The Big River Never Came Back
A tug captain spots a wreck on the Grays Harbor bar and identifies it as the overdue schooner Big River, lost with five hands.
HOQUIAM, March 8.—As the tug Traveler was crossing the Grays Harbor bar yesterday, Captain Larsen sighted a vessel near the water's edge on Peterson's Point, but made no further examination. On returning to Hoquiam the captain learned that the schooner Big River was about nine weeks overdue, and is now satisfied, from what he could see of the wreck, that it is the remains of the Big River, and that the crew of five men had perished. The schooner Big River is owned by A. Anderson, of San Francisco, and was chartered by the Northwestern Lumber Company of that city. She left San Francisco under command of Captain Nissan, on January 7 in ballast, bound for the company's Knappton mill, on the Columbia river, to take a cargo of lumber. The tug Printer will go to the scene tomorrow, when an examination will be made. The Big River was a fore and aft schooner of 152 tons register, and had a lumber carrying capacity of 240,000 feet. She was valued at $1,600.
“the crew of five men had perished”
Grays Harbor's lumber economy depended on coastwise schooners, and a lost crew was a community loss. The harbor bar remains one of the Pacific Coast's dangerous entrances, a reminder of how much trade and risk moved by water.
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