The Hudson’s Bay Company commissioned the SS Beaver to facilitate the fur trade in the Columbia Department of the world’s greatest fur trading firm. She was a sturdy sailboat when she was launched into the River Thames, in London. She slid down the ways of the Green, Wigram, & Green Company’s Blackwall Yards in 1836. The Beaver was the 218th hull built by the famous shipwrights on the Isle of Dogs, but was destined to be the 9th steamer built there and the first on the waters of Puget Sound, home port of Fort Nisqually at (now) DuPont, Washington.

As a ‘sailer’ she weighed in at 109 tons, add the machinery of the Boulton & Watt steam engine, a little more weight for spare parts, fuel, and fresh water and she easily hit about 187 tons. She was a big ship, but always claimed to be the ‘little’ steamer.

The SS Beaver literally sailed, with canvas flapping, from Gravesend, England to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River in 225 days. Then her paddle wheels were installed, the engine fueled and fired up for the first time at 4 pm May 16, 1836. With steam power her first working voyage took her over the Columbia River bar into the Pacific Ocean. She never returned to the fresh water of the big river.

The SS Beaver carried as many as 4,000 beaver pelts and other furs from Russian Alaska to Fort Nisqually annually.

In 1837 the SS Beaver was modified. The spare parts were removed, as were the heavy spars, the sail rigging and the nine pound cannon. The Beaver needed to be lighter, speedier and more fuel efficient. After the modifications she still needed 26 cords of wood fuel to travel four days.

In 1839 her boilers leaked and were patched, but soon new leaks were discovered and the inadequate white lead patches still leaked.

In June of 1841 at Fort Nisqually the SS Beaver had new boilers installed, 17 planks were replaced with hardwood harvested from what is now Pierce County near Roy, Washington.

The HBC SS Beaver served in the fur trade until 1861 when the British Royal Navy chartered the vessel for hydrographic studies. The HBC sold her in 1874 to tug boat operators. In 1880 a fire gutted the pilot house, so a new boxy house was installed. In 1888 she was wrecked on the rocks at Prospect Point, Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. She rests there today below a bronze and stone marker placed on the cliff above in Stanley Park.

Some twenty four books have been written about the historic first little steamship on Puget Sound that worked out of Fort Nisqually (now DuPont, Washington.)