .2.f America-nfew York, 194 ), I, 69• 

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On Deoember 9, Banks revealed that Charles Nelaon of 

San Francisco had ordered another steam schooner from the 

North Bend yard, and at the same time said that the demand 

for ships was the greatest in the history of the Pacific 

Coast shipping 1ndustry.1 Work on the Nelson vessel and on 

another steam schooner for Bixby and Clark of SAn Francisco 

was started early in 1916 with a orew of thirty men which 

62 

11 
was increased as the ships progressed. This renewed activity 

' in the shipyard was welcomed by North Bend as it came at tm 

time when work in logging camps and sawmills was at a low 

ebb, largely because or inclement weather.2 

Responsible citizens of North Bend were disturbed by 

the fact that men of both Marshfield and Bandon, neither 

of whioh had had any shipyards for some years, were attempt­

int to entice Kruse and Banlcs to transfer its yard to one 

of their oitie~.3 Disadvantages of the Porter site were 

the difficulty of obtaining ship timbers rrom the mills and 

the limited area of the shipyard wb1ch had made it necessary 

for the Company to turn down some contracts. To remedy the 

ship timber situation, the Bay Par~ Lumber Company was 

inoorporated on May 19, 1916. Capitalized at $25,000, the 

lQuoted in Coos Bay Harbor, December 9, 1915. 

2 Coos Bay Harbor, December 23, 1915. 

3coos Bay Harbor, May 25, 1916. 

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new concern obtained a fifteen year lease on Simpson's Old 

Town mill, log-boom, wharf, and offioe buildings. Kruse and 

Banks was among the stockholders, Banks being treasll.l'er while 

Kruse was one of the directors. Dennis McCarty, vioe presi­

dent, owned a tract of timber considered excellent for ship­

building, so the mill was assured a steady supply of logs 

when it oommenoed operations on July 1. Water.front aoreage 

adjacent to the shipyard was made available, and those who 

had been alarmed by the prospect that the yard might be 

moved were sucoessf'u.l in their efforts to prevent such an 

oocurenoe.1 It remained the Kruse and Banks ahipbuilding 

Company or North Bend, Oregon. 

The demand .for ships had resulted in a nine hour day 

for workers at Kruse and Banks, but on July 1, the Company 

decided to revert to the eight hour standard in response 

to a petition presented by the employees. The petition had 

asked for a wage raise, in place of wbioh Kruse and Banks 

offered to pay the same wage scale for the shorter day. 

This solution was acoeptable to the men and it was adoptea.2 

By September the shipyard was the busiest place on Coos 

Bay with over 200 men employed.3 Bixby and Clark's big 

1 coos Bay Harbor, May 25, 1916. 

2 coos Bay Harbor, July 6• 1916. 

3coos Bay Harbor, September 21, 1916. 



Stanwood had been launched in July, and Nelson's Port 

Angeles followed in September. The keel for a sister ship 

of the Stanwood was laid on the same w~1s immediately after 

the former was launohed. This ship, the Florence Olson, 

built for Oliver J. Olson of SAn Franoisoo, took to the 

64 

water in December. For a time the Stanwood was the biggest 

vessel built on Coos Bay, but her dominance was short-lived. 

Two months after she left the ways the Johanna Smith, largest 

ship of the wooden steam schooner fleet, was laid down.l 

The existing ways in the shipyard were crowded with new 

ships, so new ways were constructed on the tideflats south 

of the plant itself, and her keel was laid there. 

The Stanwood remained active through World War II, 

although the terrible storm of December, 1940, which wreaked 

havoc with the steam schooners caught at sea, almost claimed 

her. The Coast Guard answered her distress signals and she 

was towed into Humboldt Bay, kept afloat by her buoyant 

lumber oargo. The Port Angeles was sold to Russian interests 

and groped among the icy and foggy waters of the north­

western Pacific until 1937, when she was broken up at 

Antioch, California. Few of the steam schooners navigated 

more forbidding seas than this single-ender. The Florence 

Olson was sold when her owner acquired steel ships after 

1w. T. Gleverdon, Paoifio Coast Lumber Fleet-- Coastwise 
(San Franoisoo, 1925), 33. 



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World War I. The Hart-Wood Lumber Company renamed her the 

Willapa, and she remained in their service until she foundered 

off Port Orford in 1941.1 

The wartime shipping shortage meant many contracts 

for Kruae and Banks, as for all shipyards, large and small. 

The big Johanna Smith slid down the ways in April, 1917. 

Two more steam schooners were launobed in July: the single­

ender Horace!• Baxter and the double-ender Virginia Olson, 

for J. D. Baxter and Oliver Olson, both of San Francisco. 

September saw the~ Baxter admitted to the ranks of 

Kruse and Banks-built vessels, and the o. A. Smith joined 

her sister on October l, 1917, the last ship built on Coos 

Bay for private interests until after tbe war. This total 

of five large steam schooners launohed in one year was a 

creditable reoord for any West coast shipyard, but the 

initiation of the Emergency Fleet Corporation's building 

program soon made it seem insignificant. 

