Jacob Kamm

Jacob Kamm (12 December 1823 – 16 December 1912) was a prominent early transportation businessman in Oregon, USA.

Kamm was born on 12 December 1823, in Canton of Glarus, Switzerland. His family migrated to America when he was 8 to Illinois, St. Louis and then New Orleans. He worked as a printer's devil beginning at age 12. A story repeated after Kamm's death was that a thief stole $12 from him in 1837, leading Kamm to work on a Mississippi steamer, the Ark, as a cabin boy. Trained as an engineer on the Mississippi River, he was certified chief engineer with the St. Louis Association of Steamboat Engineers at age 25. In 1849, he moved west with the California Gold Rush, piloting the Blackhawk, a steamer, on the Sacramento River.

Kamm moved to Oregon in 1850 after being hired by the Milwaukie founder Lot Whitcomb onto his ship, The Lot Whitcomb, being the chief engineer on the Willamette River.The Lot Whitcomb was launched on 25 December 1850. Kamm and John C. Ainsworth joined with Abernathy and Clark, merchants from Oregon City, in 1854 or 1855 to build the Jenny Clark, a sternwheeler on the Willamette. Kamm owned half of the Jenny Clark, Ainsworth owned a quarter, and Abernathy and Clark shared the remaining quarter. They then built the Carrie Ladd steamer in 1858, called the "keystone of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company".

He was a founder of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company in 1879 and a shareholder in the Ilwaco Railway and Navigation Company. He built steamboats including in 1891, the Ocean Wave and in 1900, Athlon. One of the companies he owned was the Vancouver Transportation Company.

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