The “Alice”
As I sit snugly indoors on these dark, cold winter mornings watching the bright lights of the oyster dredges out on the bay, my thoughts often turn to the ‘olden days’ when the darkness was punctuated only by candle or lantern light. I’m not sure how much work was done out on the bay during darkness in those days before modern conveniences. I do know that, here on shore, my grandfather often repaired fences or replaced roof shingles by moonlight, but what of those dark, maybe even stormy, nights when there was no moon?
Out on the ocean, ship crews, of course, were at work day and night. Many are the stories of ships that ran into trouble off the waters of the Columbia Bar and along the shores of the North Beach Peninsula – the area that is known as the ‘Graveyard of the Pacific.’ It was an early pitchy-black morning that the French sailing ship, Alice, came ashore between Ocean Park and Oysterville on January 15, 1909.
The alarm was sounded at 4:10 a.m. by Willie Taylor’s dog who began howling as if in pain and kept it up until his master awoke. The dog was named ‘Solano’ after the ship wrecked two years earlier, and just four miles to the north, and from which the little dog had been rescued. Solano’s early warning was soon conveyed to the Klipsan Lifesaving Station where surf boats were placed on beach carts, the horses harnessed and hitched, and the crew and equipment headed north.
It was slow going through soft sand for the would-be rescuers and, in the meantime, the crew of the Alice had launched their own boats and had successfully run the surf to shore. All hands were saved. The ship, however, was a total loss. Her 2,200-ton cargo of cement was immediately catalyzed into hard packets by the salt water. Plans for her salvage were not even considered.
My aunt, Medora Espy, was ten years old at the time of the wreck and wrote this letter to her mother who was still in Portland following the birth of Medora’s little brother, Edwin:
Friday, January 15, 1909 at half past eight
Dearest Mama,
There was a ship come in last night at three o’clock. The crew consists of 27 men. They can’t speak English. Bradford, Dorothy and I went to see the ship.
The ship is about a mile from Ocean Park. There was quite a number going from town.
We didn’t have any school after (12) twelve o’clock because we wanted to go see the ship.
Your loving daughter, Medora Espy
Fortunately, shipwrecks are less frequent nowadays, thanks to modern aids to navigation. Even so, my thoughts fly out to any ships at sea and, especially, to the men on those oyster dredges when I see their lights on these cold dark mornings.
It is no wonder that the waters around the Peninsula are known as the graveyard of the Pacific. The ocean is one of the wild things man has not tamed. Batten down the hatches. Apparently there’s a storm coming now.
Sydney,
By claiming that Edwin was Medora’s “big brother” you suggest that he was older.
Let’s think about this for a moment. Medora was 10 when Edwin was born. Right?
Am I to suppose that perhaps you meant instead that Edwin was an abnormally large newborn…(as in, “physically bigger” than his older sister)?
Just checking,
John
You are so right, John. (Thanks for keeping me on my toes.) After Albert’s death in 1905, — and he, too, was younger than Medora — Edwin was the long-awaited son who, it was hoped, would help his father with the ranch and, eventually, carry on the Espy name. Two years after Edwin came along, Willard was born. Since they were the only two boys with four sisters, I think of Edwin as the ‘big’ brother, even though he was the older brother only to Willard and my mother, Dale. And, as a matter of fact, physically Ed was short and stocky; Willard was taller and lean.