My mention of Captain Travaillot a few days ago prompted me to look a little more deeply into the history of this colorful and curious character of early Portland. He came to Portland from the California Gold Rush of 1849, and he left Portland to go to British Columbia in chase of the Next Great Thing. The 1882 Portland City Directory, as quoted by Jewel Lansing, remembers Travaillot with this story, among others: "He had discharged cargo and was sitting in a saloon one night behind the best seven-up hand he had ever held when a sailor announced that the Duc D'Lorges [Travaillot's ship] had sunk. It was too true; she was anchored off the foot of D Street, and getting weary of waiting for the captain, simply turned over and went to sleep on the bed of the river."
Oswald Justice Travaillot was a gambler all of his adult life, which ended in Barkerville, British Columbia on February 2, 1879. And I mean all of his adult life; he lay on his deathbed next to that of a dying friend, J.B. Malamon. The night of February 1-2, he bet Malamon that he (Travaillot) would survive Malamon. That morning Malamon called out, "Captain Travaillot! You win, I lose. I die now." Whether Captain Travaillot collected the bet is not recorded.