Multnomah-Clatsop County OR Archives Biographies.....Johnson, George C. January 26, 1872 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com February 15, 2011, 1:27 pm Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company GEORGE C. JOHNSON. Any complete description of the oyster industry which in former years made Shoalwater bay and Oysterville famous throughout the Pacific coast country must contain specific reference to the activities of George C. Johnson, who has been closely identified with it for many years and is regarded as the best authority on the subject in this locality. Mr. Johnson was born in Visalia, Tulare county, California, on the 26th of January, 1872, being the first male white child born at that place, and is a son of William and Catherine (Sullivan) Bailey, the former born in Mansfield, England, and the latter in Dublin, Ireland. His father, who was a member of the Bailey Silk Manufacturing Company of Mansfield, England, came to the United States in the '60s and located in San Francisco, California. In that city he met and married Catherine Sullivan, and they went to Tulare county, that state, where the father was accidentally killed in the mountains in 1874. To him and his wife were born three children: Maggie, deceased; George C.; and Mrs. Elizabeth Jones, who lives in San Francisco, California. Soon after the death of his father, in 1874, George C. Johnson was sent to his mother's sister, Mrs. Margaret Johnson, at Oysterville, Pacific county, Washington, making the journey on an oyster schooner with Charles Featherspeel, under whose kind and watchful care he arrived safe and sound. When the schooner came to anchor the populace of the village turned out in mass to witness the unusual event — the arrival of a little baby boy in dresses from the then far distant city of San Francisco. Mrs. Johnson, with her husband, John Christian Johnson, took the boy to their hearts and during the ensuing years reared him with the same attention and affection that a child of their own would have received. The boy regarded them as his parents, took their name and has always held them in loving and grateful remembrance. John Christian Johnson was born on the island of Falster, Denmark, where he was reared to the age of twelve years, when he went to sea on a fishing schooner. After sailing the North Sea for two years, he shipped as an able seaman on a full-rigged sailing vessel for the Mediterranean sea. Later he made a voyage to New York, from which port he went back to London and was there at the time the "Great Eastern" docked there after completing the laying of the first Atlantic telegraph cable. Soon afterwards he went back with a cargo to New York and sailed on the high seas during the following eight years, touching at many foreign ports. In 1861 he sailed around Cape Horn to San Francisco on the clipper ship "Don Quickstep," and from there shipped to Puget sound. In 1862 he went to the Caribou gold mines in British Columbia, but, learning on his arrival that there was not enough food for the camp, he did not remain there long, returning to Portland, Oregon. He steamboated on the Willamette and Columbia rivers during the summers and followed gold mining during the winters in Idaho and Montana until 1870, when he went to Oysterville, Washington. During that period, in the late '60s, he was offered one hundred and fifty acres of land, comprising what is now known as East Portland, on which stood seventy acres of wheat ready to harvest, for five hundred dollars, but turned the offer down. This land is now worth millions of dollars. After settling in Oysterville Mr. Johnson engaged in salmon fishing, "gill netting" on the Columbia river for about eleven years, and during that period he made what has stood as a record catch for gill netting, having caught and turned in to the canneries eighty-two thousand large salmon, the largest catch by gill netting by one man ever turned in on the river. The fish were all large sized, many of them weighing from fifty to sixty pounds. He received fifteen cents for each of these fish, which today would bring from seven to ten dollars each. In 1881 Mr. Johnson quit salmon fishing and thereafter was engaged in the oyster business to the time of his death, which occurred in 1908. His wife died in 1927, at the age of eighty-four years. Mr. Johnson was actively interested in the welfare of his community and served as road supervisor many years, as well as on the school board. He was a stockholder in the Ilwaco Transportation Company and was held in high esteem throughout the community. George C. Johnson received his education in the grammar school at Oysterville and was practically reared in the oyster business. As a boy he assisted his father in that business, working at it until 1894, when he went to Portland and took a course in Armstrong's Business College. In 1895 he went to Bonneville on the upper Columbia river, where he worked through one season installing a fish wheel on the river. On his return to Portland he secured a position as clerk in a store, which work he followed until January 26, 1898, when he went on the second trip of the steamer "George W. Elder" to Skagway, Alaska, at the time of the Klondike gold rush. He took a claim and was one of the discoverers of Birch creek, at Atlin, British Columbia. This proved to be a good find and later he sold his claim at a good figure. He followed gold mining and freighting in Alaska for four years and then returned to Oysterville and again became identified with the oyster business. In 1905 Mr. Johnson organized the Johnson-McGowan Oyster Company and began planting eastern oysters in Shoalwater bay, going east and bringing back three carloads of seed oysters. The next year he brought in three more carloads, the following year eight carloads, and still later twelve carloads. In 1915 he shipped in fifteen carloads of oyster seed, which cost the company about ten thousand dollars, the freight on the shipment amounting to about as much more. Some idea of the importance of this shipment may be gained from the statement that each car contained two hundred and twenty-five sacks, and each sack contained twenty thousand seed oysters, so that there were nearly sixty-eight million seed oysters in the shipment. The development and decline of the oyster industry at Shoalwater bay comprises an important chapter in the commercial history of this locality. The industry had its inception