A10 • Friday, February 22, 2019 | Cannon Beach Gazette | CannonBeachGazette.com
HISTORY UNDER THE SAND
Local photographer Don Best
digs deep into 1908 shipwreck
that killed eight seamen
By NANCY MCCARTHY
For Cannon Beach Gazette
The schooner the Emily
Reed, carrying 2,110 tons of
coal, set sail from New South
Wales, Australia, and headed
to Bristol Bay, Alaska, in
1907. But she never reached
her destination.
Instead, on Valentine’s
Day, 1908, she capsized on
Rockaway Beach. And, 111
years later, parts of the ship
remain.
Documentary photogra-
pher Don Best has been fas-
cinated with the shipwreck
since his parents took him as
an 18-month-old child in the
mid-1940s to see the ship’s
“rib cage” lying on the
beach, uncovered by shift-
ing sands.
“We know there are at
least four sections of the
ship in different sections of
Rockaway Beach,” Best told
an audience at the Cannon
Beach History Center.
The Feb. 7 lecture was
the second in a series offered
by the history center.
The area where the ship
ran aground was known as
Garibaldi Beach. “It was an
isolated beach,” Best said.
“There were no roads, noth-
ing there. Just a few home-
steaders lived in that area.”
Built in 1880, in Waldob-
oro, Maine, the ship mea-
sured 209 feet long, 40 feet
wide and 24 feet deep. Clad
underneath with copper
sheathing, the Emily Reed
was one of the fastest ships
of its size, Best said.
By the time she made the
trip from Australia, the ship
was 28 years old. “She was
an old girl,” Best said. “She
had been through a lot of
storms.”
It was 102 days out from
Australia, a month overdue
by the time it reached the
Oregon coast. While sail-
ing in rain and dense fog at
1 a.m. Feb. 14, 1908, she ran
aground.
“She was sailing north
past the Tillamook area and
was getting close in,” Best
said. “The captain thought
he was 60 miles out. He
made a right turn because
he thought he was at the lati-
tude for the Tillamook Rock
Light House.”
As soon as it turned, it
slammed into the beach at
high tide. The whole bow
broke off, and the ship listed
to the left.
One lifeboat went over
the side, and four crewmen
jumped into it. “Big high
breakers turned it over, and
they all drowned,” Best said.
A second lifeboat reached
Neah Bay, 200 miles north,
with the fi rst mate, two
crewmen and the body of the
cook, who died on the way.
Altogether eight seamen
died and three survived. The
captain and his wife sur-
vived after jumping from the
ship into knee-high water
the day after the wreck.
Best read a newspaper
story, published in 1953, in
which the writer who had
witnessed the shipwreck
at the time, told of a coal
pile two stories high on the
ship’s remains and “great
quantities of coal strewn on
the beach.”
“It was a scene I shall
never forget,” the writer
continued. “Tons and tons
of coal piled high in the surf.
Everywhere was wreckage.”
The shipwreck now rests
35 paces in front of the Sil-
ver Sands Hotel in Rocka-
way. As a child, Best, who
lived nearby, would scram-
ble on the ship’s rib cage –
consisting of 150 oak tim-
bers — when it was exposed.
Don Best, a Rockaway resident who has become an authority on the Emily Reed shipwreck, shows a slide of the ship before it
ran aground on what is now Rockaway Beach in 1908.
‘I’M ON MY BELLY, AND I CAN’T
RAISE MY HEAD, AND I’M
THINKING, ‘NO ONE HAS SEEN
THIS SIDE OF THE SHIP
SINCE 1908.’
Don Best
this side of the ship since
1908,’” Best said.
He found the ship’s whis-
tle, which he blew to begin
his lecture. The shrill, loud
whistle would have been
heard all over the long ship,
Best said.
As he grew up, Best
continued to research the
ship’s history and is now an
authority on the shipwreck
of the Emily Reed. His pho-
tos, collected news stories
Cannon Beach History Center and Museum
The sailing schooner, the Emily Reed, was one of the fastest
ships of its kind when it was built in 1880. At 28 years old, it
was an “old lady” when it ran aground off of Garibaldi Beach
(now Rockaway Beach) in 1908.
In 1951 when he was 8,
he discovered an air pocket
under the rib cage and
explored what was left of the
ship’s interior.
“I’m on my belly, and I
can’t raise my head, and I’m
thinking, ‘No one has seen
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and artifacts are included in
his lectures, which he sprin-
kles liberally with humor
and spontaneous comments.
His enthusiasm for dis-
cussing the shipwreck
engaged the audience that
packed the history center.
“I didn’t script this out,”
Best explained about his
unstructured presentation,
“because I want to be just
as excited as you about what
comes out of my mouth.”
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