Welcome to my shipwreck page!
I have always had a fascination for shipwrecks, and this will be my special page just for this purpose. The Titanic, of course, will have a page of her own, so do not look for her here. I prefer to focus mostly on Pacific Coast shipwrecks. If you have a particular shipwreck you'd like to see here, or if you have any questions--- just
The Peter Iredale, Clatsop Spit, wrecked October 25, 1906.
For those of you interested in the recent wreck of the New Carissa near Coos Bay, OR, I plan to put in an entry here as time permits. Keep checking.
Francis H. Leggett
One of Oregon's most tragic shipwrecks happened on September 18, 1914, a black day in Pacific maritime history. About 60 miles southwest of the Columbia River, the steamer was caught in strong winds from the southwest. Then the chief engineer brought shocking news: water was pouring into the hull. Passengers and crew worked together on every pump in an effort to save the ship, Every boarding wave saw the steamer sinking lower and lower. Then a huge sea hammered over the entire ship. Three vessels answered the distress call, but a mass of wreckage and railroad ties were all that remained of the fated steamer. In spite of this source, one house in Manzanita, Oregon, was constructed entirely of railroad ties Needless to say, no one would volunteer. Captain Peterson, seeing that the ship was already an inferno, gave the orders to abandon ship, already having altered course for the rocky shore, three miles off. He put his wife in the first boat, despite her wishes to stay with him. The canine
mascot was pushed overboard to be picked up by the lifeboat, and the boat started for shore. Shortly thereafter the Marhoffer drifted among the rocks just beyond the breakers, and the ship's entire amidship section was enveloped in flame. Captain Peterson had done his duty by his ship and crew, and there was only one course left to follow--- the only remaining boat was lowered, and the few remaining crew escaped in it, setting out for Fogerty Creek. "Grandma" Wisniewski saw the entire scene from her hillside home, and hastened to the beach near the creek mouth and tried to signal to the sailors that they might land safely there. However, all she had was her red sweater with which to signal, and they misread her signal to mean danger, and they rowed on to Whale Cove, south of Depoe Bay. Both boats fell in together, and as they attempted to enter the cove, one craft capsized in the surf, drowning the cook, who had already suffered burns from the fire. Everyone else gained the shore.
The next day Captain Wellander and his crew from the Yaquina Bay Lifesaving Station arrived to inspect the wreck, bringing supplies for the survivors. The scorched boiler broke free from the bowels of the ship to come to rest in the little bay that has come to be known as Boiler Bay, 14 miles north of Yaquina Bay. Created January 21st, 1998. In memory of those lost on the Kursk This page provided by 
The steamer Francis H. Leggett left Grays Harbor bound for San Francisco with a load of railroad ties,
carrying 67 passengers and crew.
The storm growing, the ocean's waves rose to unprecedented heights, pitching the ship so that no one could keep their footing.
Wave after wave crashed over the decks with horrendous force as the wind velocity continued to climb.
thrusting tons of seawater back into the ocean,
but more water was rushing in faster than they could pump it out.
The wireless hummed with distress calls.
The captain, at a loss for a solution, gave orders for everyone to man the lifeboats,
but there was little chance for a lifeboat to survive those massive greybacks.
It was too much for the ship.
The Francis H. Leggett went down amid weeping and hopeless cries for help from her doomed human cargo.
Two survivors, too dazed and hypothermic to relate their terrible experiences, were found clinging to pieces of wreckage,
and only one body, that of a woman passenger, was recovered.
Large amounts of wreckage and lumber were cast upon Tillamook shores,
terse reminders of the tragedy which took the lives of 65 people.
from the wreck of the Francis H. Leggett.
J. Marhoffer
On the afternoon of May 18, 1910, the steam schooner J. Marhoffer was bound for Portland under command of Captain Gustave Peterson. Having unloaded her cargo at San Francisco, the Marhoffer was
travelling along at a nine-knot clip, pushed by tail winds off Yaquina Head. The assistant engineer was alone in the engine room, trying to make a newfangled gas torch while the first engineer was napping in his cabin. Unfortunately, having no instruction book, the inevitable happened as he tried to use his mental ingenuity to make it burn, and the torch exploded, throwing a flame across the oil-soaked engine room. Even before the badly burned assistant could get topside to warn the others, the steamer was a mass of flames below decks. The engine continued to turn over in spite of the intense heat of the flames, and Captain Peterson
asked for volunteers to go below to open the sea-cocks to flood the engine room.
Last modified December 9th, 2001.
