Marooned

As we know from the testimony of Drake's nephew, John Drake, the biggest artifact that Drake left behind at New Albion, other than his campsite, was the small Spanish ship that he had captured off Costa Rica, Tello’s bark. As noted earlier, Whale Cove is a very good refuge in the summer, but not in the winter, when the prevailing winds come from the southwest, and the waves just roll into the Cove.

Drake left at the end of August and by October, the winds would have started to change. The 25 or so crew members he left behind would have taken the bark out of the Cove and headed north to find a place that was better protected from the winter winds and storms. Just twenty miles north is just such a place, the Salmon River. It would have been too shallow for the Golden Hind, the smaller Spanish ship would have only required some 6 ft of water. It is possible that Drake had spotted it on his way south. 

The Calkins family who first settled that area towards the end of the 19th Century used to catch their fishing nets on a sunken ship. One time they brought up a spar of wood with brass or bronze bolts through it, and had the wood identified as ironwood, a tropical hardwood sometimes used in shipbuilding. When they leveled and platted the land in 1930, they came across three sets on non-Indian bones, plus some artifacts, buried in an Indian midden (shell pile) that lay beneath the root system of a 330-year-old spruce tree. This placed the skeletons in the 16th century. Many of the bones had been broken, indicating a violent death. Dr. John Horner, from Corvallis College, examined the bones and artifacts found with them, and from the length of the femur and nature of the skull, concluded that the skeleton was that of a very large black man. Drake had several black people with him, including Diego, his manservant, who did not return to England.

The burial site and the supposed wreck are only 300 feet apart, so when the family realized there may be a connection between the two, in the 1970s, they worked out where the sunken ship had been. It now lay under a tidal mud flat, which was only exposed during negative tides. Ed Calkins, a Lincoln County Commissioner and respected member of the community, probed the area of the wreck, and claimed to have found what appeared to be a 35-foot ship’s keel with ribs coming out of it, and some metal items about 10 feet below the surface of the mud flat. He applied for a permit to recover the wreck, under Oregon's then treasure trove laws, but his application was rejected because his only excavation tool was going to be a backhoe, which would have destroyed an important wreck. If the wreck is connected to the skeletons, as seems likely, then it is probably that of Tello’s bark. This is the only other ship documented (by John Drake and the two handwritten accounts of Drake’s voyage) to have been on the Oregon coast in the 16th Century.

From the hearing records, Bob Ward was able to determine the location of the supposed buried ship. A magnetometer survey of the site showed the presence of ferrous metals, but a ground-penetrating radar survey proved futile because the salt-impregnated mud limited the penetration.

Another survey, using a pulse-type metal detector that is not inhibited by salt, revealed the presence of a significant number of non-ferrous objects, in a pattern that is consistent with a sunken ship being there. Future plans include a sub-bottom profile survey, which should show us any structural remains of the ship, followed by an archaeological examination of the site.

It is likely that when Drake had gone and the remaining crew had moved Tello’s bark, that the local people began to die from European diseases, and perhaps there might have been unwanted pregnancies. It is possible that the locals set fire to the campsite at Whale Cove, and then chose to exact violent revenge on those who had moved to the Salmon River. They might have set fire to the ship also, and removed any iron, which would have been usable as tools. But other items, such as bronze cannons, would have been of no use to them, and might have sunk into the mud, along with the ship. If so, this kind of artifact might enable the ship to be identified.

It is even possible that when Drake asked some of his crew to stay behind and attempt to get back to England through the North West passage that he had to offer them some kind of inducement. After all, there was a good chance they would never see Drake or England again. When he got back, Drake shared ₤10,000 with the crew he brought home. He had taken 26,000 tons of silver from the Cacafuego off Panama, and the crew of Tello’s bark testified that he had 1,800 bars of silver when he was careening the Golden Hind in Costa Rica. What easier than to give the crew he was leaving behind a few of these bars? A drop in the ocean to Drake, but a lot of treasure to them. Silver bars would have been of no practical use to the local people, so it is likely that the bars sank with the ship. If so, and if one of these can be recovered, it will be easily identified. The silver being carried on the Cacafuego had come from the Potosi silver mine via Lima, and would have contained markings showing the weight, the source, and perhaps the date. Silver is non-magnetic, and the Salmon River surveys show a series of 6 or 8 non-magnetic metal items buried at the wreck site. Just what you might expect if this is indeed the remains of Tello’s bark. We may have located the remains of the bark during a preliminary archaeological survey of the site, but we were unable to bring up any of the materials for examination and have had to defer any further activity there for the moment.

One word of caution. It is not possible to get to the wreck site by land, because that involves going through private property. We urge people not to try to visit this site, because we do not want the local residents, who have chosen to live in that area because of its beauty and isolation, to be disturbed. Besides, there is nothing to see. The ship is buried ten feet below the surface of the mud flat, and that is often covered by several feet of water. You cannot even detect the wreck or the remains of its cargo except by very expensive geophysical equipment, as we did. We are planning that if we find evidence of the ship, and even better show that it is Tello’s bark, then we will include all that in an exhibit about Drake’s voyage at the North Lincoln County Historical Museum , in the Taft area of Lincoln City. That is the way to get information about the buried ship and its identity, not by trying to work out the location of the site and going there.

Please, please respect the privacy
of the people who live in the area of the buried ship.

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