Tyee steams to life thanks to Markham

(Today, I want to tell you a story about a steamboat that refused to go away.

Many of the boats that plied the lakes and rivers of our area were sunk, taken off shore and burned, or dismantled to be used for other purposes. The old steamers had done their duty transporting people and animals, delivering mail and freight, and performing vital work for the mining, timber, and railroad industries.

Through information I received from three friends, one boat, the Tyee, in a way came back to life.)

The Builder

Melvin Clarence “Cap” Markham was born July 26, 1871, in the Oregon Territory.

He moved at an early age with his family to a homestead at Laclede in 1883.

He received his training on the river and lake by working with his father on the family ferry that ran between Seneacquoteen and Markham, now Laclede.

Cap Markham was known throughout the area for his knowledge of the water and his ability to build and navigate boats.

The Plans

The “Tyee” was the first large tug on Priest Lake and Mark-ham built it in 1926. He later built a second boat called by the same name.

Markham worked from a unique set of plans that are still with us today.

Barbara Blood shares how those plans ended up in the possession of her husband, Irvin Blood.

“Irvin was in the Sandpoint High School on Euclid when he acquired the model from “Cap” Markham,” Barbara Blood said. “He had a shop class over in the old Farmin School located on Second and Main.

“He was in class one day when ‘Cap’ Markham came in with a model boat under his arm. The teacher thinking the boat was for him stepped forward to receive it. But Markham said, ‘No, this is for my friend Irvin Blood.’

The teacher was not very happy about that. Irvin had the model a lot of years before I even met him.”

“I don’t know exactly how, or when, Irvin’s relationship with “Cap” Markham was formed but he liked to visit with him and they were good friends.

“Irvin was raised in Dover until he was 12 years of age. His mother was the first postmistress in Dover from 1920 until 1932. It was during this time that he knew “Cap” Markham and formed a close relationship with him.”

“The model had been stored at Irvin’s parent’s house for years but after he came back from overseas (World War II) he put the boat in our two room log cabin that my father-in-law had built for us. He hung it on the wall of our living room and it served as an attractive shelf for the 20 years we lived in the cabin.”

“You can take the model boat apart and on every level (five levels) you can see where “Cap” Markham had written the length, width, and everything else that was necessary to build a boat.”

(The name, “Tyee” is written on one of the layers of the model and one can visualize him starting to build the Tyee by using the first level of the model and adding the other four sections as the construction of the boat progressed. The model is 42 inches long and four and a half inches wide. It is still with a member of the Blood family.

To be continued