WRECK; HARVEST HOME ~~1882

 HARVEST HOME

Capt. A. Matson
Built for Preston & McKinnon
San Francisco, CA.
Lost: 18 January 1882
About 8 Miles north of Cape Hancock.

HARVEST HOME 
Possibly a reproduction by the esteemed 
photographer/historian Charlie Fitzpatrick 
a resident of this  North Beach area, WA.
Click image to enlarge.
Photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

"If it is possible for a shipwreck to be a happy affair, perhaps the loss of the bark HARVEST HOME would fall under this classification. The date was 18 January 1882, and the bark was beating up the coast under a pleasant breeze in a calm sea shrouded by a white sheet of fog. Her destination was Pt. Townsend, WA, and she rode low in the water with a full load of general cargo. Under the command of Capt Matson, the bark was skirting along in a northwesterly course in the early morning hours while most of the crew were asleep. Only the sea water caressing the hull of the vessel broke the silence of the nearing dawn. Then came another sound, a sound quite divorced from those of the sea. The helmsman cupped his hand to his ear and then pinched himself––had he heard a rooster crowing or was he dreaming?
      Suddenly the vessel began to pitch and roll as though it had been struck by a tidal wave. The crew was tossed from their bunks and in a matter of minutes the ship was deposited on the sands and suddenly became motionless.
      Capt Matson stormed up on deck and leaped upon the poop, but before he could get his mouth open, the helmsman informed him that the vessel was aground.
      "Aground you say, Mister, why we're six miles to sea, I set the course myself," bellowed the Old Man.
      Fog was all about the stranded ship, but there was little doubt about her being aground, and before the flood tide had decided to go back to sea again the HARVEST HOME was bogged down in the sand up around the driftwood area.
      Several hours later the bewildered skipper discovered that he had been navigating with a defective chronometer which was responsible for the stranding.
      When the fog lifted around noon, the helmsman sighted a big barn a few hundred feet from the beach, and it was then that he knew that the rooster he had heard crowing had not been a figment of his imagination. The wreck was lying eight miles north of Cape Disappointment, on the sandy beach of the peninsula.
      Later the crew walked ashore and the wreck remained stationary while the tides swished around her, more firmly entrenching her in the sands. The cargo was salvaged but the bark was left to die a slow death.
      In the months that followed, tourists paused at the wreck to have their pictures taken under the summer sun or to picnic on her rotting timbers. Some of the shipwrecked sailors found themselves peninsula belles and tied the legal knot of matrimony.
      Meanwhile, Preston & McKinnon of San Francisco, owners, collected $14,000, the amount for which the vessel was insured."
Above text from Pacific Graveyard. Gibbs, James A..Binfords & Mort. 1950