The Queen.
Pinnacle 200 feet high on Vermillion Creek.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN, U.S. Colo. Riv. Exp.
Two or three years after the Whipple expedition, a waggon-road was surveyed (1837) along the 35th parallel by E. F. Beale. He returned to the Colorado January 23, 1858, about twelve miles north of Whipple’s Crossing. He had camped, several miles back from the Colorado, and starting early met his clerk F. E. Kerlin returning from the river whither he had been sent to prepare the boat. The clerk had a “joyful surprise” in news that the steamboat General Jesup, Captain George A. Johnson, was at the crossing and waiting to convey the party across. Soon after the arrival of Beale’s party the steamboat came up to the bank, and taking on the men, baggage, and camels landed them on the opposite or eastern side.[[9]] The mules were compelled to swim over. Then the General Jesup continued down stream “towards Fort Yuma, 350 miles below.” Johnson had with him Lieut. James White, 3d U. S. Artillery, fifteen soldiers and “as many rugged mountain men” as escort. He had succeeded in navigating with the General Jesup as far up the river as El Dorado Canyon, about sixty-eight miles below the mouth of the Virgin—that is, he had gone clear through Black Canyon and thus holds the record for the first ascent of the Colorado with a steamboat to the limit of steamboat navigation. This feat he executed with the avowed purpose of “getting ahead” of Lieutenant Ives who had arrived December 1, 1857, at Robinson’s Landing at the mouth of the river, bringing an iron steamboat (as described in the next chapter) under orders from the War Department to explore the Colorado as far as possible.
[9] Beale used camels on this expedition and considered them a success.
Johnson had been aware of his presence and intentions having been sent down from Fort Yuma with two steamboats to transport certain supplies from the vessel which brought Lieutenant Ives. He had reached the schooner December 17th. On January 2, 1858, he left Fort Yuma on his northward run knowing that Ives could not follow him until the steamboat brought in sections could be completed.
Ives had entirely ignored Johnson, as well as Johnson’s skill in navigating this river, and also his powerful steamboats. The appropriation under which Ives was working was one which had originally been made for Johnson, after a visit of his to Washington, but from several causes it had been switched over to the War Department. Captain Johnson, therefore, was determined to rob Ives of the glory of being the first to take a steamboat to the head of navigation, and he did it with a steamboat much larger than that of Ives which failed to pass Black Canyon. The General Jesup, named after the quarter-master general of the Army, was 108 feet long, 28 feet beam, and drew 2 feet, 6 inches of water. She had exploded in August, 1854, but had been thoroughly repaired. On this down trip from the head of steamboat navigation she met with another accident, running on “a large rolling stone and sinking just above Chimney Peak” some eighteen miles from Yuma. She was raised by the Colorado and towed down to the Fort.[[10]]
[10] See Wagon Road from Fort Defiance to the Colorado River—Edward F. Beale, 35th Congress, 2d Session, House of Representatives, Document, 124, Washington, 1858. Also Handbook to Arizona, pp. 247-48, R. J. Hinton, 1878. The information as to Johnson’s application for an appropriation to explore the Colorado was given me by Mr. Robert Brewster Stanton. Johnson also related the story of his “getting ahead” of Ives, to Mr. Stanton, who now has the written statement as well. I communicated with Johnson in 1904, requesting some data, but he declined to give it on the ground that he intended himself to publish the story of his exploits. Since then unfortunately he has died.
CHAPTER VII.
