A Ship's Nameboard Comes Home, Four Years After the Ivanhoe Sailed Away
Washed up on a sand spit at Willapa Bay, the gilt scoured off by the surf, the lost ship's sign joins a life buoy as the only things that ever came back from the Ivanhoe.
Yesterday there arrived in Seattle a relic of the lost ship Ivanhoe. It is the signboard which hung on the ship's port side, bearing the word "Ivanhoe," the letters being deeply cut. The gilt is nearly worn off by the action of the waves.
The board was found on the northern sand spit of Willapa Bay by the wife of the lighthouse keeper on December 18, 1894, and has been awaiting instructions. On a recent visit of Capt. O. W. Farenholt, inspector of the Thirteenth district, it was shown to him, and he directed that it be carefully preserved. He had it mounted to prevent injury, and sent it to Gov. McGraw, who has presented it to James D. Hoge, jr. Together with the life buoy already brought from the coast of Vancouver Island, it will be kept as a sad memento — the two silent witnesses of an irreparable loss. The Ivanhoe left Seattle for San Francisco on September 27, 1891.
“Together with the life buoy already brought from the coast of Vancouver Island, it will be kept as a sad memento — the two silent witnesses of an irreparable loss.”
Before radio, radar and AIS, a vessel that left Seattle simply stopped existing, and the families left behind waited for whatever the Pacific chose to return. The Ivanhoe's nameboard and one life ring were all the sea gave back. That same coastline is watched by the Coast Guard now, but the sea still returns what it takes — and people still wait.
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