Digital Bob Archive

The first steam ferry on Gastineau Channel, according to the best available information, was the little open launch Marion, operated by Captain Jacob T.
Martin. The boat was too small to be documented by the Customs Service, so there are no official records of her. A photograph shows a canopy top and what may have been side curtains, but that must have been a hazard in strong winds.

Just when Captain Martin and the Marion started business is not known, but the first issue of Juneau's first newspaper, on January 19, 1887, reported the Marion in trouble. She was kept overnight on a mooring at Douglas, there was a Taku, and blowing spray filled the boat and iced her down until she sank. Fortunately, steam engines were not as delicate as the later gas engines and the vessel was up and running again in a couple of days.

Captain Martin was born in Indiana in 1842 and like a great many men of that generation, he fought in the Civil War, probably with an Indian volunteer regiment. He married in 1876 and he and his wife, Sadie, came to Juneau in 1885. A son, named Roland, was born here in 1888.

It does not appear that Captain Martin owned the Marion; he probably leased her from a man named Pierce or Pearce. By the summer of 1887 he was advertising that he would make three trips a day in each direction, leaving Douglas Island at 9 a.m. and 1 and 9 p.m., and leaving Juneau at 10:30, 3:30 and 9:30. There was
a note on the published schedule that it was by \"Treadwell time,\" which was then 45 minutes faster than Juneau time. The whole subject of time on Gastineau Channel in those years will be discussed here next week.

Despite his advertised schedule, there are reports that Captain Martin did not always adhere to it, especially at the Juneau end. At sailing time, it was said, he would count the passengers and if there were not enough for a paying trip he would take the brass fog horn and march around town, tooting the horn and announcing that the Marion was ready to sail.

On the other hand, Captain Martin was very accommodating to dancers. It was a rare weekend when there was not a big dance at either Douglas or Juneau, with people from both sides braving the crossing in an open boat to attend. The captain would either hold his last sailing until the dance ended, or make a special trip.

But that kind of service did not endure. Captain Thomas Fisher succeeded the Marion on the ferry run with the Julia, which had a cabin. One evening he took a large crowd of Juneau folk to a Douglas dance and was to return for them, but did not do so. According to a news report, \"There was a lot of rustling to find enough beds in Douglas, and much verbal brimstone was hurled in Tommy Fisher's direction.\"

Some of it must have hit the mark: a short while later Fisher left the Julia to take command of the tug Lucy, towing logs for the Treadwell Mining Company.