A Dead Calm and a Disabled Engine: The Columbia Goes Ashore
The steamship Columbia struck the mouth of Puget Sound on a quiet night, her machinery useless. Passengers and mail were saved; $200,000 in cargo was not.
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.
LOSS OF THE STEAMSHIP COLUMBIA. The above steamer, which we have been expecting for a month past, we now learn was wrecked on the 19th inst. at the mouth of Puget Sound. It is hinted that the cargo on board was ruined to $200,000, which is viewed as a total loss. We put the following from a postscript in the Oregonian: We are sorry to report we receive news of the loss of the steamship Columbia, at the mouth of Puget Sound, on Thursday night last. The report, which was brought to this place by a citizen of Albany, who learned the particulars from one of the Columbia's passengers, is to the effect that the steamer went ashore in a dead calm, her machinery being in some manner disabled. The passengers and crew were saved, and some mails were got out, with no other damage than a partial wetting. It was not known whether the cargo would be rescued or not. The steamer was leaking badly, and the probability is she would not be got off.
“The steamer went ashore in a dead calm, her machinery being in some manner disabled.”
Puget Sound's entrance has always been a treacherous doorway for ships, and disabled vessels still make headlines today. The Columbia's loss also reminds us how much the region's early economy depended on fragile maritime links for mail, goods and passengers.
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