Somehow, finding cannons at Cannon Beach doesn't surprise me much. But, this past week, two cannons were found at the beach. The first one by Mike Petrone and his daughter who thought the part they saw was just a stump. The second was spotted Monday while the area was being documented.
It is believed that they are from the USS Shark which sank offshore back in 1846.
I did some wikipedia search on the ship and dound out that the 198 ton USS Shark was launched in 1821 and first was used to suppress the African slave trade and later in the stationed in the West Indies to, in addition to slavers, was to intercept PIRATES.
In 1839, it joined the Pacific Squadron and operated by Peru and Panama.
In 1846, it went to Honolulu for repairs in preparation for an extensive exploration of the Columbia River. It reached the Oregon coast on July 15th and crossed the bar at the mouth of the Columbia. After the expedition, the Shark struck an uncharted shoal and was swept into the breakers and became a total loss, but the crew was saved.
An earlier cannon recovered from the wreck in 1898 lent its name to the town of Cannon Beach.
1 comment:
Nice to see another history blog!
Enjoyed reading your post as I was searching up some to fill in some gaps in mine. :)
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