Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Steamer Isabel

 
Fred Rogers, More shipwrecks of British Columbia, Douglas and MacIntyre, 1992
The steamer Isabelle, the first owned by any sawmill on the BC mainland, was built in Victoria at a cost of $50,000, and launched on July 25, 1866. The machinery for sawmill owner Captain Edward Stamp's steamer had been brought out from Scotland in May, 1866. She was a side-wheel vessel, 146 feet long, 24 feet beam, and 9 feet hold; commanded successively, while owned by Stamp’s mill company, by Captains Chambers, Pamphlet, and Devereux. 

In October of 1869 the boat ran ashore about 500 yards south of Nine-pin Rock (the early name of what is now called Siwash Rock) during a dense fog,. She lay head on to the beach, in a dangerous position, resting upon a rock amidships. She was, however, got off without serious damage, and in a month or so was as active as ever in the work on the inlet.
After the bankruptcy of Stamp’s company, she was for many years a passenger-steamer and tow-boat in Canadian waters and on Puget Sound; In 1894 she was dismantled and used as a barge.

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