Overview
Inland Flyer was a passenger steamboat that ran on Puget Sound from 1898 to 1916. From 1910 to 1916 this vessel was known as the Mohawk. The vessel is notable as the first steamer on Puget Sound to use oil fuel. Inland Flyer was one of the most famous vessels of the time on Puget Sound.
Design and construction
Inland Flyer was built in 1898 at Portland, Oregon, and was originally intended to run between Portland, Astoria, and The Dalles. Capt. John Anderson, who later became closely linked with steamboat operations on Lake Washington, discovered Inland Flyer engineless and still under construction at the shipyard of Joseph Supple in Portland, and recommended her purchase to Joshua Green. Anderson bought the hull, and sold it to Green and his associates who were doing business as La Conner Trading and Transportation Company. Anderson then installed the engines and the upper works himself in Portland, and brought the ship himself down the Columbia River and around the Olympic peninsula.
Conversion to oil burner
On May 21, 1904 plans were announced in the press to convert Inland Flyer and Athlon from coal to oil fuel. The decision was reached after officials of the Puget Sound Navigation Company, including its president, Charles Peabody, had taken a test trip on the Northern Commercial Company's sidewheeler Sadie, which was intended for use in Alaska and had been fitted with oil fuel tanks and burned oil rather than wood or coal. Oil was thought to be both cleaner and as cheap or cheaper than coal. The conversion was planned to be complete in thirty days. Inland Flyer thus became the first steam vessel on Puget Sound to use oil fuel, rather than wood or coal, and was the first steamer operating on Puget Sound to use oil fuel.
Operations
In 1901, La Conner Trading reached a joint operating agreement with H.B. Kennedy to run their steamers in alliance on the profitable Seattle-Bremerton route, which they called the Port Orchard Route. In 1907 Inland Flyer was placed on the run from Seattle to Bremerton. By 1904, La Conner Trading, by then a subsidiary of PSN, was operating jointly with H.B. Kennedy as the Navy Yard Route on the Seattle – Bremerton run. Disposing of three vessels, including Inland Flyer, Athlon, and the sternwheeler Port Orchard, the Navy Yard route ran six sailings a day from Seattle's Pier 2 to and from Bremerton.
Rate wars
In 1905, the Puget Sound Navigation Company was engaged in a rate war on the Hood Canal route. There were only two steamers at that time that ran on Hood Canal, one was the Perdita, operated by Capt. W.W. McKenzie, and the other was PSN's Garland. PSN arranged to have McKenzie and Perdita bought off with an anti-competitive subsidy agreement, but this did not last, and McKenzie and Perdita were soon back on Hood Canal, driving down rates on Garland from $2.00 to 50 cents ton, with passengers carried from Seattle to any landing on the canal for 25 cents. In addition, PSN was forced to put the Inland Flyer on the Hood Canal route. Considered a speedy vessel, Inland Flyer, together with Garland brought the best steamboat service ever effected on Hood Canal. However, by the end of 1905, PSN resolved the problem of competition from Perdita by purchasing the rival vessel.
In 1910 the Navy Yard Route sold Inland Flyer to Capt. F.G. Reeve, who was doing business as the Port Washington Route. He renamed the vessel Mohawk.
Disposition
Wooden steamboats had a useful life of about 20 years, although their components could be reused, sometimes for much longer. In 1916, Mohawk (ex Inland Flyer) was dismantled. The engine was placed in a new vessel, the steamer F.G. Reeve, with the hull going to Neah Bay to serve as a fish-receiving barge.
References
* Faber, Jim, Steamer's Wake, Enetai Press, Seattle WA (1985) * Kline, M.S., and Bayless, G.A., Ferryboats -- A legend on Puget Sound, Bayless Books, Seattle, WA 1983 * Newell, Gordon R., ed., H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, Superior Publishing Co., Seattle, WA (1966) * Newell, Gordon R., Ships of the Inland Sea, Superior Publishing Co., Seattle, WA (2nd Ed. 1960) * Port Townsend Daily Leader, “Sound Steamers will Substitute Oil for Coal” May 21, 1904, page 1, col.4 * U.S. Dept. of the Treasury, Bureau of Statistics, Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States (for year ending June 30, 1909)
External links
* William A. Hester photograph of Inland Flyer, circa 1900