[2][3] Onward was 98 ft (30 m) long, exclusive of the extension of the main deck over the stern, called the “fantail” on which the sternwheel was mounted.

[2][4] Onward was driven by a stern-wheel, turned by twin steam engines, horizontally mounted, each with bore of 10.25 in (260 mm) and stroke of 4 ft (1.2 m).

[3] Abigail Scott Duniway travelled on the Onward in August 1874, and described the operation of the vessel in her newspaper The New Northwest: The little steamer is one of those which Dr. Haskell calls a “kick up behind,” being long and narrow, and consequently well suited to the navigation of the far-famed Slough of the Willamette and Columbia, and more especially to the narrow channels of the Lewis and Cowlitz rivers, where the captain draws a ‘bead’ on the current, and makes a hair trigger of the helm, and its, by dint of long practices, enabled to graze and barely pass the peeping and sunken snags which lie in wait to deceive the unwary on all our western water courses.

[6] From the head of the rapids however shallow draft boats could run up the river to a point about 12 miles upriver from Hillsboro, Oregon.

[8] Although the trip required cargo to be handled 10 times, it was still considered superior, in 1868, to hauling over the hilly divide between Portland and the Tualatin plains.

[11] In December 1872, Onward was reported to be “slowly working her way up the Tualatin river.”[12] A large amount of wheat had been harvested, and was being stored at Hillsboro, waiting for the rains to come to raise the river’s water level to allow steamer navigation.

[12] In 1873, after a canal was completed between the Tualatin river and the eastern end of Sucker Lake, Onward operated on both bodies of water until 1874, when the steamer was brought overland to the Willamette through the portage at Oswego.

Church purchased Onward, which was then lying in the Tualatin river about 4 miles upriver from the diversion dam built for Moore’s Mill.

[14] According to later testimony of James D. Miller, the new owner, he had brought Onward down to the Willamette through the unnavigable rapids at the mouth of the Tualatin through the use of a coffer dam.

On the Sunday before December 14, 1877, while Onward, laden with groceries, hay and other cargo, was returning from the Cowlitz River, the steamer struck a snag at the month of Blind Slough, and sank in 12 feet of water.