1907 — July 21, liner Columbia hit by schooner San Pedro in fog, sinks off Shelter Cove, no. CA–80-88

–80-88 Blanchard estimated death toll range:

There is no single source which appears to us be the definitive source for the death toll.
We choose to rule out the newspaper accounts in that we have a number of published
sources, including US government sources which provide numbers, though the two government agencies cited note different death tolls. Thus, we use for the low-end of our estimated death toll range, the number 80 noted by the US Bureau of Navigation. For the high-end of our estimated death toll we rely on Dalton, Gibbs and Wrecksite.eu, all of which note 88 fatalities We point out that Gibbs also noted 87 fatalities in a different publication, and that the US Steamship Inspection Service noted 86, both numbers falling with the death toll estimate we choose to show.

–150 Oakland Tribune. “Steamers Collide off the coast of Mendocino County. 150…Drowned.” 7-22-1907, p.1.
[Headline editor death toll. The AP story below the headline notes 100-150 deaths.]
–100-150 Associated Press. “Steamers Collide off the coast of Mendocino County…” 7-22-1907, p. 1.
–100 Oakland Tribune, CA. “Shipwreck One of Worst Since Janeiro’s Loss…” 8-30-1929, D3.
— 88 Dalton. A Long, Dangerous Coastline: Shipwreck Tales from Alaska to California. 2010, p.65.
—<88 Gibbs, Jim. Oregon’s Salty Coast. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1978, p. 96. -- 88 Wrecksite.eu. “Columbia SS (1880 ~1906) Columbia SS (+1907).” Accessed 9-22-2021.* -- 87 Gibbs, Jim. Disaster Log of Ships…shipwrecks, California to Alaska. 1971, p. 33. -- 86 U.S. Steamship Inspection Service. Annual Report, 1908, p. 13. -- 80 Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. 1972, p. 206. -- 80 U.S. Bureau of Navigation. Merchant Vessels of the United States…1908, p. 381. *This wrecksite.eu webpage notes as references: Lloyd’s of London and Lloyd’s Register of Casualty Returns. Narrative Information Gibbs, Disaster Log of Ships: “On the black night of July 20, 1907 [just after midnight, thus July 21], the wooden steam schooner San Pedro collided with the much larger passenger liner Columbia off Shelter Cove, south of Mendocino Cape. The San Pedro struck her bow firmly into the side of the liner tearing a gash 30 feet wide. In a mad moment of terror, the Columbia careened sharply and as her whistle emitted calls of distress the 200 passengers, some clad only in night clothes, scrambled to the decks. Counting the crew, the Columbia had 249 persons aboard. So quickly did the liner go down that many terrified passengers never had a chance. In only five minutes the liner was gone, and when the death toll was finally released, the number lost was 87. The San Pedro was also badly damaged. She lost her mainmast, part of her cutwater and her battered bow was filled with water. Despite this, 70 survivors of the Columbia were taken aboard…adding more weight to the little 400 ton vessel. The SS George W. Elder finally came to the rescue, picking up the survivors. The San Pedro was towed to port. Masters of both ships were found guilty, one for not being on the bridge after being called by the watch officer, the other for travelling at excessive speed in fog-patched weather. The 2,721 ton steel liner Columbia, built in 1880, was the first vessel in the world equipped with electric lights.” (Gibbs, Jim. Disaster Log of Ships…shipwrecks, California to Alaska. 1971, p. 33.) Gibbs, Oregon’s Salty Coast: “The SS Columbia was in a collision with another vessel near Point Delgada, Calif., July 21, 1907, where estimates of the dead ranged up to 88…” (Gibbs, Jim. Oregon’s Salty Coast. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1978, p. 96.) US Bureau Navigation: According to the Bureau of Navigation there were 227 aboard the Columbia, from which all the fatalities occurred. (U.S. Bureau of Navigation. Merchant Vessels of the U.S.…1908, p. 381.) US Steamboat Inspection Service: “The most serious disaster of the year was the collision of the Columbia and San Pedro, which occurred off Shelter Cove, California, a little after midnight on July 21, 1907, and in which 86 persons lost their lives and there was a large property loss. The weather was foggy, which was doubtless partly responsible for the disaster. The San Pedro rammed the Columbia, causing the latter vessel to sink. The disaster was thoroughly investigated by the officers of this Service, and as a result of their findings the license of B. Hendriksen, chief mate off the San Pedro, was revoked, and the license of Magnus Hanson, master of the San Pedro, was suspended for twelve months.” (US Steamship Inspection Service. Annual Report, 1908, p13.) Newspapers July 22, Oakland Tribune: “By Associated Press. San Francisco, July 22. – In one of the worst marine disasters in the history of the California coast, between 100 and 150 lives were lost, as far as has been learned, by a midnight collision between the steamer Columbia and the steam lumber schooner San Pedro in Shelter Cove, twelve miles southwest of the Mendocino-Humboldt county line, between 12 and 1 o’clock yesterday morning. Only meager details of the tragedy have been received… Scores of telegrams to Eureka, the nearest point of importance, remain unanswered. The few details know here were brought by the steamer Roanoke and the steam schooner Daisy Mitchell, which arrived in San Francisco this forenoon. “The Columbia, a 300-foot steel vessel of the San Francisco and Portland Steamship Co., while bound from San Francisco for Portland, Or., with 189 passengers and a crew of sixty, collided with and was rammed by the San Pedro, a 160-foot wooden schooner, southbound for this city. The sea was smooth but the weather was foggy. The San Pedro looming