The Umatilla Sinks in Esquimalt Harbor
A storm-battered steamer runs aground on the coast, sparks a daring rescue, and eventually settles into the harbor floor.
Last Wednesday, the steamer Umatilla sailed from San Francisco for Seattle with a full crew and 180 tons of freight. Encountering rough weather all the way up the coast, at 8 o'clock on Saturday morning, during a violent snow storm, she struck Flattery rocks, a reef about two or three miles from shore, twelve and a half miles south of Cape Flattery. The sea was running high, and it looked as though the ship would go to pieces. Captain Frank Worth and 31 of the crew took to the lifeboat. Second officer O'Brien and two seamen took to a life raft. The boat made better headway than the raft, and they soon separated. Looking back, Mr. O'Brien saw the ship free herself from her perilous position and float into deep water. He and his two companions paddled to her, clambered up her iron sides, and set her for the Columbia River, later being towed into Esquimalt Harbor by the steamship Wellington. Her forefoot was knocked off, and she had 14 feet of water in her forward compartment. At 3 o'clock yesterday morning, she sank in 44 feet of water. There is considerable anxiety for the safety of Captain Worth and the 11 men who accompanied him in the lifeboat, who have not been heard from.
“The sea was running high, and it looked as though the ship would at once go to pieces.”
The Umatilla’s wreck remains a stark reminder of the perils of maritime commerce that defined early Seattle’s economic survival. Today, while navigation technology has evolved, the region remains acutely vulnerable to maritime accidents, and the quest for lost crew members echoes the tragic outcomes of modern Pacific Northwest sea disasters.
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