the Mountain Buck to run between Portland and the Bradford portage, connecting thereby with the Hassaloe for The Dalles.[1] This arrangement lasted less than a year, for in the fall of 1858 the Oregon Portage resumed operation in connection with the Mountain Buck and Wasco, and the Señorita, restored to service, was again connecting through the Bradford portage with the Hassaloe.[2]
No doubt in anticipation of the break with the Bradford combination, steps had already been taken to build the Oregon Portage Railroad, the Portland Weekly Oregonian reporting in its issue of August 28, 1858, that Captain J. O. Van Bergen had "purchased the right and contracted the clearing to be done within thirty days, preparatory to laying the track." This is the last reference the writer has found in the newspapers of the period that connects Captain Van Bergen, who was one of the earliest steamboat operators on the Columbia river and the first to navigate a steamboat between the Cascades and The Dalles, with the Oregon Portage. From this time onward, Joseph S. Ruckel, sometimes coupled with Harrison Olmstead, is by the newspapers credited with the ownership, construction and operation of the Oregon Portage Railroad property and the management of the steamboats Fashion, Mountain Buck and Wasco. Captain Van Bergen may have remained a partner with Ruckel and Olmstead; so also may have Captain McFarland, and the writer has been assured by Mrs. Bailey that her husband was a partner of Ruckel's in the ownership of the Oregon Portage. Captain T. W. Lyles of San Francisco had put money into the Ruckel enterprises, but whether as a partner or as a loan does not clearly appear. Captain Van Bergen was afterward associated with O. B. Gibson in the firm of Van Bergen and Gibson, "forwarding and commission merchants, dealers in choice wines, liquors,
