Fifty-Year-Old Brig Is to Load Cargo of Lumber at Mukilteo for This Port
HULL IS EVERLASTING
In Spite of Age and Shipwreck Her Ancient Timbers Still Hang Together
The brig Tanner is going to celebrate her jubilee by making another voyage from the north to this port. At least half a dozen times has this time-worn craft been wrecked, and as often has her obituary been written. She has been sailing the seas since 1855, when she was launched from a shipyard long passed away at Smithtown, N. Y. “Arrived, brig Tanner, in distress,” Is an entry which appears with surprlsing frequency on the records of the Merchants’ Exchange. She knows all about Davy Jones’ locker from personal observation, and more than once in the “disaster” column of the marine records she has been classed as “wreck, total loss.”
Two years ago off the Washington coast she was driven ashore in a heavy gale. When the wind died down and the waters subsided the remains of the Tanner were lying among the potato vines almost as far Inland as the cabin of the settler on whose clearing the old brig had laid her bones. Any vessel but the Tanner would have been on that Washington farm yet, and even the Tanner took quite a rest. But the brig was part of the life of Captain Newhall, and that rugged old mariner succeeded in getting his boat back into the water. He put her In commission again and made a trip to this port. During the voyage she developed a series of alarming leaks. The crew mutinied, but changed their minds after an interview with Captain Newhall and brought the vessel to this port.
She returned to Port Angeles and there was dismantled and consigned to the boneyard. And now, in the fiftieth year of the brig’s age, comes Captain E. R. Estvold and buys the sturdy bones of the ancient brig. With the new owner in command the Tanner left Port Angeles on Thursday for Mukilteo, where she will load lumber for San Francisco. If her timbers can hold the cargo together the cargo will keep the Tanner afloat, and there is a strong probability that before many days have passed John Hyslop, from his tower on Point Lobos, will telephone to the Merchants’ Exchange, “Brig Tanner in distress, five miles.”
San Francisco Call, San Francisco, CA, June 10, 1905