Union Line (Colorado River)

Union Line, owned by Thomas E. Trueworthy, an opposition steamboat company to George A. Johnson & Company on the Colorado River from 1864-1865. It was the first to use towed barges on that river.

Merchants and miners held a protest meeting at La Paz, Arizona on December 1, 1863, fed up with shortages, delayed and slow deliveries of freight to their stores and mines, by Johnson & Company, who owned the Colorado River's only two steamboats. Merchants and miners held a protest meeting at La Paz, Arizona on December 1, 1863. It condemned the Johnson Company as a monopoly, that was trying to drive the miners out in order to gain control of the mines. The meeting voted to send a representative to San Francisco with a petition calling for the establishment of an opposition steamboat line on the Colorado River.

In San Francisco, their representative Samuel "Steamboat" Adams convinced the Chamber of Commerce to endorse an opposition line. Merchants of the city raised $25,000 by subscription, and Adams persuaded Captain Thomas E. Trueworthy, to send the Sacramento River steamboat Esmerelda under Captain Charles C. Overman and the Victoria, a four-masted schooner converted from a barge, to the Colorado River to establish the Union Line there. The Victoria was to be a store ship at the mouth of the river, but she was soon broken up by the tidal bore soon after it reached the mouth of the Colorado in March.^[1] ^:41,43,44

After Overman arrived at the river in March 1863, he built the Black Crook, first tow barge to be used on the Colorado River. From May 1864, its success in delivering large amounts of cargo up river forced Johnson lower rates, build another steamboat and to add tow barges to his steamboats in 1864.^[1]^:43,44

In the summer of 1865, with the steamboats Esmerelda of the Union Line and Nina Tilden of the Philadelphia Silver and Copper Mining Company (the other opposition line to the Johnson Company), was consolidated into the Pacific and Colorado Steam Navigation Company, also headed by Thomas E. Trueworthy, with backing from San Francisco financiers.

References

1 2 Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852-1916, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978

Steamboats of the Colorado River

Particular vessels	Cochan Cocopah I Cocopah II Colorado I Colorado II Esmerelda Explorer General Jesup General Rosales Gila Mohave I Mohave II Nina Tilden Retta Searchlight St. Vallier San Jorge Uncle Sam

Steamboat Lines	California Development Company Colorado Steam Navigation Company George A. Johnson & Company Gulf of California Steamship Company Mexican-Colorado Navigation Company Pacific & Colorado Steam Navigation Company Philadelphia Silver and Copper Mining Company Stacy Brothers Union Line U.S. Reclamation Service

Water routes	Colorado River

Steamboat owners and captains	James Turnbull George Alonzo Johnson David C. Robinson Isaac Polhamus Thomas E. Trueworthy John Alexander Mellon

Builders	Austin Hills Domingo Marcucci John G. North Henry Owens Patrick Henry Tiernan

Shipyards	Port Isabel, Sonora Yuma, Arizona Territory

List of vessels	List of Steamboats on the Colorado River

Steamboats in other areas	Steamboats of California

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