here in 1851, when Charles Russell, who was at that time living at Pacific City, Washington, shipped a few sacks of oysters to San Francisco as an experiment. The oysters were taken by Indians in canoes through Black lake to Ilwaco, thence across the Columbia river to Astoria, and from there by boat to San Francisco. This first shipment met with a ready sale at a good price, and, thus encouraged, Mr. Russell moved to a point on Shoalwater bay named Bruceport. There he loaded a schooner with a full cargo of oysters for San Francisco. Bruceport was named after an oyster schooner "Robert Bruce," which was built in San Francisco and was owned by John Morgan, Frank Garretson, Garret Tyson, Mark Winant and Alexander Hansen, who comprised the first oyster company to operate in Shoalwater bay in 1851. Besides these five men there were also two others on board, the skipper, Captain J. K. Terry, and the cook, known by the name of Jefferson, but neither of the last two having any monetary interest in the venture of the vessel. Having made a quick trip they were all highly elated over the prospects in view, but while yet crossing the bar and coming into the harbor the cook leaned over the rail and remarked to Mr. Garretson, "Isn't this a wild looking country? She may come in but she will never go out." "Well, if she can come in why can't she go out?" "She never will," replied Jefferson, and she never did. On December 16, 1852, the cook served laudanum in the coffee at the evening meal, enough to drug the crew. After the men were all asleep, he set fire to the schooner, first throwing overboard all of the ship's buckets and even to the cooking utensils. The Indians on the shore, seeing the burning vessel, ran and told a man named McCarthy, who was on the bay shore at the time. He and the Indians rushed out across the mud flats to the burning vessel and rescued the crew. The vessel was a total loss. It was never learned what became of the renegade cook, but it is supposed he put to sea in the ship's boat and was swamped and drowned, having been carried to sea by the outgoing tide, as the winter storms along the southwestern coast of Washington are often severe, and many ships have been wrecked in that vicinity. From this time on the oyster industry grew rapidly, and more schooners were built and added to the fleet of oyster boats, among them Captain Smith on the "Mary Taylor" and Captain Hansen on the "Equity" and "Oriental" and others. They were soon followed by the Morgan brothers as independent shippers, and in about 1858-9 came John and Tom Crellin. In 1863 Morgan and Crellin joined forces, and were thereafter known under the firm name of Crellin & Company. After them came H. S. Gile and in 1866 came Doane Brothers & Espy, who lost their first schooner and cargo in a shipwreck. They purchased another schooner and took in as partners Frank Warren and John Hunter in 1868. In 1870 Swanberg & West got into the business. In 1870 Crellin & Company brought in the first shipment of eastern oysters to Shoalwater bay, consisting of a few barrels as a propagating venture, which did not prove successful, and in the same year the Crellins went to San Francisco and eventually acquired twenty-seven thousand acres in the bay, upon which they planted oysters. Their business there grew to an enormous volume, they all becoming immensely wealthy. In 1886 all of the then existing oyster companies on Shoalwater bay were merged and incorporated as the Morgan Oyster Company and were operated under that name until 1923, when the company was dissolved, the business having diminished almost to the vanishing point. During the peak of the oyster season on Shoalwater bay thousands of bushels of oysters were shipped to market daily, and Oysterville became a thriving little city, being for many years the county seat of Pacific county. It is now but little more than a memory, but few houses being left as a reminder of a once prosperous community. Competent oyster men are generally agreed that the gradual decline of the industry on Shoalwater bay was due to the lack of the minute vegetable and animal matter on which the oysters fed and which in former years came from the Columbia river and was carried up into the bay by the tides. When the government built the north jetty at the mouth of the Columbia river it carried the fresh water from the Columbia river farther out to sea and this water, with its plant food was lost to Shoalwater bay. In consequence the oysters starved and died by the millions. On June 24, 1911, in New Haven, Connecticut, Mr. Johnson was united in marriage to Miss Mary Letscher, who was born and reared in that city and is a daughter of Henry and Julia (Wellhauser) Letscher, the latter also a native of New Haven. The father was a native of Germany and was brought to the United States in 1852, when two years old. He was here reared and educated and was for many years engaged in the manufacturing business in New Haven. To him and his wife were born five children, namely: John Jacob, deceased; Henry, now foreman with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, New Haven; Mrs. Mary Johnson; Daniel, who is employed as a draftsman with the Corbin Lock Company, at Hartford, Connecticut, and Lillian, who still lives in New Haven. Mr. Letscher died in 1901 and his wife passed away on April 16, 1926. Mrs. Johnson graduated from the New Haven high school, after which for several years she was employed as stenographer and private secretary to the auditor of freight receipts of the New Haven Railroad. At the time of her marriage she was with the New York Central Railroad. In 1914 Mr. Johnson built a modern and attractive bungalow home at Ocean Park, the home being surrounded by a beautiful lawn, ornamented with flowers and shrubbery. He has also built a spacious greenhouse, where throughout the year he raises hothouse vegetables and flowers, in which he is greatly interested and from which he derives much pleasure. Mr. Johnson is a member of Astoria Lodge No. 180, B. P. O. E., and Mrs. Johnson belongs to Pacific Chapter No. 129, O. E. S., at Ilwaco. They are both extremely popular throughout the community, due to their hospitable and kindly manner and the deep interest they have taken in the welfare and progress of their locality. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/or/multnomah/bios/johnson1509gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/orfiles/ File size: 13.4 Kb