The Tragic Wreck of the Ferndale
Twenty men perished when the British iron bark Ferndale was driven onto the beach near Grays Harbor during the most violent storm ever recorded on the Washington coast.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Hoquiam, Jan. 30. News has just reached here that the Ferndale, an English vessel, was wrecked on the beach about fifteen miles north of the Grays Harbor entrance at 9 o'clock yesterday morning. A meager account of the wreck was obtained by a Post-Intelligencer representative from a rancher who came down the beach shortly after the vessel had gone ashore. He stated that the Ferndale was a large English vessel, en route from Australia to Portland in ballast, and that the crew consisted of twenty-three men, only three of whom came ashore alive by clinging to sticks of wood. The dead body of the mate, with a life-preserver fastened to it, was picked up on the beach, but no other bodies had been recovered. The vessel is about one-half mile offshore and is a total wreck. The sea that carried the vessel onto the coast was the highest known on this part of the coast. Captain Nicholls, of the ship Scottish Isles, reports that a strong wind sprang up from the west, suggesting that Captain Blair of the Ferndale was caught by a fatal current and carried in a swirl to the northeast.
“The sea that carried the vessel on to the coast was the highest known on the coast.”
Coastal shipwrecks were a frequent and terrifying reality of early Washington's maritime economy, often claiming entire crews. Today, Grays Harbor remains a treacherous area for navigation, though modern radar and Coast Guard capabilities have transformed how the region manages the dangers of the Pacific graveyard.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.