When the Kelley House Museum in Mendocino was founded 50 years ago researchers here found that people loved a good shipwreck story and wanted to share their version of a story told to them by an old-timer…”Why I remember the story about when the Bobolink crashed…”
In 1991 David Buller of California’s State Park system produced “Shipwrecks of the Mendocino Coast” covering 1850 to 1961. He stated his publication “tries to correct previously published incorrect information.” For each of the 320 shipwrecks listed there was listed the location, date of wreck, ship’s name, owner, type of ship, date built, builder, where built, owner, dimensions, cause of the wreck, casualties, cargo, comments and salvage. Not all of this info. was available on every vessel and a common notation was “needs more research…”
Local historian Nannie Escola left 30’ of binders on a bookshelf including these titles…Sailing Vessels, Coastal Plying Vessels, Ships, Schooners, Steamers, Earliest Ships on the Mendocino Coast, ship Builders, and Shipwrecks. Books in the archives include Gibbs “Disaster Log of Ships,” McNair’s “Ships of the Redwood Coast” and Jackson’s “Doghole Schooners.” There have been alphabetical index lists made by vessel name, locations of the wreck, and captains names.
Newspaper reports of shipwrecks were powerfully descriptive. A ship didn’t just wreck and sink, instead it might proclaim”…a ship was seized in a heavy swell with winds blowing a perfect hurricane and hurled on a reef where it was reduced to kindling and splinters, then consigned to the mercy of the waves.” A ship wrecked at Dark Gulch was “pounded to pieces and the lumber ground to sawdust.”
When a ship wrecked professional salvage crews would come from the Bay Area to determine what, if anything, was worth saving. It could be sails, rigging and rope, boilers and engines, and cargo not water damaged. Mendocino City got its start because in July 1850 a Baltimore clipper ship called FROLIC, loaded with trade goods from China, crashed near where the Pt. Cabrillo Light House stands today. The salvage crew found Pomo natives wrapped in silk eating off of china plates, these locals got there first, but the salvagers realized the real “treasure” was timber growing to the waterline. They went back to San Francisco and arranged to build a sawmill.
Unusual things saved caught my attention. A bark from Chile wrecked in 1908 and the captain and his wife drowned but their baby was rescued and cared for until relatives came to claim it. The Dorothy Wintermooth crashed at Anchor Bay with a cargo of canned coffee. Locals collected the cans off the beach and no body had to buy coffee for a year. In 1920 Ortereo was wrecked on the south coast but its cargo of Peruvian black sheep swam to shore and ran away into the hills. A French ship called the Malabar overturned in Mendocino Bay in a storm in 1864. Twenty-one years later a shotgun of foreign manufacture and exquisite craftsmanship was found on Big River beach.
Some shipwrecks were dramatic and could be observed up close from a bluff. Some happened on dark and stormy nights and ships and crews vanished forever. In Albion harbor the demise of the Girlie Mahoney was spectacular. The 142’ steam schooner had the misfortune to get her stern line fouled in her propeller and her dragging mooring lines tore out 150’ of Albion Lumber Company’s wharf before she washed ashore and later had her engine and machinery salvaged.
Rescued crews from shipwrecks provided vivid memories for kids. Francis Jackson, who went on to become a historian, remembered that after a 1900 wreck the rescued crew stayed overnight in his parents house for shelter. The crew gave his family all the food they had tucked in their pockets from the ship galley in gratitude.
Shipping companies in the Bay Area did try and save wrecked ships and repair them of salvage parts. Once sea tugboats were common that could pull a floating wreck to a shipyard for repairs. Wood floats. A wreck full of wood products floated too. What was worthy of salvage was interesting too. The British motor ship Pacific Enterprise in 1927 had a reputed million dollars worth of ingots of zinc and lead that was recovered from the wreck. In 1879 the Annie Stoffler was carrying groceries, crockery and a new saw blade for the Caspar Lumber Company. Did they salvage their new saw blade when the ship washed ashore in Caspar Cove?
The Alcyone in 1863 at Noyo had 285 sacks of Abalone shell and 184 barrels of dried Abalone meat headed for the Orient. Did anyone rescue any of it? Combining lifesaving and booze ,passengers and crew on a sinking ship lashed whiskey barrels into a raft that got everyone ashore. Did they then bust open a barrel to celebrate their survival?
There are a million good stories in those 30 inches of binders in the Kelley House archives. More of them will be shared in the future.
We have a remarkable coast with thousands of stores.