Henry F. Jelley – Old Steam Ships

This is the SS Pacific that sank in 1875. There was also another SS Pacific that sank in 1856 (I’ll cover it later). That one had no survivors, but this one did.

Reading about this ship reminds me how life can change in an instant. This story really got to me because only two people survived, and just one of them was a crew member. That leaves a lot of unanswered questions about how a collision with a wooden sailing ship could sink a steamship so quickly. More than 150 years later, the SS Pacific remains one of the great maritime mysteries.

The SS Pacific was built in 1850, and by 1875, she was already showing her age. She had even sunk once before, in 1861, before being repaired and returned to service. On November 4, 1875, she departed Victoria, British Columbia, bound for San Francisco with an estimated 275 to 300 passengers aboard. Among them were wealthy gold miners returning home, families, and several prominent citizens. In addition to her passengers, she carried valuable cargo, including an estimated 200 pounds of gold dust and coins, worth millions of dollars today. She was commanded by Captain Jefferson Davis Howell, a Confederate Civil War veteran and the brother-in-law of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

At around 10:00 that evening, the Pacific encountered the sailing ship Orpheus, which was heading north. According to later testimony, the crew of the Orpheus mistook the Pacific’s single masthead light for the Cape Flattery lighthouse and unknowingly crossed into the steamer’s path. The crew aboard the Orpheus heard the Pacific sound her whistle, but in the darkness and poor visibility, the two ships were unable to avoid each other.

According to Captain Charles Sawyer of the Orpheus, the Pacific struck his ship with a glancing blow. The heavily built Orpheus was damaged, but her hull remained watertight. After checking his vessel and finding no serious leakage, Sawyer believed the Pacific had continued safely on her voyage. He had no idea what was happening behind him.

Sawyer later recalled: “I made up my mind that she would hit us, and shortly afterward, she blew her whistle and immediately struck us; the blow was a light one. She had evidently stopped her engines and was backing [up] and gave us a glancing blow. When, after I found I was not seriously damaged, I looked for the steamer. I just saw a light on our starboard quarter, and when I looked again, it was gone.”

Fog was one of the greatest dangers faced by ships before modern navigation equipment and still afterward to a degree. A captain could know exactly where his ship was supposed to be and still have no idea what was a few hundred yards ahead. Ships relied heavily on lookouts, whistles, bells, and careful estimates of their position. The safest answer was usually to slow down, but schedules and confidence sometimes worked against caution. In heavy fog, two ships could be dangerously close before either crew ever saw the other.

One detail that surprised me was learning that the Pacific’s crew had reportedly filled several lifeboats with water to help counter the ship’s list caused by the uneven weight of her paddlewheels. It was an inventive (really genius) idea that may have temporarily stabilized the vessel, but it also left those lifeboats far too heavy to launch in an emergency. Whether that decision made any difference will never be known. Within minutes of the collision, the Pacific was overwhelmed by the sea and disappeared beneath the waves. Almost everyone aboard was lost, taking with them the answers to what really happened during those final moments.

Only two people survived the disaster. One was passenger Henry F. Jelley; he was awakened by the noise and commotion. He went on deck, where the crew told him an accident had occurred, but that the ship had sustained no damage. Reassured, Jelley went below again, but just as he climbed into bed, the vessel shuddered under his feet, and he heard the roar of water. He got off the ship and managed to cling to a section of the pilothouse until he was rescued the following morning.

The other survivor was Neil O. Henley, Pacific’s quartermaster, who was asleep in his bunk around 10 p.m. when he heard the crash and woke to find water rushing into the ship “at a furious rate.” He threw on a jacket and hurried up the companionway. “On reaching the deck, all was confusion,” he later recalled. Henley survived for several days on floating wreckage before finally being rescued by a passing vessel.

Unfortunately, neither man witnessed the actual collision. Both were below deck when the ships struck, so neither could explain why the Pacific failed to avoid the Orpheus or exactly what happened on the bridge during those final moments. The officers, helmsman, and Captain Howell all went down with the ship, taking the answers with them.

By now, the Pacific was sinking fast. The cranes holding the lifeboat would not release, but as the ship rolled, the smaller vessel touched the water. Someone on deck cut the fastenings with an ax, freeing the lifeboat. But the craft, overloaded with people and still half-full of water from the earlier attempt to balance the Pacific, capsized, losing women, children, and men. Exactly how quickly the Pacific sank will probably never be known. With only two survivors and no surviving account from her bridge, much of what happened during her final minutes disappeared with the ship.

All the ships I’ve covered that involved collisions have one thing in common. 9 times out of 10, the ship that rams into the other ship usually survives, except with the SS Pacific. At the Canadian coroner’s inquiry, witnesses testified that Pacific’s hull was rotten and leaked badly. Even more, a piece of Pacific’s bow was reportedly found caught in Orpheus’s rigging. The jury concluded that the relatively light collision should not have caused such catastrophic damage if Pacific had been sound and substantial.

For nearly 150 years, the Pacific rested undisturbed beneath more than 1,000 feet of water, beyond the reach of divers and hidden from the world. Then, in 2022, a search team announced they believed they had finally located the long-lost wreck off the Washington coast. The depth, the location, the paddlewheel remains, and recovered artifacts all strongly point to the wreck being the Pacific, and salvage work continues.

Perhaps the greatest treasure isn’t the gold at all. If the wreck can answer even a few of the questions that have lingered since that November night in 1875, it may finally tell us why one of the Pacific Coast’s worst maritime disasters happened. I read somewhere that sometimes history keeps its secrets for generations, but every once in a while, the sea gives one back.

Closing note here: the Pacific almost represents the end of an era. She was built in 1850, when sidewheel steamers were at their peak. By the time she sank in 1875, propeller-driven steamships were becoming the future. In a way, her story bridges two generations of ship design.