The design of the Jennie Clark set a pattern for all future sternwheel steamboats built in the Pacific Northwest and in British Columbia.

[1] The boat was built with a very light draft and was specifically designed for the route on the Willamette river from Portland to Oregon City.

[2] Jennie Clark was driven by a sternwheel turned by two horizontally mounted steam engines, which had been manufactured in Baltimore, Maryland.

[1] According to another source, the last one-quarter interest was held by two Oregon City merchants, George Abernethy and Ransom Clark.

[13][14] Overly apprehensive about ambush, the party sought to protect the captain by lining the interior of the pilot house with three-inch-thick oak planks, and then piling sacks of flour stacked up against the walls.

[12] By that time, 350 soldiers and volunteers already on the scene under the command of Lt. Philip Sheridan had defeated and dispersed the Native Americans.

[2] Jennie Clark then returned to Portland in four hours and 45 minutes, considered remarkable time for the period, with the news, and the volunteer company, whose services were thought to be in need in Portland due to exaggerated fears of a potential attack on that city.

[13][1][2] In November 1857 a dry warm spell caused a fall in the level of the Willamette River so that Jennie Clark had to stop at the foot of the Clackamas Rapids.

[15] In January 1858, there was talk that the owners of Jennie Clark intended to put a shallow draft boat on the Willamette River that could negotiate the Clackamas Rapids at all times of the year.

[17] In August 1860, low water in the Willamette River forced Jennie Clark, then running under Captain Myrick, to be laid up.

[18] In October 1858, a new sternwheel steamer, the Carrie Ladd, was completed at Oregon City for Jacob Kamm, John C. Ainsworth, and their associates.

On Thursday October 28, 1858, Jennie Clark towed the new steamer downriver to Portland to have the machinery installed.

[19] On Friday evening, November 16, 1860, at about 6:00 p.m., when running upriver from Portland, at a narrow spot in the river just upstream from Oswego, Jennie Clark collided with the steamer Express.

[21] The Express had been originally intended to run on this route, but was prevented from doing so by an accident, apparently the sinking the previous fall.

[21] The owners of Jennie Clark held a contract to carry the mails from Portland to Monticello, where they went overland to Olympia.

[2] Instead, the boat proceeded into Young’s Bay and then up the Lewis and Clark river to Fort Clatsop, where the passengers disembarked.