Water travel above the falls was still mainly conducted by the Native Americans using canoes at this point, although they also paddled the flat boats, sometimes known as bateaux, that were starting to appear on the river.

New emigrants to the Willamette Valley, and all of their goods, were then hauled back to Canemah up the track from Oregon City by the same ox-carts.

Hedges gathered up several thousand dollars in gold, and made a trip back east to buy the machinery for the vessel.

[3] By the time Hedges and his party returned to Oregon, there were already three steamboats operating on the upper Willamette, Hoosier, Washington, and Multnomah.

In June 1851, the small Hoosier was making three trips a week from Canemah up the Yamhill River, a tributary of the Willamette, to Dayton.

The much larger Multnomah was assembled at Canemah in the spring of 1851 from parts premanufactured in the east, and made her first trial run in August 1851.

[4] Facing this competition, Hedges and company began construction on the new steamboat, named Canemah, which was launched near the end of September 1851 and entered service in late 1851.

About this time, a new ox road was blasted along the river in the basalt cliffs that separated Canemah from Oregon City.

Other steamboats built at Canemah in the 1850s included Yamhill (1851), Shoalwater (1852) (later known by other names), Wallamet (1853), Enterprise (1855), James Clinton (1856), Elk, Surprise (1857), Onward and Moose.