The steamboat Mizpah operated in the early 1900s as part of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet

Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet

The Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet was a large number of private transportation companies running smaller passenger and freight boats on Puget Sound and nearby waterways and rivers. This large group of steamers and sternwheelers plied the waters of Puget Sound, stopping at every waterfront dock...

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Construction

Construction of Mizpah began in 1901 at Olympia

Olympia, Washington

Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat of Thurston County. It was incorporated on January 28, 1859. The population was 46,478 at the 2010 census...

, but the vessel was not launched until 1905, when she was completed by Capt. John C. Ross. Mizpah was propeller-driven, 55' long, and rated at only 12 tons. Even so, she had two decks, the lower for freight and the upper for passengers and the pilot house. Her first skipper was Capt.Volney C.F. Young with Capt. Ross acting as engineer.

Operation

Mizpah served points on upper Puget Sound

Puget Sound

Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

 running from Olympia to Hunter’s Point, Rolling Bay, Oyster Bay, and Kamilche. Gordon Newell described 'Mizpah ’s role in the early maritime transportation network:

Captain Ross fell overboard from Mizpah in September 1906 and was drowned. He’d left the engine room to catch some air after the boat had gone around Windy Point. The fireman noticed him missing him a few minutes later and alerted Captain Young, who turned the boat about and tried to find Captain Ross, but could not. His body turned up a week later. Captain Ross left a wife and two children. His widow later married Captain Young.

At some point, Mizpah seems to have come into the ownership of Captain Hopkins of Olympia, who in 1911 replaced her on the Oyster Bay and Kamilche run with the gasoline-powered passenger and freight boat Chickaree, which he’d bought from Capt. F.G. Reeve.

Fire and reconstruction

In 1915, Mizpah burned to the waterline. Enough was left of her hull to allow her to be rebuilt as a tug. In 1920, minus her passenger cabin and pilot house, she was being operated by Capt Young with the tug Prospector as part of his Capital City Tug Company. In about 1921 she was converted from a gasoline power plant to 60 hp Fairbanks-Morse diesel propulsion.

Disposition

Mizpah was still in operation in 1951, and possibly as late as 1960, working as a tug and tow boat on upper Puget Sound.