The Ghost Ship of Seattle’s Waterfront

Workmen employed by the Commercial Mill Company have piled slabs all around the hull of the old bark Windward and are engaged in filling her with slab and sawdust, and in a few short days that old hulk will have passed, probably forever, from public view. This will seem strange to those who remember how the old hulk used to stand out in bold relief on the waterfront, and how enterprising advertisers took advantage of the great black sides of the vessel to paint the virtues of their wares in great white letters. At that time, County Treasurer Pontius was keeping a drug store on Front street and availed himself of the opportunity to advertise 'Pontius' Ocean Drops' on the hull. Way back in 1878, the bark Windward sailed out of Seattle harbor with a load of lumber for San Francisco. She was beating down towards the straits when the wind died out, and she drifted ashore at Deception Pass on Whidby Island. She bumped a few times on the beach and started a few seams, which caused her to leak and sink. She was condemned and sold. Julian M. Colman of Seattle bought the vessel and cargo, and had the wreck towed to this city, where the cargo was discharged. The vessel was beached at the point where she still lays, but which has since all been wharfed over. Mr. Colman tried hard to raise the Windward in order to repair her, but her days of usefulness as a lumber drogger were over, and she refused to float. She was stripped of rigging, sails, anchors, chains and everything that could be taken from a wreck, including the copper to the lower water mark, and she was turned over to the teredo worms as their constant prey. During the intervening years, they have done their work faithfully and well. They entered her ports, gnawed her keel and timbers, until she broke in two of her own weight. It may be well for such a back and broken mass to pass forever from public view. Such is the irony of fate.