Cape Disappointment in Washington state. Isn’t it interesting how some places end up with ominous names? We found one close to home for us Grim folk to check out. And you know what? Cape Disappointment was the opposite of its name for us.
Cape Disappointment is in the southwestern part of Washington State. We will share how this place got its name and history and five of the shipwrecks that happened there. Then we will share a haunting we learned about and will end with some photos from our visit. Since we were transplants to the Pacific Northwest for a short time, this is not an all-inclusive list on any of these topics. We invite the rest of the Grim folk to share things you might know and or have encountered here in the Cape Disappointment area.
What Is With the Name Cape Disappointment
How did Cape Disappointment get its name? To find out, we must go back to 1775 when a Spanish explorer named Bruno de Heceta (1744 – 1807) made a map of the west coast and the area where the mighty Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean. He indicated that it was a place of great interest. He was looking for the possibility of the Columbia being used for shipping, but he didn’t explore this area further.
Now, we fast forward to thirteen years later, in 1788, when the English Captain John Meares (1756 – 1809) attempted and failed to locate de Heceta’s river (we now call it the Columbia River). He couldn’t find the river; consequently, he named this area Cape Disappointment since Captain Meares was a fur trader and not a typical explorer. I think I can understand how this happened. Perhaps with how big the mouth of the Columbia River is along the coast. Maybe he didn’t realize it wasn’t just an inlet?
I can relate to feeling disappointed when I don’t find something I’m looking for, and with this being his issue, the name makes sense from his point of view. I happen to disagree with him. Having hiked some of the trails and explored the North Head Lighthouse, wandering through the old-growth forest in this area, I found it breathtakingly beautiful.
The History of Cape Disappointment
In 1792, American Captain John Gray (1755 – 1806) successfully navigated the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean on his vessel, the Columbia Rediviva. Eventually, Cape Disappointment would be where Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery ended their remarkable expedition to the sea in 1805.
During the Civil War, a camp was established in 1862 to protect the northern side of the Columbia River, and many of the bunkers and other buildings still exist there today. In 1875, the camp was named Fort Canby, after General Edward R.S. Canby. General Canby was killed in California during a fight with the Modoc Indians.
From the 1800s to the modern-day, the Columbia River Bar has claimed over 2,000 ships and hundreds of lives.
Shipwrecks Around Cape Disappointment
Numerous shipwrecks have happened in or around Cape Disappointment. I’m just going to give you five stories we found and enjoyed. One more tidbit before we get into the stories: a couple of the ships were called “barks.”
I didn’t know what this meant; hence, I looked it up, which is best explained visually. It’s a type of square-rigged ship.
General Warren Shipwreck
On January 28, 1852, one of the first steamers to work the Pacific Coast, the sidewheeler General Warren, in route to San Francisco from Portland, got into trouble off Clatsop Spit, sand spit off the coast of Oregon. The captain ran the ship aground and dispatched ten men in the remaining ship’s boats to row to the town of Astoria for help. When rescuers returned, all they found was the wreckage. Forty-two people had died in the surf, including a newly married couple found on the beach with their hands still clasped. Two years later, the entire stern frame washed ashore sixty miles north of Clatsop, demonstrating the power of the currents.
Vandalia Shipwreck
On January 9, 1853, a passing ship captain reported seeing the bark Vandalia struggling, but he didn’t think the ship needed any assistance. The boat washed up near McKenzie Head about a week later. The Vandalia had struck its bottom around Cape Disappointment, and all nine crewmen died.
Lupita Shipwreck
On January 3, 1881, the British bark Lupita ran aground and submerged off Tillamook Head, a raised mound of basalt off the coast of Oregon. Sixteen men died, but the ship’s dog survived, having swum a mile to shore.
J. C. Cousins Shipwreck
On October 7, 1883, the schooner J. C. Cousins was a luxury yacht operated by the State of Oregon as a pilot boat out of Astoria, Oregon. The crew was laden with provisions and moved off Clatsop Spit to await ships needing guidance across the bar. A change in the wind sent her back into the spit. She didn’t come about and was driven hard onto the beach. When rescuers reached the wreck at low tide, they found the ship’s boat, the log, and some papers, but the entire crew of four was missing. Which led to speculation of murder and mutiny. The mystery of why the J.C Cousins beached and what happened to the crew has never been solved.
Bettie M Shipwreck
On March 20, 1976, the ship Bettie M wrecked below the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. She was carrying 900 tons of tuna at the time. This wreck is sometimes visible during extreme low tides near Jetty A.
