Idaho Territory was still in its swaddling clothes when a visitor to Bonner county of today found “Pend d’Oreille city (now Sandpoint) a charming little place, where he enjoyed the society of the enterprising and hospitable gentlemen who have made it their home. “

This visitor, Col. Cornelius O’Keefe, “late of the Irish Brigade,” told of this visit in an article published in the August, 1867 issue of a monthly magazine.

O’Keefe was enroute to Montana at the time, making the trip, according to his article; “From New York to San Francisco, via Nicaragua – thence by sea to Portland, Oregon – thence up the Columbia to Walla Walla – thence on mule or horse back to Lake Pend d’Oreille, in the Territory of Idaho.”

O’Keefe, who was to make the next leg of his trip aboard the Mary Moody, one of the early day steamers on Lake Pend Oreille, wrote in glowing terms of Pend d'Oreille city, its people, the scenery of the area and also of the Mary Moody.

“Pend d’Oreille city, standing on a picturesque slope – or running down it, to speak more correctly – consists of a large store comfortably stocked, with California and Oregon goods – dry, soft and liquid – a billard saloon of grand dimensions – a modestly-proportioned hotel – and a half dozen private residences, evenly and compactly built of logs and snugly shingles,” O’Keefe wrote.

“The store belongs to Captain Moody, who is also the principal owner of the little steamboat, which has been complimented with his daughter’s name. The billard saloon is the property of Mr. Blackstone, whose genial nature well deserves the soldierly and splendid frame through which it radiates.”

The Mary Moody he termed the first of three boats to navigate the Clark’s Fork of the Columbia to the mouth of the Jocko, 10 miles west of the main range of the Rocky Mountains … some 50 miles from Pend d’Oreille city. There, O’Keefe wrote, she stopped short at the landing at the foot of Cabinet Mountain, “the Rapids, immediately above the landing, being too violent to permit her pushing further up.”

Above the Rapids, a second boat took travelers to Thompson’s Falls, and above Thompson’s Falls, the third boat completed the chain of navigation to the Jocko.

I was "hunting" on the internet this morning and came across this article which you must have published at some point - a reference to an earlier CdA Press article about Zenas Moody, Pen d'Oreille City, etc.

Just to alert you that there are numerous inaccuracies in this article - talk to Ann Ferguson at the Bonner Museum. Pen d'Oreille City was located in Buttonhook Bay at the south end of the lake and O'Keefe was the pen name used by Thomas Meagher, who was the acting Gov. of Montana. Ann and I have been researching information about Pen d'Oreille City ever since I discovered a series of journals written by a man who was here at the lake employed by the men who built the Mary Moody.

The journals do confirm that Meagher visited the lake and rode the Moody but he also seemed to like to glorify the west and was contracted by Harpers to write a series of articles. He seemed to get his facts wrong - such as the boat was named after Moody's wife - he didn't have a daughter at that time and when a daughter was born, she was named Edna.

Linda Hackbarth
Bayview Historical Society