The steamboat Clallam operated for about six months from July 1903 to January 1904 in Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

[1][2] Clallam was commissioned by the Puget Sound Navigation Company to run with another steamer, Majestic on the route from Tacoma to Seattle, Port Townsend and Victoria.

During her launching on April 15, 1903, the woman who swung the bottle of champagne at her bow missed, and when the U.S flag was unfurled, it was upside down, a sign of distress.

[3] Known as "the bell sheep's premonition" after the fact; an odd event occurred to the Clallam in Seattle as she was loading her northbound passengers and freight at Pier 1, at the foot of Yesler Way.

[3][5][6] The company's agent at Victoria, Edward E. Blackwood, seeing Clallam in distress, began a frantic effort to find a tug to go out to her.

Richard Holyoke departed Port Townsend at about 7:30 p.m.[3][6] The Location of Clallam would prove difficult, as contrary to law, she carried no distress signal rockets.

[1] As the gale rose in the Strait, First Officer George W. Doney was in command at the pilot house, while Captain Roberts was resting in his cabin.

Chief Engineer Scott A. DeLaunay called up the speaking tube to report that a deadlight[8] had been smashed in and the ship was taking on water.

[1] Either Clallam's pumps were defective, clogged with coal or other debris or were operated incorrectly by chief engineer De Launay.

A young mother from the overturned boat floated by the steamer's side, a baby held high out of the water by her up-stretched arms.

Edward D. Hickman (1876–1928), then serving as mate on Richard Holyoke, dove into the icy water to rescue 15 people.

[3] The Tacoma Times subsequently reported that the wreck of the Clallam had been salvaged and sold at auction, with the Canadian Pacific Railway buying "the capstan and some of the more movable parts"; a pawnbroker bought much of the hull, with the intent of displaying it at exhibitions, but by June 1904 had abandoned it on a beach outside Oak Bay.

Noting the absence of legally-required signal rockets on board Clallam, the steamboat inspection service launched a crackdown on defective or insufficiently equipped vessels, of which there were many.

[3] Joshua Green, then in charge of the Puget Sound Navigation Company, determined to put much more reliable ships on the inland seas, shortly thereafter purchasing the steel steamers Indianapolis, Chippewa, and Iroquois from the Great Lakes and arranging to bring them around South America through the Strait of Magellan to Puget Sound.

[4] One other significance of the Clallam disaster may be that when the Princess Sophia went aground in October 1918, in Lynn Canal, her captain, undoubtedly familiar with the Clallam sinking, refused to put the passengers into the boats, even though rescue vessels were at hand, due to the bad sea conditions which it must have seemed to him would make evacuation of the stranded vessel a greater danger than remaining on board.