John Bonser (steamship captain)

John Henry Bonser (1855-1913) was a steamship captain from Oregon, United States and British Columbia, Canada. He piloted dozens of sternwheelers over his 40-year-long career and pioneered many rivers in the Pacific Northwest.

John was born in 1855 at Sauvie Island near the banks of the Columbia River in Oregon, the second son of James Halstead Bonser. Riverboating was a tradition in the Bonser family, as both John's father and grandfather had been rivermen on the Scioto and Ohio rivers.^[1]