The Bold Bet of Captain Brittain

A few years ago, Capt. J. C. Brittain was the owner of a fleet of steamboats, including the Teaser, Libby, Dispatch, Chehalis, and Addie, but he has disposed of these craft one by one. The Teaser became a wreck and was converted into a schooner, and is now engaged in the sealing business. The Addie has been sold to the Port Madison Mill Company, and does the work for the mill there. The Dispatch was sold some time since to Hastings & Morgan of Port Townsend, and the old Libby has gone out of service and now lies in the yard back of Schwabacher Bros. & Co.'s store, thus leaving Captain Brittain in possession of but one steamer, the Chehalis.

But Captain Brittain is not a man who handles steamboat property for nothing, and during the time that he ran these boats he lined his pockets to such an extent that now he is enabled to build a $27,000 iron boat. The contract for the hull has been let to T. W. Lake, and work of getting out the frames has already been commenced. The new craft will be 120 feet long, 24 feet beam, and 6.5 feet depth of hold. She will be a stern-wheeler, differently constructed and arranged from any boat on the Sound. The contract calls for the completion of the boat by the first of August, and it is contemplated to place her on the route between Seattle and Whatcom by the middle of August to carry the mails. It is the intention of the builder to construct this boat with a view to making her the fastest steamer on Puget Sound, capable of sixteen miles per hour when crowded.

The day has gone by when little, ill-constructed, slow-coach steamboats can monopolize the trade and traffic of Puget Sound, and realizing this, Capt. Brittain has sold off all his old fleet and pooled his resources into this new steamer now under way. Success to her and Capt. Brittain, say we.