Nehalem wreck

[cornelis 816]

Does anyone of our members on the Westcoast have anymore information about the Nehalem wreck . Any pictures of the wax block that was found or any thing about the timber parts that washed upon the shore at the inlet ? Any news about the Falcon islands ? Please inform us if you have anything of interest . Cornelius

 

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[wheelerite]

there is a website called the beeswax wreck project that will give you some of the info. I used to live in the area. My dad used to have a couple of small pieces of the wax but that was 50 years ago and we moved and it wasn't important to take with us when we moved. good luck
ksmith


look for it at www.nagagroup.org/BeesWax/about/about.htm

 

[ivan salis]

i did a bit of studying on it -- let me know if i can help you -- looks to be the st francis xavier - a manila galleon -the wax was bees wax that the catholic church used to make tapers (candles for the church)

 

[cornelis 816]

Wheelerite . Thanks for the info . Especially the Name Clatsop on the marks got my attention . Cornelius

 

[mariner]

Cornelius,

Last year I attended a couple of meetings and workshops with the people who are conducting the latest attempts to locate and identify the Nehalem wreck. A guy called Scott Williams is the project manager. He is Deputy State Archaeologist for Washington State, but has taken a long-standing interest in the Nehalem wreck. I have his contact details, but they are probably also on the web site. Nehalem is about 90 miles north of where I live and I have visited the area many times. I am still in Europe, so don't have my research materials with me, but from the collection of porcelain shards, it seems practically certain that the wreck is a manilla Galleon, either the Santo Christo de Burgos from 1596, or the San Francis Xavier from 1705. The interesting thing is that there was a 9.5 earthquake and associated tsunami off the Oregon coast in January 1700, which might well have carried the main wreck over the dunes if it was the Burgos. My money is on the SFX, though I know some people that I respect who think it is the earlier ship.

However, I also think it quite possible that there has been more than one wreck there. Some 15 years ago, some people I know called Alison Stenger and Herb Beals examined the shards that had been found then, and published a report in which they showed that quite a few of them were Wan Li, late 16th to mid 17th century. This collection seems to have gone missing, and none of the 2,000 or so shards analysed by the current team are from that earlier period.

I think that the best booklet on the Harlem mystery is written by an old friend of mine Ed Giesecke. I can't remember the name of it, but it is available from the Tillamook Pioneer Museum for about $10. Ed has been investigating the wreck for about 40 years, and he interviewed a lot of the people who were involved years ago. There were two sightings of the wreck(s) that stand out. About 1925, a lot of sand moved out from the beach exposing the partial remains of a ship made from teak, about a mile south of Manzanita as far as I recall. Somebody took some wood and a small silver oil jar from it before the sands swallowed it up again. These are in the Pioneer Museum. Around the same general time, a guy called Pat Smith, who spent many years looking for the treasure on nearby Neahkhannie Mountain, saw the partial remains of a wooden ship in shallow water off the spit, and climbed onto it. However, I don't think he was able to recover anything from it.

A few years ago, a wooden block (as in block and tackle) was found on the spit, and carbon dated to 1635. However, if you look at the carbon dating curve for that period, there is an inflection around 1600, and C14 values for that period can represents dates on either side of that date, so the same C14 value could represent about 1570 as well as 1635.

There have been various attempts to carbon date the beeswax blocks, with varying results. I have copies of several of the analyses at home. Some place the wax in the 16Th century, and others at the end of the 17Th. The SFX was carrying large amounts of beeswax blocks.

In 1964, just after the Columbus Day storm, a guy from Portland found an undated English silver coin on the surfline of the Harlem spit. He did not recognize what it was, but about ten years ago it was brought to my attention and with the help of the British Library I identified it as an English shilling from 1570. It was probably left by Drake in 1579, but coins are so transportable that it could have been traded there from many miles away, but it was almost certainly washed out of one of the many village or burial sites along the spit by the storm.

I have some photos of the oil jar and some of the beeswax blocks on my computer, and will try to find and post them later. I also have photos of an interesting carved wooden item that was supposedly found there, but I can't guarantee its provenance.

Hope this helps.

Mariner