Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/19



LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 11

schooner "Cadboro" arrived, which opened a prospect of leav- ing the river, and induced us to desist from finishing the offi- cers' house. The cost of plank for these buildings was some- thing over two hundred dollars.

OfBcers and men had been constantly kept exploring the beach from Point Adams to the southward, to pick up any articles worth saving which should drift ashore from the wreck, but they seldom found a spar or plank from her which the Indians had not already visited and robbed of its copper and iron fastenings.

Receiving information through the Indians that part of the hull, with guns upon it, had come ashore below Killimuk's Head, about 20 or 30 miles south of Point Adams, I sent Midshipman Simes, an enterprising youth, to visit the spot. He did so, and reported that the deck between the mainmast and fore hatch, with an equal length of the starboard broadside planking above the wales, had been stranded, and that three of the carronades adhered to this portion of the wreck. He succeeded in, getting one above high-water mark ; but the other two were inaccessible, on account of the surf ; and as it would have been utterly impracticable to transport any weighty ob- ject over the mountain road which it was necessary to traverse, I of course made no exertions to recover them, but informed the governor of their position, that during the smooth seas of next summer he might send a boat round and embark them.

Within a month all the upper works, decks, sides and spars came ashore from the wreck, but separated a distance of 75 miles from each other, and were of no value, from the long wash and chafing which they had undergone. To the heel of the bowsprit we found two kedge anchors attached, one with an arm broken off; and it is a little singular that the only articles recovered which could be at all useful hereafter were of metal and weight.

On the llth of October we were cheered with the sight of a sail in the offing, and next day the Hudson's Bay Company's