[3] Shoalwater, as her name indicated, was designed to run when all other boats were compelled to lay up for lack of water on the sand and gravel bars that often blocked river navigation.

[2] On April 30, 1853, while Shoalwater was making a landing below Rock Island near Butteville on the Willamette River between Champoeg and Canemah, the steam ran up too fast, causing a flue to collapse.

[3] The accident proved so expensive that the vessel changed ownership and name, this time to Fenix (the owners' method of spelling Phoenix).

Fenix is also recorded as having taken Independence Day celebrants out from Champoeg for a three-mile (5 km) excursion cruise on July 4, 1854.

[7] (Minnie Holmes later married Dan O' Neill, who in 1850 had been a captain of Columbia, the first steamboat built in the Oregon Territory.

The machinery was subsequently removed and permanently located on the bank of the river, where it was used in the manufacture of lumber until 1860, at which time the mill was destroyed by fire.