If you would like a self-guided tour of some of the shipwrecks on the peninsula, grab a free copy of Shipwrecks Along the Discovery Trail.
The North Head Lighthouse Haunting
Our tale is from the North Head Lighthouse and involves the first keeper, Alexander K. Pesonen, and his wife, Mary Watson. The North Head Lighthouse is in a very remote location, which means the lighthouse had very few visitors. And making sure it had coverage twenty-four hours a day meant they had to sustain strict schedules. Cape Disappointment is also the second windiest lighthouse located in the United States. There are reports of wind gusts as high as seventy-four miles per hour.
One of the versions of this story goes that on June 9, 1923, Mary got up early and took her dog, Jerry, for a walk. A short time later, the dog came back, but Mary didn’t. A search party was assembled. Mary’s jacket was found lying on the edge of a cliff, 194 feet above the ocean. Mary’s body was later found in a cove at the base of the cliff.
Visitors have reported seeing Mary’s ghost wandering through the lighthouse and the house where she once had lived. In 2019, the Travel Channel’s reality show, Ghost Adventures, did an episode that focused on Cape Disappointment, and they claimed to have found unexplained and paranormal phenomena during their visit.
Cape Disappointment Tourist Information
The park continues to rent out the lighthouse to guests by reservation. If you do stay and would like to share your story, please feel free to share in the comments. We didn’t know about this during our visit, so we didn’t get to try. If only y’all could see my pouty face at learning of the haunting. This would have been incredible, and cool to experience.
Here is a link for Cape Disappointment State Park. The site has important information about hours, reservations, the Discover Pass, and other permits and weather information. I highly recommend reviewing it before your visit. In addition, here is another link to some things to do in Cape Disappointment while you’re visiting. I really liked the trail descriptions and information and found it thoughtful.
Some Travel Advice
Here are a couple of helpful tips we found to be beneficial. Timing is everything. For example, if you want to explore shipwrecks at low tide, you will need to know when low tide is.
If it’s at night, drop a glow stick from your starting point on the beach and another after you’ve walked a bit. When it’s dark, it’s extremely easy to lose your sense of direction on the beach. This will help you find your way back with much less stress.
Y’all should google the King Tide images of Cape Disappointment; these typically occur around November and December. Definitely plan accordingly and if your goal is to catch some of these tides, then bundle up—those winds bite!
What We Experienced At Cape Disappointment
Our visit was in September 2019, and it was a family affair. In our merry band of wandering fools, we had four adults, a young adult, and our granddaughter Wednesday, who was only one at the time. Papa was still recovering from his ACL replacement surgery, and I have a bad knee, so we stuck to more accessible trails. We traveled from Astoria, Oregon’s sunshine to the cape. We were pleasantly surprised by the drastic weather change. As you can see from our photos, we got fog with misty rain. It was perfect!! I couldn’t have been more excited, which made sharing some scary stories much better. I love it when nature sets the stage!
We did see a ship outline from one of our trails, and everyone got a weird, ominous feeling by the North Head Lighthouse (remember now, we didn’t know about the haunting during our visit).
Oddly, there was a strong odor of decay in the air. After we returned home from our visit, the Oregonian newspaper reported that there had been above-average amounts of acid rain while we were there. Maybe this was the cause? We aren’t sure.
We enjoyed ourselves immensely, and the grandbaby was intrigued by some areas of mist as we walked by. The skeptic in me wonders if this wasn’t just because she saw it move for the first time. Since she was from Colorado, the fog wouldn’t be a common occurrence for her. We love nature walks, hikes, and backpacking, so we highly recommend a visit if you like coastlines, lighthouses, and fabulous views of the ocean.
If You Want More of Our Travels
If you would like to see some of the other places we have visited, we have attached a couple of links that might be of interest. Relatively close to Cape Disappointment is a historic cemetery in Portland, Oregon that we loved, Lone Fir Cemetery. We have other places in the pacific northwest to share in the future. Please check back for those. If you like cemeteries, we have one from Colorado with a dark-sorted past, and we share our first visit to the Greenwood Cemetery. But we had to go back and are working on an updated second visit (we captured some weird things in a few of the pictures.) We will post that one after a bit more historical research.
Thank you for spending time with us today. We appreciate each and every one of you!
Sources
https://www.parks.wa.gov/486/Cape-Disappointment
https://washingtonisforadventure.com/cape-disappointment-state-park/
https://www.historylink.org/File/7936
https://www.opb.org/news/article/graveyard-pacific-maritime-oregon-astoria/
https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/ghost-adventures/photos/ghost-adventures-cape-disappointment
