Beaver (steamship)
| Steamship Beaver The Beaver about 1870 | |
| Career (Colony of Vancouver Island Colony of British Columbia Canada) |
HBC flag |
|---|---|
| Name: | Beaver |
| Builder: | Wigram & Green, Blackwall Yard, London |
| Laid down: | London, England |
| Launched: | 9 May 1835 |
| In service: | 1835-1888 |
| Fate: | Wrecked in 1888 in Burrard Inlet, Vancouver |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Paddlewheel steamer |
| Tonnage: | 109 tons |
| Length: | 101 ft 9 in (31.01 m) |
| Beam: | 33 ft (10 m) |
| Draft: | 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) |
| Propulsion: |
|
| Sail plan: | Brigantine[1] |
| Armament: | 4 brass cannons[1] |
Beaver was the first steamship to operate in the Pacific Northwest of North America. She made remote parts of the west coast of Canada accessible for maritime fur trading and was chartered by the Royal Navy for surveying the coastline of British Columbia.[1]
Contents
Construction and Delivery
Beaver was built in London of British oak, elm, greenheart and teak, and was copper fastened and sheathed. Her length was 101 feet (31 m), and the beam over her paddle boxes was 33 feet (10 m). She was launched at Blackwall Yard on 9 May 1835 and left London on 29 August under the command of Captain David Home, and with the company's barque, Columbia, built at the same time and commanded by Captain Darby. Beaver was outfitted as a brig for the passage out, paddles unshipped, and came out via Cape Horn under sail alone. After calling at Juan Fernandez and Honolulu, she arrived off the Columbia River on 18 March 1836 and anchored off Fort Vancouver on 10 April. Here the paddles were shipped and boilers and engines connected.
Service in Canada
Beaver was used to service trading posts maintained by the Hudson's Bay Company between the Columbia River and Russian America (Alaska) and played an important role in helping maintain British control in British Columbia during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858-59. In 1862 she was chartered by the Royal Navy to survey and chart the coast of the Colony of British Columbia. She was finally sold by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1874.
Loss
She was purchased by a consortium that became the British Columbia Towing and Transportation Company in 1874[1] and was used as a towboat until 25 July 1888 when, due to an inebriated crew, she went aground on rocks at Prospect Point in Vancouver's Stanley Park. The wreck finally sank in July 1892 from the wake of the passing steamer Yosemite, and only after enterprising locals had stripped much of the wreck for souvenirs. The Vancouver Maritime Museum houses a collection of Beaver remnants. The site of the sinking has been commemorated with a plaque. Divers surveyed the wreck in the 1960s, but it had mostly disintegrated due to rot and currents.
See also
- William Henry McNeill
- Steamboats of the Columbia River
- List of steamboats on the Columbia River
- List of ships in British Columbia
- S.S. Beaver - 3D Computerized Model by Andrew Wilkie
Image gallery
- Wreck of the Steamship Beaver.jpg
The wreck of Beaver
- SSBeaver Plaque.jpg
Plaque commemorating Beaver in Stanley Park, Vancouver.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Beaver at the Vancouver Maritime Museum website". http://www.vancouvermaritimemuseum.com/page212.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-09.
- Horner, John B. (1921). Oregon: Her History, Her Great Men, Her Literature. The J.K. Gill Co.: Portland
- Pethick, Derek, The SS Beaver, 1974
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- Pages with broken file links
- Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls
- Victorian era merchant ships of Canada
- Victorian era merchant ships of the United States
- Shipwrecks of the British Columbia coast
- Stanley Park
- Hudson's Bay Company
- Paddle steamers of British Columbia
- Maritime incidents in 1888
- Steamboats of the Columbia River
- Blackwall Yard-built ships
- 1830s ships
- Fur trade
