The Perilous Wreck of the Steamboat at Ozette
After a devastating storm, a ship's crew and passengers faced a harrowing survival on the coast, clinging to the remnants of their vessel and the lighthouse keeper's mercy.
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.
The steamboat which wrecked at Ozette, Washington, left Otoeola on December 7th with 3 passengers and a crew numbering 25 men. Shortly afterward, she encountered a terrible gale. The steam pipe broke, and the boat would not answer to her helm. The starboard bulwark was torn in. All the upper rails, the lifeboats, and all the light work of the hurricane deck were swept away. The vessel labored in the trough of the sea until she struck. As soon as the boat struck, the crew began giving out life preservers, but we soon discovered that there was no leak. When daylight came, we set the colors at half-mast and kept blowing whistles. About 10 o'clock, the lighthouse keeper sighted our signals. He sent out his small metallic lifeboat through the tide, and five of us went ashore. There we found two fish huts. Boats brought the passengers ashore—three in all, two ladies and a child, who were taken direct to the lighthouse. The men began keeping warm in the fish huts; they have enough food to last them two or three days and plenty of blankets.
“The vessel labored in the trough of the sea until she struck.”
The treacherous waters off the Olympic Peninsula remain a site of danger, echoing the isolation faced by shipwreck survivors in the 1880s. Today, while we have advanced search and rescue technology, the 'unforgiving nature of the Pacific Northwest coast' remains a constant theme in local maritime history and disaster reporting.
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