, one was that of Captain E. N. Beard. The rocky cove where his remains were found is now named Beard’s Hollow. A small neighborhood near Ilwaco, Washington bears the name of the lost ship, Vandalia.
The reasons for the wreck were never fully determined and the bodies of the eight other crewmembers were never found.
On March 18, 1896 the Glenmorag, en route to Astoria, Oregon, from Chile, got caught in heavy fog and lost its course. The ship ran aground on the Long Beach Peninsula north of Ocean Park, Washington. Captain Archibald Currie, who was unaware of the ship’s position, was afraid that they were in danger of running into a rocky coast and thus demanded all hands abandon ship. As the lifeboats were being lowered, one was lifted by a large wave and smashed against the ship, crushing to death two of the crewmen and badly injuring another, William Begg. Once safely ashore, the captain sadly realized that abandoning ship was unnecessary and that they could have simply waited and walked ashore once the tide went out.
Injured crewman Begg was taken to the Taylor Hotel in Ocean Park and was cared for by the daughter of the hotel owner, Maude Taylor. After a number of months, Begg recovered. He then decided to remain in the community and eventually married Maude. According to local historian Barbara Minard, Begg, who was British, introduced soccer to his new community and started the first soccer league in Pacific County, Washington.
After numerous unsuccessful attempts to refloat the ship, it was sold to a wrecking company who blew it into pieces and sold the pieces of scrap iron as junk.
[caps]O[/caps]ne of the most treacherous sand spits at the mouth of the Columbia River, Peacock Spit was named after the gun laden US Naval brig Peacock that was one of many ships to run aground there.
The ship was part of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes’s expedition that was working to conduct the first official American survey of the river. The channels at the mouth of the river were constantly shifting and new sand spits appeared and disappeared quickly, making passage across the bar treacherous. It was thought that accurate charts made by the expedition would help ensure safe passage.
While bar conditions were favorable for the Peacock on July 18, 1841, its Captain, William L. Hudson, unknowingly had inaccurate charts that he had picked up in the Hawaiian Islands. He followed the charts closely while crossing the bar, but hit a sand spit. The crew was ordered to throw all excess cargo and cannons overboard in an effort to free the ship. And while it broke free for a moment, it was quickly pushed back into the sands by heavy breaker waves. After hours of trying to free the ship, the crew and captain decided to abandon the Peacock. Their lifeboat capsized during one trip ashore, forcing ten crewmen to swim for their lives, but the entire crew and captain eventually made it ashore safely.
Peacock Spit is still present today, even after the construction of jetties meant to eliminate the dangerous sand bars from the mouth of the river.
North Bend 1928
[caps]A[/caps] few ships that were stranded on the sands throughout the history of the Graveyard of the Pacific have been refloated or pulled from the sands and back into the open water. But only one ship, the North Bend, managed to save itself.
On January 5, 1928, after attempting to cross the bar without the help of a bar pilot, Captain Theodore Hansen stranded his ship on Peacock Spit near Washington. A tug was used to try to pull the ship free. While it seemed to help at first, the ship was quickly thrown back onto the sands. The entire crew was removed from the ship and taken to safety as rescuers attempted to salvage the ship. The ship was pushed far enough on land that it was untouched by the breaker waves that were the cause of many ships’ demises. After many days trying to free the vessel, the project was abandoned and the ship was left on the spit.
For a year, the ship withstood the weather and ocean waves and remained mostly undamaged. Over time, the waves around the ship began cutting