The Day Horror Met Hoodoo on the Columbia

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By Bob Ferris

I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for nearly a decade now which made Major Samuel Canby's grave in Vancouver, Washington a curiosity to me.  How did a Brandywine-born Quaker with a Viking last name end his days across the continent in Washington State just days before his 60th birthday?  My interest was also piqued because while I knew quite a bit about all my other ancestors in this generation, I knew next to nothing about Samuel other than his birthplace and where he breathed his last.  It was a mystery, so I dug and found the below which only made it even more mysterious...and tragic too.

July 24, 1897 from here.

Samuel Canby was my great-great-grandfather and he was born in 1837 into a prominent family of millers in the Wilmington, Delaware area.   The Canbys along with the Tatnalls and Prices were big doings in Wilmington and young Samuel carried within him the blood of all three families.  Though identified as Samuel Jr. on many documents his father's name was Edmund so I believe that the junior was added so he was not confused with his uncle of the same name.

Samuel Junior served in the Union Army during the American Civil War joining less than two weeks after the attack on Fort Sumter.  When you look at his service record you find that young Samuel enlisted at 23 as a sergeant in a New Jersey regiment but soon found himself in units associated with his native Delaware (above).  It was during his switch between state affiliations that he married Rebecca Tilghman Johnston in December of 1861 and then he went to war in earnest.

Depiction of Union charge at Gettysburg

Saying that he served seems like such a simple statement, but I suspect that it is like claiming an atom bomb is just another loud bang.  The newly-married Samuel was at the battles of Shiloh, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Franklin, and Nashville.  He was wounded at Gettysburg and by age 28 he was a major.   He left the Army in 1868 and by then he and Rebecca had three children.  He had as they said at the time "seen the elephant."

Now I have not been able to find much on-line about Samuel and Rebecca for the period between 1868 to 1894 when Samuel seemed to appear sans Rebecca in Vancouver joining his younger brother Edmund.  Certainly Samuel and Rebecca were together and still having children until their last, William Poyntell Canby, was born in 1879.  And they were listed in an 1880 census in Delaware with Samuel's profession given as Civil Engineer--the same as my great-grandfather, William Gouverneur Ramsay, and my father, William Ramsay Ferris, who were both majors too. 

Samuel's profession explains, in part, why he would find himself manager of the nine-year-old Vancouver, Klickitat, and Yakima Railroad.   The other part was that the railroad was founded by his brother Edmund and others associated with the then extant First National Bank of Vancouver.  Hard to say the deciding factor in his hiring and it could have been a chicken and egg situation.  But we do know on that fateful day in July, Samuel was seen off in good spirits by his brothers Edmund and Col. James Price Canby and not by Rebecca who remained in Wilmington.  And this is where the hoodoo enters.

The stern-wheeled steamer Mascot.

The steamer Mascot was built in 1890.  Fast and long-lived for an all-wooden boat (21 years), the Mascot ran a strenuous route from the Lewis River in Washington to Portland, Oregon and points on the Willamette River six days a week starting at 5 AM.  This was a profitable run but the boat seemed plagued with miss-haps including three sinkings, several deaths (two by suicide), and the fire in 1911 that finally ended its service.  For these incidences, rightfully or wrongly, the steamer was labeled as a "hoodoo" or jinxed ship. 

 It was from this "hoodoo" that the troubled Samuel jumped into the Columbia River after throwing his coat on the deck and tossing his hat towards the boiler room doors 121 years ago today.  No one knows but Samuel what was running through his mind as he stood on the rail before launching himself for his last swim, and there is much we do not know about his life and condition at that time, but I cannot think that what he experienced at battlefields like Shiloh and Gettysburg was not somehow involved in the calculus of it all.  Those war days had to have left a mark beyond whatever physical scar he carried from his wounding.

Here is a key written from the perspective of one of the Ramsay girls children of Caroline (Lena) Johnston Canby.  

Some in my family and elsewhere will likely be offended some by this post and see it as a familial stigma that I have exposed to the world.   I do not see it thus but rather a cautionary tale about looking after our loved ones and keeping them from harm as well as a larger story about the value of maintaining peace and the dangers of war.  And it is not necessarily a totally unhappy spinning either as Samuel and Rebecca in spite of this inner storm and consequence produced a pile of Canbys (some above).

I do not know for certain whether or not my lack of knowledge about Samuel was a direct result of how he ended his life, but I suspect it contributed.  We are a family of great men and strong women that seems to respect courage and toughness foremost with not much room allowed those who are born vulnerable or damaged while trying to live up to this ideal.   I would think that a heightened awareness and openness on this topic of suicide could probably prevent some of these occurrences as well as help ease the pain for those left behind when they do happen.

George Britton Compton

Samuel's great-grandson George Compton (above), who we all knew in our household as Uncle George, committed suicide when I was about seven or eight just before his 40th birthday.  To this day there still seems confusion about the root causes of that happenstance but I do not think that people asked adequate questions nor watched him closely enough at the time.  This is also one of the reasons I never met my own grandfather Van Wyck Ferris who left this world similarly.  Perhaps we would do better by Samuel, Van, George, and others not mentioned by employing a different approach that celebrated their victories, recognized and accepted their challenges, and did not ostracize them for the way they passed.    It is something to think about.

Afterword

I believe my late father once identified the young girl at the far left in the Canby photo as Caroline Johnston Canby Ramsay and one of the young boys at the right as Uncle Poynt (William Poyntell Canby) which would date this to the mid to late 1880s.  I suspect that one of the children is also the artist Ethel Canby Peets who was two years older then Poynt.  I do not know, but if others do, please let me know.  The story and picture haunts me.  (Cousin Wyn Evans was kind enough to provide a key above.)