Canemah was an early settlement in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

located near the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward b ...

. Canemah was annexed to Oregon City in 1928.

Location

The district of Canemah is located on the east side of the Willamette River. At that time, Oregon City was a separate settlement, and was located below the

Willamette Falls The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall on the Willamette River between Oregon City, Oregon, Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, in the United States. It is the largest waterfall in the Northwestern United States by volume, and the seventeen ...

above which Canemah sits. The two towns were connected by a path, later upgraded to an ox track.Corning, Howard McKinley, ''Willamette Landings - Ghost Towns of the River'', at 41, 45, 58-69, 214 Oregon Historical Society (2nd Ed. 1977)

Early history

Oregon was first inhabited by Native Americans, and was considered by the

Calapooya The Kalapuya are a Native American people, which had eight independent groups speaking three mutually intelligible dialects. The Kalapuya tribes' traditional homelands were the Willamette Valley of present-day western Oregon in the United St ...

tribe to be part of their territory. Native Americans traveled up and down the waterfall by canoes. Canemah is significant to this because it was the southern point of where Native Americans needed to go through to cross the waterfall. The name "Canemah" itself means "the canoe place". There was said to have been a dispute among the Native Americans as to which of their nations would control this area. The reason is that whoever controlled Canemah and its northern areas could toll anyone who crossed that area to cross the waterfall in their canoe. Many people were killed, apparently also called "Canemahs" who had occupied Canemah and claimed the right to charge tolls for use of the area.

Pioneer settlement

The first

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

settler at Canemah was Absalom F. Hedges (1817–1890). He arrived in Oregon City in 1844, and found all the good lots already taken. He then went south to Canemah, and staked out a Donation Land Claim close to the canoe landing place. Water travel above the falls was still mainly conducted by the Native Americans using canoes at this point, although they also paddled the flat boats, sometimes known as

bateau A bateau or batteau is a shallow- draft, flat-bottomed boat which was used extensively across North America, especially in the colonial period and in the fur trade. It was traditionally pointed at both ends but came in a wide variety of sizes. T ...

x, that were starting to appear on the river. A few settlers had already established themselves in the

Willamette Valley The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the eas ...

, and the boats and canoes brought their farm products to Canemah. At Canemah, they were loaded on ox-carts and carried around the falls to Oregon City. New emigrants to the Willamette Valley, and all of their goods, were then hauled back to Canemah up the track from Oregon City by the same ox-carts.

Beginning of steamboat business

By 1849, Hedges had opened up a tannery and laid out a townsite at Canemah, which he called "Falls City." With his brother-in-law William Barrow, Hedges set up a sawmill and opened a store. The name "Falls City" never caught on and the place continued to be called "Canemah." As river traffic increased, Hedges and some partners decided to put a steamboat on the Willamette above the falls. Hedges gathered up several thousand dollars in gold, and made a trip back east to buy the machinery for the vessel. He bought two engines which were shipped around

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramí ...

to Oregon. Hedges and his partners returned overland.

Steamboats in the Willamette

By the time Hedges and his party returned to Oregon, there were already three steamboats operating on the upper Willamette, ''Hoosier'', ''Washington'', and ''Multnomah''. In June 1851, the small ''Hoosier'' was making three trips a week from Canemah up the

Yamhill River The Yamhill River is an tributary of the Willamette River, in the U.S. state of Oregon. Formed by the confluence of the South Yamhill River and the North Yamhill River about east of McMinnville, it drains part of the Northern Oregon Coast Rang ...

, a tributary of the Willamette, to

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

. The much larger ''Multnomah'' was assembled at Canemah in the spring of 1851 from parts premanufactured in the east, and made her first trial run in August 1851.Mills, Randall V., ''Sternwheelers up Columbia -- A Century of Steamboating in the Oregon Country'', at 21, 52-53, 54, 176, University of Nebraska, Lincoln NE 1947 (1977 printing by Bison Press) Facing this competition, Hedges and company began construction on the new steamboat, named ''Canemah'', which was launched near the end of September 1851 and entered service in late 1851. About this time, a new ox road was blasted along the river in the

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

cliffs that separated Canemah from Oregon City. Wagon traffic ran all day and night; night traffic was lit by torches burning along the road. Canemah was an important place in the 1850s, and many more stores and residences were built, as well as nine or ten steamboats in addition to ''Multnomah'' and ''Canemah''. During this period, on April 8, 1854, the spectacular and tragic explosion of the new steamboat ''Gazelle'' occurred. Other steamboats built at Canemah in the 1850s included ''Yamhill'' (1851), ''Shoalwater'' (1852) (later known by other names), ''Wallamet'' (1853), ''Enterprise'' (1855), ''James Clinton'' (1856), ''Elk'', ''Surprise'' (1857), ''Onward'' and ''Moose''.

Reconstruction after flood of 1861

Canemah, built almost at the river's level, was wiped out by the flood of December 1861. Afterwards, the wharves and some buildings were reconstructed, and prosperity seemed certain. More steamboats were built and a

portage railway A portage railway is a short and possibly isolated section of railway used to bypass a section of unnavigable river or between two water bodies which are not directly connected. Cargo from waterborne vessels is unloaded, loaded onto conventional ...

was built along the east back to replace the lumbering ox carts. The

People's Transportation Company The People's Transportation Company operated steamboats on the Willamette River and its tributaries, the Yamhill and Tualatin rivers, in the State of Oregon from 1862 to 1871. For a brief time this company operated steamers on the Columbia Riv ...

was organized, and the company built an improved boat basin above the falls. A canal was cleared below the falls which lessened the portage distance. New steamboats were built above the falls to serve customers upriver. These included a second ''Yamhill'' (1860), ''Unio''/''Union'' (1861), a second ''Enterprise'' (1863), ''Reliance'' (1865), ''Active'' (1865), ''Fannie Patton'' (1865), ''Echo'' (1865), ''Albany'' (1868), ''Success'', and ''Dayton'' (1868).

Decline of importance

In 1870, the

Oregon State Legislature The Oregon Legislative Assembly is the state legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. The Legislative Assembly is bicameral, consisting of an upper and lower house: the Senate, whose 30 members are elected to serve four-year terms; and the H ...

allocated funds for the construction of locks on the west side of the falls. By 1873 the locks were complete. Steamers could now move directly from Portland all the way to the Corvallis, with no portage. Towns based on the portage, like Canemah, started to fade in importance. During the 1870s, three or four more steamboats were built at Canemah, and these were the last to be built above the falls: the ''Shoo-Fly'' (Another steamboat on the Columbia River built three years later was named ''Don't Bother Me''),Mills, at 192. See ''

Shoo Fly, Don't Bother Me ''Shoo Fly, Don't Bother Me'' or ''Shew! fly, don't bother me'' is a minstrel show song from the 1860s that has remained popular since that time. It was sung by soldiers during the Spanish–American War of 1898, when flies and the yellow fever mo ...

''. ''Alice'', and ''McMinnville'' (1877), and the smaller '' Carrie Norton'' (1878).Affleck, Edward L., ''A Century of Paddlewheelers in the Pacific Northwest, the Yukon, and Alaska'', at 7-28, Alexander Nicholls Press, Vancouver, BC 2000 By 1892, the name ''Canemah'' had been almost forgotten and the area came to be known as simply another part of Oregon City. Canemah is now listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

as a historic district.

Notes and references

{{authority control Former populated places in Clackamas County, Oregon Former populated places in Oregon National Register of Historic Places in Clackamas County, Oregon Oregon City, Oregon Steamboats of the Willamette River 1849 establishments in Oregon Territory Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Oregon Populated places on the National Register of Historic Places