A Ship's Name-Board Washes Ashore 115 Miles From Where the Ivanhoe Went Down
A lighthouse keeper's wife finds the port quarter name-board of a lost coal freighter buried in the sand at Willapa Bay — and a Navy inspector uses the currents to argue the ship foundered far south of Cape Flattery.
Commander Farenholt writes to a friend of the late Hon. F. J. Grant:
"During my last visit of inspection at the Willapa Bar lighthouse I was shown the port quarter name-board of the lost ship Ivanhoe.
"The board was picked up by the wife of the lighthouse keeper, December 11, 1894, on the outer and northern sandspit of the entrance to Willapa Bay. According to her description, the board stood upright, deeply buried in the sand, the last letter of the name only being visible. Its general appearance shows that it has been exposed more to the action of the friction of blowing sand than to sea water. The gold lettering of the name is remarkably well preserved.
"The Ivanhoe is supposed to have foundered in a heavy southerly gale off Cape Flattery, a distance of about 115 miles from where the board was found. If I am rightly informed, a life buoy belonging to the ship was picked up in Barclay sound, on the Vancouver shore, a distance of about forty miles from Flattery and about 200 miles from Willapa Bay.
"I do not wish to advance any theory, for the particulars of the loss of the Ivanhoe can only be surmises, but to judge from the finding of this board at Willapa Bay it would seem that the ship foundered much farther south than is generally believed. It is improbable that this board was carried inshore off or near Cape Flattery by a current setting to the southward, against strong southerly winds and currents. The topography of the coast line from Flattery to Willapa is such that a floating object drifting from the northward would probably have stranded at one of the many more prominent places than the beach at Willapa.
"It is surmised that the Ivanhoe sprang a leak, or that the hatches were crushed in by heavy seas. Pumps could not free her, and with her heavy cargo of coal she rapidly foundered. The condition of the board bears out this theory. There is no mar or defect to be seen. It had been strongly secured to the ship's quarter. Had the vessel been in collision or been dismasted, I should infer from the locality where the board was placed that it would have at least been scratched or otherwise injured. I am, very respectfully, O. W. Farenholt, Commander, United States Navy, Inspector Thirteenth Lighthouse District."
“It is improbable that this board was carried inshore off or near Cape Flattery by a current setting to the southward, against strong southerly winds and currents.”
The Ivanhoe vanished with her crew and cargo, and for a season the only testimony was a name-board and a life buoy surfacing a hundred miles apart. Today the same stretch of Washington coast — Cape Flattery to Willapa Bay — is still where the ocean gives back what it takes, a reminder that the sea keeps its own records long after the shipping offices close.
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