By Osvaldo Rodriguez Martinez
Three crew members guarded the 223 ft (67.9 m) long and 33.6 ft (10.2 m) wide ship: the third mate and a helmsman, both inexperienced, and a lookout.
The port (left) and starboard (right) lights were off (another version disputes this) and only the white one on the mast was working; The ship kept its bow heading south, parallel to the northwest coast of Canada and the United States.
The Orpheus sailboat sailed in the opposite direction with a favorable wind propelling it at a speed of 12 knots (about 22 kilometers per hour). At 2130 the master left the bridge, leaving the second mate in charge with instructions to proceed out to sea to the north-west if he saw obstacles.
Minutes later, the officer reported the sighting of the lighthouse on Tatoosh Island in Washington state, but the captain noticed it was an approaching vessel and turned to port to avoid the collision, in a maneuver that the sailboat took momentarily halted as the other ship pounced on it.
SSPacific blew her whistle and reversed the engines to avoid the collision, but struck Orpheus on her starboard side at least three times, tearing off planks and most of the rigging.
They called from the sailboat to the other boat, but there was no answer and they watched it disappear into the darkness without stopping to give it proper help.
It was after 9:30 p.m. on November 4, 1875, and Captain Charles A. Sawyer’s (1839-1894) outrage at the invading ship’s action quickly changed as he had to save his ship from possible shipwreck without waiting on the help of the other crew.
Meanwhile, on the SSPacific, desperation awaited the inevitable sinking of the ship as the wooden hull broke due to poor condition, experts noted. Of the nearly 300 people on board, only two survived.
As if cursed by subsequent carelessness, the Orpheus quickly repaired the damage and avoided capsizing, but got lost, mistook a new lighthouse that was outdated on her nautical chart, and ran aground on the island of Tzartus with no loss of life., but with total destruction of the sailing boat.
This compilation of facts is summarized in an essay published in Washington State’s History Link encyclopedia, based on the careful investigation that included testimony and the criminal record that followed the disaster for which Captain Sawyer was blamed.
Boatswain Neil O. Henly (1855-1944) made history as one of the two survivors of the sinking of the SSPacific, the worst shipwreck of the 19th century to occur off the Pacific coast of the United States.
Henly was asleep in his bunk on the forecastle when a severe impact caused water to enter the bow, so he ran on deck to catch a glimpse of the lights of a sailboat backing into the night while the crew tried to find the few to launch lifeboats.
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The United States and United Kingdom press last December reported the discovery of the steamer’s remains at an undisclosed point, but 23 miles offshore, according to explorers and marine historians Matthew McCauley and Jeff Hummel, who, after 30 years Investigators found the boat “in an incredible state of preservation,” they said.
For some media, the news was the location of the sunken ship 147 years ago and its archaeological value, while others preferred to focus on the fate of the 200 pounds of gold (ca British Columbia) that are on the passenger list.
Experts don’t expect to find remains of the nearly 300 people on board (it is speculated there may be as many as 400) as their preservation is unlikely due to the strong ocean currents housing the hull they made it from have to catch a refractory brick and wood samples with the help of robots.
“We think it’s going to be an absolute treasure trove of artifacts from that era,” Hummel told a radio station in Seattle, US, explaining that it’s a “time capsule” salvage, assuming they hope to collect leather goods. Wine bottles, fabrics and ship parts from the 18th century.
The exact number of people transported is unknown, as 35 passengers boarded in Puget Sound, from where they departed, and they also sold 132 tickets in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia (Canada), while about 20 were allocated on board, but their cards have not been registered, names as well as the children who have not paid for cards and several people who have booted up at the last minute.
The crew of 52 was under the command of Captain Jefferson Davis Howell (1841-1875), a Civil War veteran. This would complete a calculation of 250 to 275 people on board. Due to the large human losses, it is considered the largest marine disaster on the west coast.
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As of October 2021, the discoverers had confirmed information about the find and it only remained for them to prove it was the SSPacific, but the possibility of the values being claimed by the descendants delayed the revelation.
A legal order gave them legal certainty to prevent other search groups from scouting the area in a pre-determined area, despite keeping the coordinates secret.
Regarding the precious metal still in the ship, investigators’ spokesmen indicated that the judiciary will determine what corresponds to the descendants of the victims of the shipwreck, and the rest will go to educational projects and a museum to house the remains of the ship to expose.
As the Cariboo gold rush in northern British Columbia (province of Canada) wore off in the 1870s, another was looming to the northwest near the small town of Cassiar, which raged for a decade, so the ship made the route from Victoria to San Francisco, California.
MIRACLES OF SURVIVAL Henly rigged a lifeboat and was immediately joined by 15 women and six men and when she lowered it it capsized and they all fell into the water. He was able to swim to part of the deck and join Captain Howell and eight others, but the heavy surf claimed the lives of several of them.
Using a few planks and floating sections, he improvised a raft on which he stayed at sea for 78 hours before a steamer rescued this Scottish immigrant, who years later, with much better luck, returned to sea to become a captain.
The fate of the other survivor, passenger Henry F. Jelley (1854-1930), was similar for when alarmed by the impact he ran to the cockpit where he found the engines were still working but no one was at the helm and The ship advanced while screams that it was sinking brought it to safety, the same source assured.
A version of events published by the American newspaper Cincinnati Enquirer (since 1841) on November 10, 1875 revealed that Jelley fired five blue flares as a distress signal before jumping into the sea.
From the water, clinging to a lifeboat, he watched the steam disappear into the darkness of the ocean and managed to stay alive while another mate offered no resistance and the waves lapped his body. Two days later Jelley was rescued and through him the first information about the sinking of the SSPacific became known.
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