The launching of the Johanna Smith caused some shaking 

of heads in the maritime circles, for she was the longest 

wooden ship built on the Pacific Coast up to this time and 

there was some doubt that she would be successful.2 Wood 

has a resiliency which makes it impraotical as a building 

lMcNairn and MaoMullen, Ships.£.! Redwood Coast, 129 

211 Hough Type Wooden Ships Prove Successful," Inter­
national Marine Engineering, XXIV (1919), 535-537. 

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material for ships beyond a certain size. Sinoe the greatest 

beam (breadth) is located in that portion of a ship's hull 

just forward and aft of amidships, it 1s tbis part of the 

ship which has the greatest buoyanoy. lf the ship is weak 

stztucturally, ghe will tend to bog because the narrowing 

bow and stern sections do not possess the buoyancy neoessary 

to carry the heavy weights imposed upon them at the same 

level as the midship section. Well-built ships were braced 

strongly enough to prevent hogging, for a hogged ship would 

11work11 in a seaway, opewng her tightly oalked seams, and 

would be slow in "answering her helm. 11 1 A length of a.bout 

250 feet was considered the maximum for wooden single-decked 

ships such as the steam schooners because of the difficulty 

in securing the massive timbers needed to prevent hogging 

and because of the valuable cargo space occupied by such 

timbers. Moreover, the Johanna Smith was a single-ender 

with all the weight of boilers and engines oonoentrated 

a.ft in the area of little buoyancy. Small wonder that 

veteran shipping men looked dubious when informed that she 

was 257.2 feet in length. 

The Johanna Smith was designed by Edwards. Hough, 

naval arobiteot of San Francisco, especially for the o. A. 

Smith Lumber Company.2 Her oargo, 1,440,000 feet of lumber 

1Refers to the way in which a vessel obeys her rudder. 

2n. w. Dickie to writer, January 22, 1953. 



67 

oarried on deok and in six bolds reached through four 

hatches, oould be loaded in ten hours by the 11package­

handling oranes" installed on her owner's wharf. Her 

propelling maohinery was also unique for a steam schooner: 

two oil-fired water-tube boilers equipped with superbeaters1 

supplied steam for two DeLaval turbines, rated at 750 shaft 

horsepower2 and geared independently to twin screws.3 

Turbines and superheaters were almost unknown to the ooast­

wise engineers, many of whom would have abandoned ship at 

the sight of a boiler gauge indicating a pressure of 225 

pounds. 

Delivery of boilers and engines for the Johanna and 

her nearly identical sister was held up by war contracts, 

so the two ships entered servioe as barges, being towed by 

sea-going tugs or steam schooners. Not until September, 

1918, did both make their first voyages to Coos Bay under 

their own power.4 By 1920 her owner had enough data on 

the Johanna's performance to make a comparison between the 

1A portion of the boiler wherein steam is reheated to 
remove water particles which might injure the turbine blades. 

2sHP is the power aotually transmitted to the propeller 
shaft. 

311 Hough Type Wooden Ships Prove Suocessful, 11 Inter­
national Marine Engineering. XXIV, 535-537. 

4coos Bay Harbor, September 13, 1918. 



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wooden vessel and the steel Nann Smith, powered by Sootoh 

boilers and triple-expansion reciprocating engines. The 

turbine-powered ship showed a forty per cent reduction in 

operating costs per 1,000 feet of lumber carried.1 Despite 

this apparent success, tbese two giants remained the only 

steam sohooners with turbines as well as being the largest 

vessels of the wooden fleet designed speoifioally for the 

coastwise lumber trade. This may be explained by the fact 

that they appeared almost at the end of the wooden ship era 

and that few operators could afford the high initial cost 

of the vessels.2 

68 

The Johanna Smith remained in the lumber trade for some 

time, but her last years were spent in a business that 

could hardly be considered respectable. After her engines 

and boilers had been removed, she was fitted with the 

paraphernalia usually associated with the back-room of a 

tavern, and moored orr the southern California coast just 

beyond the three mile limit, her declining days devoted to 

servioe as a gambling barge. The Port Orford (ex-Horace!• 

Baxter) foundered in Alaskan waters in 1942, and the~ 

Baxter went to the ship-breakers in 1933. The Virginia 

111A Stea'm Turbine Schooner," Pacifio Marine Review, 
XVII (1920), 106-107. 

2rn conversation with Fred Kruse . 

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Olson, renamed Yolande when sold to French stockholders, was 

returned to American registry by the E. K. Wood Lumber 

Company as tbe Sierra. She burned at San Pedro in 1926. 

The Q• A. Smith came to a spectaoular and tragio end 

on Deoember 16, 1923. Captain Blomburg had decided to oross 

out over the Coos Bay bar from San Pedro that Sunday morning 

despite high winds and a warning from the master of the tug 

Oregon that the bar was quite rough. Heading well south 

because of the southerly wind, the big lumber carrier struck 

the rocks of the south spit, tearing away rudder and pro­

pellers. lieavy seas wrenched her from the rocks and she 

was driven onto the north spit on the other side or the 

channel. An alert