Minnie Mossman Hill

Minnie Mae Mossman Hill (July 20, 1863 – January 9, 1946) was an American steamboat captain. She was the first woman to hold a captain's license on the Columbia River. She commanded her own vessels and traded along the river during her career.

Biography Minnie Hill was born on July 20, 1863, in Albany, Oregon, where she spent her early life. Her father, Isaac Mossman, had been an agent of the Pony Express and her mother, Nellie, an early pioneer of Oregon. Minnie married Charles Hill, captain of the steamship Joseph Kellogg, in 1883. With the saved money, they bought their own ship, a schooner. She also became the first licensed woman to run a steamer on the Columbia River. She also was instrumental in doing business with the Chinookan people along the river. Hill was invited by the Chicago World's Fair to be the guest at the Women's Building exhibition in 1893, though she turned the invitation down. She also went on to "devote herself to raising her son".

Her husband died in Portland in 1942. Hill died in San Francisco on January 9, 1946, from a "heart ailment". She was inducted into the National Rivers Hall of Fame in 2017.