WPA - Works Project Administration
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the
Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1940
Steamboating
W9666
Beliefs and customs ? Sketches Accession no.
Date received 10/10/40
Consignment no. 1
Shipped from Wash. Office Label Amount 5p. (incl.
forms C-D.)
WPA L. C. PROJECT Writers' UNIT
Form [md] 3
Folklore Collection (or Type)
Title Steamboating
Place of origin Oregon Date 3/27/39 Project worker
Manly M. Banister Project editor
Remarks Entitles ?Steamboats? on forms C and D.
Form A
Circumstances of Interview Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister Date March 27, 1939
Address 2071 SW Park Avenue
Subject Steamboating
Name and address of informant Captain Milton Smith
3051 NE 38th Avenue
Date and time of interview March 27th A.M.
Place of interview Captain Smith's home
Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant Howard Corning
Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
None Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Captain Smith's home is located just below the crest
of the hill in the Alameda District, on the very
fringe of the bon-ton residential area. The house is a
nice one and new, and while I was there, interior
decorators were busily at work, which necessitated
conducting the interview in the breakfast nook, the
only place not cluttered with workmen and their
paraphernalia.
Form B
Personal History of Informant Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister Date March 27, 1939
Address 2071 SW Park Avenue
Subject Steamboating
Name and address of informant Captain Milton Smith
3051 NE 38th Avenue
Information obtained should supply the following
facts:
1. Ancestry
2. Place and date of birth
3. Family
4. Places lived in, with dates
5. Education, with dates
6. Occupations and accomplishments with dates
7. Special skills and interests
8. Community and religious activities
9. Description of informant
10. Other points gained in interview
1. Parents, American: father, Joseph Smith, mother,
a Hall.
2. Born at Buena Vista, August 10th, 1874.
3. Wife and daughter.
4. Buena Vista, French Prairie, Hobsonville up to the
age of 22. Then Rainier, Washington. Recently in
Portland.
5. ?-?
6. Steamboat captain and pilot on the Columbia,
Willamette, and Cowlitz Rivers.
8. Steamboating.
9. A man who looks much younger than his years.
Sturdily built and only slightly grey. Memory on the
faulty side.
Form C
Text of Interview (Unedited) Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister Date March 27, 1939
Address 2071 SW Park
Subject Steamboats
Name and address of informant Captain Milton Smith
3051 NE 38th Avenue
Text: I am the youngest of the Joseph Smith family
of nine children. My father and my mother crossed the
plains in '46 and '47 respectively. They met and were
married at Buena Vista, and settled in the French
Prairie region near Woodburn. When I was about a year
old, they moved to Buena Vista, and then to
Hobsonville near Tillamook. Father was not one of the
founders, because Hobsonville was a thriving place
when we got there.
He built and operated a sawmill at Hobsonville, and
later moved to Rainier, Washington, where he built
another sawmill and operated it until his death.
About that time I came into the picture?when I was
twenty-two. I started into the steamboat game,
building and operating tugboats. I retired about five
years ago. We operated under the name of the Columbia
and Cowlitz Transportation Company. Then the name was
changed to the Smith Transportation Company. I finally
sold out and it became the Shaver Transportation
Company, which went out of business about two years
ago.
My mother was a Hall, and she came in a different
wagon train from that of my father. I remember having
heard her tell that her sister was married to a man
named Croisan, during the trip across the plains.
While they were asleep in their wagon on their wedding
night, some men came and 2 played a practical joke on
them. They pushed the wagon out into the river near
which they were camped until the water came up into
the bed of the wagon.
My father had the distinction of setting up and
operating the first threshing machine in Oregon. It
was run by horse-power and not steam. I forget who it
was made for, but it wasn't Croisan.
Oregon had its first entry in 1913 at Chicago, in
the international speedboat races. It wasn't the first
speedboat built in Oregon, but it was the first one
built here that took the world's record for speeds. We
made fifty miles an hour with it, and that became the
record at that time. It's name was the ?Oregon Kid?.
Yes, I used to know Charlie Fuller. He was what we
called a ?double-header? in those days. That is, he
had licenses both as an engineer and as a steamboat
captain. At this particular time I recall, Charlie was
engineer for me and we were taking a raft of logs down
the Cowlitz. The water was high and rough and a chain
broke loose. I was running short-handed at the time,
for I didn't have a deckhand?a logger who could walk
the raft. So I got out there, and I found the chain
had dropped loose. There was a piece of rope
there and I grabbed that, but I couldn't let go or
make it fast to anything. I had to have a chain and I
had to have it fast before the raft broke apart. About
then I looked up and saw Charlie crawling across the
raft, dragging a section of chain after him. He
couldn't walk the logs, but he could crawl, and he
came out there to me with that chain. That showed he
had guts.
Form D
Extra Comment Federal Writers' Project
Works Progress Administration OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister Date March 27, 1939
Address 2071 SW Park
Subject Steamboats
Name and address of informant Captain Milton Smith
3051 NE 38th Avenue
Comment: Captain Smith could not give me much time,
but he is not a particularly good informant. He has
the complex to many have: the fear of saying anything
personal. Many informants try to make their talk as
erudite and cultured as possible. People of this type
are difficult to get anything from. When I offered to
return at another time, he adequately squelched the
proposition, so I believe it would be a waste of time
to interview him further.
However, the Captain recommended that we interview his
cousin, Ed Croisan who lives near 52nd at Hawthorne,
with a Mrs. Stow. He was once sheriff of Marion County
and later Collector of Customs at Portland. Also B. F.
(Frank) Hall, the oldest man in Oregon to have an
automobile operator's license. He lives at Woodburn,
Oregon, and is well known so that he can be found
easily.
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