cannons, possibly from the Shark, were found near Arch Cape, Oregon.
All of the ship’s crew managed to reach shore safely; however, before leaving for San Francisco, California, they inscribed the date and details of the wreck on what is now known as Shark Rock, currently on display at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon.
[caps]F[/caps]or many years, the beach approach at Ocean Park, Washington, was marked with a war memorial created by two large metal masts from the wrecked ship Arrow that came ashore near the small coastal village in February 1947.
The ship was originally known as the Belfast and was built in 1909. It was used for many years as a pleasure steamer on the East Coast between Boston, Massachusetts and Rockland, Maine. The ship saw a variety of uses, during which its name changed to Arrow, until it was eventually bought by the army in 1942 and became a passenger liner in the Hawaiian Islands.
In 1946, the army decided it was time for the Arrow to retire, but the ship had different plans. In February of 1947, the ship was being hauled by a tug from Seattle, Washington, to join a fleet of mothballed ships near Astoria, Oregon. But during the voyage they hit rough waters and the towline to the ship broke. The tug crew attached a new towline, but that too quickly broke. Risking their lives, they attached a third towline but when that also broke, they decided it would be too dangerous and useless to try again.
The ship came ashore on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington and locals quickly got to work picking items from rope to toilets and sinks off the ship. After a day, the army arrived with a group of soldiers to guard the ship until it could be properly salvaged, but the ship settled rapidly in the sands before any work could be done.
A number of years later, the city of Ocean Park, Washington, bought the masts of the ship and placed them as a memorial at the entrance to the beach. After many salty storms, the rusty masts were removed.
Vazlov Verovsky 1941
[caps]D[/caps]uring the Graveyard of the Pacific’s heyday of shipwrecks throughout the mid-1800s to early 1900s, locals became expert salvagers. When a shipwreck occurred, it was a huge event with people coming far and wide to help, watch, and reap the free floating cargo from the ships. Many times, people were hired to guard wrecked ships from locals until their owners or professional salvagers could arrive to collect anything valuable. One particular wreck, that of the Vazlov Verovsky on April 3, 1941, was especially bountiful for those who flocked to the beach to collect its cargo. An estimated forty thousand cases of lard washed ashore from the stranded ship.
The Vazlov was a 374-foot steamship and was the only Russian ship ever wrecked at the bar. After the steering mechanism jammed, the ship lost control and became stranded on Peacock Spit, Washington. The entire crew of thirty-seven was saved, but Captain J. Tokareff refused to leave his ship until twenty-four hours later when it started to break apart. The cargo of lard, heavy machinery, and tools began to drift ashore on the Long Beach Peninsula, Washington.
One local, Harry Smith, remembers working around the clock with a group of friends to transport and store around two thousand cases of lard, which they later sold to an Astoria bakery for four dollars a case. To this day, a number of Long Beach Peninsula locals have memories of eating pies and pastries made with shortening from the doomed Vazlov Verovsky.
[caps]1[/caps]853 was a bad year for ships traveling near the mouth of the Columbia River. In that year, four ships were lost, including the Oriole, Mindora, and J. Merithew. But perhaps the worst and most mysterious wreck to occur that year was that of the Vandalia.
On January 9, 1853, the Vandalia was sighted by another ship’s captain who reported that it was laboring, but didn’t seem in need of assistance. A week later, the ship washed ashore, bottom up, near McKenzie Head, south of the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington. Among four bodies that came ashore near the wreck