COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • JULY 25, 2018 • A7
The Flower Basket Offbeat Oregon: Archaeologists solve
and Gift Boutique
mystery of ‘Beeswax Shipwreck’
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century, though, the histor-
ical record on the beeswax
shipwreck had become bad-
ly confused and polluted.
Over the years, writers
and raconteurs — especially
Native American storytell-
ers hired by resort owners to
entertain guests — had had
some of their professional
fabrications and exaggera-
tions taken a little too seri-
ously, and the whole subject
had just about crossed over
the line from archaeology to
folklore studies.
In other words, as a topic
of study for a serious aca-
demic historian or archaeol-
ogist, Beeswax Wreck Stud-
ies suffered from the same
stigma as UFO Studies.
And so, as with UFOs, it
went unstudied by serious
academics, for a long time.
But in 2006, a group of ar-
chaeologists and historians
and geologists came togeth-
er and decided they were go-
ing to take the topic serious-
ly, and drill down through
all the myths and legends to
solve the mystery for real.
And thus was the Beeswax
Wreck Project born.
Last month, after more
than a decade of research
and exploration, the Bees-
wax Wreck Project — which
has since expanded to be-
come the Maritime Archae-
ological Society, a nonprofit
organization based in Asto-
ria dedicated to the study of
shipwrecks — published its
findings in the summer is-
sue of the Oregon Historical
Quarterly.
The editors dedicated the
entire issue to this one topic.
By Finn J.D John
For The Sentinel
S
ince the beginning of
European settlement
along the Oregon
Coast, people have won-
dered about the source of
the mysterious chunks of
beeswax that were continu-
ally turning up there.
It seemed there was an
endless supply of the stuff,
slowly being released from
somewhere just offshore ...
century after century.
The natives, when asked,
shared their oral histories
about the strange wax — a
tale of a big ship wrecked on
the shore near Nehalem Bay,
from which it all came. But
what kind of big ship?
From where, and whither
bound?
And what had become of
its crew?
Over the years, histori-
ans and archaeologists have
closed in on the answers to
these questions. By the mid-
20th century they had fig-
ured out that it was a Span-
ish galleon out of Manila, on
its way to New Spain (Mex-
ico, basically) sometime in
the 1600s or 1700s, and that
what remained of it — in-
cluding cannons and other
heavy metal artifacts, as well
as, possibly, treasure — lay
on the seafloor just off the
north Oregon coast.
But nobody really knew
which galleon it was. Most
likely, they figured, it was
the San Francisco Xavier,
which left Manila in 1705
and vanished from the face
of the Earth.
By the end of the 20th
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The Beeswax Wreck Proj-
ect scientists won’t be able
to say with 100 percent cer-
tainty unless the wreck itself
is located; but there is, they
have learned, really only one
galleon that it could pos-
sibly be: The San Cristo de
Burgos, which left Manila in
1693.
Of the 400-odd galleons
the Spanish built and sailed,
many sank or were captured
by enemies, but only four
vanished without a trace:
two in the mid-1500s; the
San Cristo de Burgos in
1693; and the San Francisco
Xavier in 1705.
The early ones were ruled
out because of the shards of
Chinese pottery that have
been found washed ashore
from the wreck; they were of
a design that didn’t exist in
the 1500s.
The San Francisco Xavier
was ruled out because those
pottery shards, along with
lots of beeswax, were found
inside Nehalem Bay — and
the only way detritus from
an offshore shipwreck could
end up in Nehalem Bay
would be if it was washed
over Nehalem Spit by a tsu-
nami — and the only tsuna-
mi that could do such a job
happened in the year 1700.
By process of elimination,
therefore, it had to be the
San Cristo de Burgos.
Within that almost-cer-
tainty lies a fascinating story
that we’ll never fully know:
The wreck of the ship may
have been essentially caused
by the Spanish officials in
Manila.
When it left Manila in
1693, the San Cristo de
Burgos was actually mak-
ing its second try at cross-
ing the Pacific. The pre-
vious year it had tried to
make the crossing, but
was dismasted in a sudden
storm.
After limping back to
Manila, the ship’s officers
found themselves in hot
water with the local au-
thorities, who promptly
got busy trying to find
someone to pin the blame
on. The ship’s builder was
accused of messing up the
mast steps; the rigger, of not
connecting the ropes right.
Finally the authorities
settled for charging the gal-
leon’s skipper, Don Bernar-
do Iñiguez del Bayo, with
negligence, and demanding
a large payment from him.
To avoid paying this, del
Bayo cast off in the middle
of the night (metaphori-
cally speaking, although a
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S entinel
C ottage G rove
literal midnight departure
does seem likely) leaving a
large amount of food and
other supplies behind, along
with 30 sailors (out of a full
complement in the 110-120
range, including gunners
but not including cabin
boys).
It certainly can’t be as-
sumed that this short-staff-
ing situation caused the
wreck; but, given that those
30 sailors represented about
25 percent of the crew, it’s
certainly a strong possibility.
It’s also very likely that,
if the San Cristo de Burgos
had gotten into serious trou-
ble as it had the previous
time, turning back would
not even be considered as an
option.
Nehalem Bay wasn’t on
the galleons’ regular trade
route; the San Cristo de Bur-
gos would not have come to
the north Oregon coast on
purpose.
In their Oregon Histori-
cal Quarterly article on the
wreck site, Beeswax Proj-
ect investigators Scott Wil-
liams, Curt Peterson, Mitch
Marken and Richard Rogers
write that most likely the
ship was disabled in a storm
and drifted before the wind,
wallowing in the trough of
the sea, until it fetched up
on Nehalem Spit.
So: what about treasure?
One of the more appeal-
ing parts of the San Fran-
cisco Xavier hypothesis was
the large amount of personal
wealth that was being trans-
ported on that ship.
But that doesn’t seem to
have been the case with the
San Cristo de Burgos.
Although the Beeswax
Wreck Project researchers
were unable to find a com-
plete manifest in the records
of the old Spanish colonial
empire, they were able to
learn most of it; and it ap-
pears that, in addition to the
beeswax, the vast majority
of the cargo was textiles and
fabrics: silks and cottons.
There was a fair amount of
carved ivory, and quite a bit
of elemental mercury that
was to be used in the silver
mines of New Spain; but,
alas, no chests full of dou-
bloons and pieces of eight.
The full report of the
Beeswax Wreck Project, of
course, includes lots more
information than can be laid
out here.
To learn more about the
wreck, and the galleon traf-
fic between Mexico and the
Philippines that it was a part
of, you should grab a copy of
the Summer 2018 issue of
Oregon Historical Quar-
terly.
But the bottom line on
the whole thing is, the
identity of the mysteri-
ous beeswax ship is now
solved, with more than 99
percent certainty.
And the next time you
stumble across a little
chunk of wax on the beach
after a winter storm, you’ll
know you’re holding in
your hand a piece of his-
tory nearly a century older
than the United States of
America itself.
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Must “MINE” this deal by July 31, 2018.
Finn J.D. John teaches
at Oregon State Universi-
ty and writes about odd
tidbits of Oregon history.
For details, see http://finn-
john.com. To contact him
or suggest a topic: finn2@
offbeatoregon.com or 541-
357-2222.