 Minnie May Mossman was
born in Albany, Oregon on July 20, 1863. She
was the second daughter of seven children,
and came by her pioneering spirit naturally.
Her great grandfather, Archibald Mossman, was
born in Berwick Upon Tweed, England. He
emigrated to Virginia by 1796 and served with
Pendleton's Riflemen during the War of 1812.
His youngest son George was born in Virginia
in 1804 and made his way westward to Indiana
where his son Isaac Van Dorsey was born on
August 8, 1830.Isaac, the father of Minnie
arrived in Oregon City in 1853. After
fighting in the Yakima Indian War, he started
a sort of Pony Express business carrying
letters on horseback between the town of
Walla Walla and the Orofino gold mines in the
mountains. He was married to Martha Eleanor
"Nellie" (Jackson) in Eugene,
Oregon in 1861 and the family lived in
Thurston Co., Washington until shortly after
or around 1880 when records list Nellie in
Washington with her husband and children, and
then in another census residing in Portland
with three of her daughters - Clara, Aimee,
and Lottie.
On the 25th of
February, 1883, Minnie married Charles Oliver
Hill who was born in New York City in 1853.
His parents were Ralph and Nancy (Tinker),
both natives of Connecticut, and family notes
indicate his father was a hatter who had
owned a large hat factory and store on Nassau
Street called "New Hat Shop." At
age twelve Charles was farmed out to his
dad's Uncle Platt in Orange, New Jersey. He
afterwards worked on a farm in Newark, Ohio
and continued to make his way west from
Bloomington, Illinois to Hartford, Kansas. He
moved to Denver, Colorado where he spent six
months in 1876, and then made his way to the
Pacific Northwest. While in Washington, he
embarked on a steamer bound for the mining
country in Alaska and spent two years there,
later becoming captain of a steamboat.
After their
marriage Minnie also began to learn and
master the details of piloting the steamboat.
On the first of December, 1886, she received
a master's license to operate steamboats and
became the first licensed woman to command a
steamer on the Columbia River. Her son has
been quoted as saying, “Father always
said it was much more difficult than the
examination he took because the inspectors
wanted to refuse her a license with
justification.” But as noted, Minnie
prevailed and remained the only licensed
operator until 1907 when she opened the way
for another woman in the Puget Sound area to
receive a second-class master’s license.
In 1889 the
couple purchased the steamer Governor
Newell which had been built at Portland
for the Shoalwater Bay Transportation Company
and was one hundred and eleven feet long,
with twenty feet beam, five feet hold, and
engines twelve by forty-eight inches. Their
steamer mostly transported jetty stone
downstream from a quarry east of Vancouver,
Washington where it met up with a U.S. Army
Engineer tow boat which took the loads to
Astoria where the stone was then used to
build the south Jetty at the mouth of the
Columbia River. Capt. Minnie Hill operated
the steamer for fourteen years while her
husband took charge as engineer in the engine
room, and during that time had given birth to
two children but according to the 1900
census, only one survived.
After
Minnie’s retirement, Charles became
engaged in the lumbering business and founded
the Hill Logging Co. in Lewis Co.,
Washington. From the logging company sprang
forth the town of Bunker which supported the
industry. The mill was situated near the
Chehallis river and operated a sawmill as
well as a shingle mill. Donkeys and steam
locomotives were used to haul and ship the
logs to Tacoma and other surrounding mills in
the region. In 1910 Charles was listed as
president of the logging camp and continued
in that occupation for some time. A fire in
April of 1919 then destroyed the sawmill, but
as noted in the 1920 census the company
continued to ship logs and Charles was still
manager of that operation until one year
later when the business ceased operations and
the company was dissolved.
It was
reported that at least two movie producers
attempted to entice Minnie to allow them to
make a film of her life, but having denied
them and history of all she might have
shared, only fragments of her life as a
steamboat captain remain. She died in San
Francisco on 09 Jan 1946 at the age of
eighty-six. She was preceded in death by her
husband Charles who died in Portland on 12
Jun 1942. Their only surviving child, Herbert
Wells Hill, was born in Portland on 19 Sep
1894 and married Edna Frances Wilcox of
Milford, Connecticut on 16 May 1917. They
were the parents of two daughters, Betty and
Luella. Herbert died in Contra Costa Co.,
California in 1969 and his wife in Alameda
Co., California in 1975.
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