Document text
Accession no.
W9666
Date received
10/10/40
Consignment no.
1
Shipped from
Wash. Office
Label
Amount 5D.
(incl. forms
C -D)
WPA L. C. PROJECT sl Writers'. UNIT
Form -3
Flak3..Q1.11 Collection (or Type)
Title...Steamhaat_ing.
Place of origin Oregon Dim* 3/27/39
Project worker Manly M, Banister
Project editor
RemarimEntitles "Steamboats"on forms C and
D.
Form A
Federal Writers' Project
Circumstances of Interview Works Progress Administration
Name of worker
Address
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Manly M. Banister
2071 SW Park Avenue
Date
lharoh 27 19S9
Subject
Steamboating
41111111111121111ft AMON,
Name and address of informant Captain Mi4on Smith
3051 NE 38th Avenue
Date and time of interview
March 27th 1.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
Nene
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 IlAtir, 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 para-
phernalia.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
W9666
Form B Federal Writers' Project
Personal History of Informant Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister Date March 27, 1939
Address
Subject
2071 SW Park Avenue
Steamboating
Name and address of informant
Captain Milt ith
3051 NE 38th Avenue
Information obtained should supply the following facts:
1. Ancestry 6. Occupations and accomplishments with dates
2. Place and date of birth 7. Special skills and interests
3. Family 8. Community and religious activities
4. Places lived in, with dates 9. Description of informant
5. Education, with dates 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.
to
4. Buena Vista, French Prairie, Hobsonville up/the age of 22. Then Rainier,
5.
Washington. Recently in Portland.
apoomoAND
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.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the proper heading
and the number to which the material refers).
Form C Federal Writers' Project
Text of Interview (Unedited) 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 36th Avenue
Text:
I am the youngest of the Joseph Smith family of nine children. My
father and my mother crossed the plains in 046 and 147 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 Croisano during the trip across the plains. While
they were asleep in their wagon on their wedding night, some men came and
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).
Captain Milton Smith Form 8 Page 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 for-
get 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 speed. 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 deokhand--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
AI
rope there and I grabbed that, but I couldn't let go or make it fast to any-
thing. 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.
Forla D Federal Writers' Project
E7tra Comment Works Progress Administration
OREGON FOLKLORE STUDIES
Name of worker Manly M. Banister__ ,Date milreh 27, 19”
Address 2071 SW Park
Subject
Steamboats
Name and address of informant captalm_Nlitem Rmith
3051 Ng 3Rth AyenpR
Comment: Captain Smith could not give me much time, but he is not a
particularly good informant. He has the complex so many have: the fear
of saying anything personal. Any 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 Custom 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.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, each bearing the heading given
above).