out of the mist a few ship’s lengths away, bore down on the Columbia at high speed, despite frantic efforts to clear, and with a grinding crash sank her stem fully ten feet into the Columbia’s port-bow. “Nearly all of the Columbia’s passengers and many of her crew were asleep in their cabins and bunks when the crash came. As the San Pedro backed away the sea poured in through the ragged hole in the Columbia’s bow above and below her water line, and in five minutes the vessel sank to the bottom, the deep waters of Shelter Cove covering even the tips of her masts. “….According to J. S. Flynn, a passenger on the Roanoke, Captain P. A. Doran of the Columbia, succeeded in launching four life boats and two rafts before the Columbia sank. Flynn, in an interview as quoted as saying that eight-eight passengers – all men, got away in this manner and were saved; that Captain Doran acted with great coolness in the face of death and went down with the ship. Flynn is further quoted as saying that not one of the hundred off women passengers were saved. “Shortly after the collision the steamers Roanoke and George W. Elder and the steam schooner Daisy Mitchell, all southbound, came upon the scene and stood by. The Elder took the San Pedro in tow and the latest report announces their arrival in Eureka. “The stem of the San Pedro was smashed to splinters, one of her masts was snapped off at the deck, she was settling and had a heavy list when taken in tow. Captain Hansen remained on board.” July 24, Oakland Tribune: “ ‘The San Pedro refused to take passengers not only from my boat, but from all the boats, saying that they had all the people on board they could accommodate. Had they taken off the passengers and permitted the empty boats to return for survivors at least thirty or forty more passengers would have been saved. It is not true that many people went down in the interior of the vessel. All had time to get to the decks, and those that were lost went down because they could not cling to wreckage for hours, and the boats that were full could not return for them. “ ‘Other officers have omitted this statement from their reports because it would increase the liability of the owners of the San Pedro, and officers don’t like to antagonize owners because it makes it difficult for them to get a berth. I know it will hurt me, but I intend to tell the truth, and I say that the San Pedro refused to take passengers from other boats than mine.’ “The foregoing is a portion of a statement made by Robert Hawse, third officer of the Columbia, during which he explained the causes of the accident and the events following it. Hawse, who saved the lives of many passengers with his boat, made the following statement: The United States laws regulating navigation require that a vessel during a fog, mist or snow-story shall proceed at reduced speed, but as a matter of fact they never do. The Columbia was going at full speed and the fog was heavy. As the captain was on the bridge, no one else could be responsible. When I am on the bridge during a fog I report to the captain and follow his orders regarding speed. The San Pedro was going at full speed, and her captain was not on the bridge, where he should have been during a fog, at least part of the time. Furthermore, we were headed in our proper course, while the San Pedro was not. When she struck us she was headed to sea, or on a course that would have taken her to China, whereas she was bound for San Pedro. Moreover, the officer on her bridge did not wait for the Columbia’s signal,, in which he was criminally negligent. She was on our starboard, and the Columbia blew two blasts to pass her on the starboard. Instead of waiting for the two blasts, the officer on the bridge blew one blast before he had had time to hear the second blast of the Columbia and ported the helm. The Columbia then gave three blast for full speed astern, and instead of doing the same the San Pedro merely stopped her engines. Had her engines been reversed when the Columbia gave three blasts the impact of the collision would have been much less. What I blame them most for was not taking our passengers. When I returned to them with the second boatload, they replied that they were full up, and I got the same answer to repeated requests to take my passengers aboard. I passed a number of people clinging to the wreckage, but I could not take them aboard, as the boat was loaded…. The San Pedro did this not only with me, but with other officers in command of boats. The boats cruised around until daylight, full of people whom the San Pedro refused to take on board. Many of them were naked women, shivering under stripe of sail canvas…. There is no doubt but what this action on the part of the officers of the San Pedro sacrificed between thirty and forty lives that could have been saved, and when the time comes I will make this statement under oath to the inspectors. “Hawse spoke very highly of the courage of the women who took refuge in his boat. He said that he saw two women floating in the water and ordered his men to row to them. This is the story in his own words: When we reached them I saw that one of the women was either dead or unconscious, and that the other, only a young girl, was keeping her companion afloat. I wanted to take the girl in firs, but she said no, she was all right, but that her companion needed assistance. I took the unconscious woman in the boat – I did not learn er name – and then took in the girl. She said her name was Maybelle Watson and that she lived in Berkeley. She said she had got into one of the port boats, but as they were too high to launch on account of the list to starboard, she had been thrown out when the vessel went down. She had on a life belt, but her companion had none. She came up and found the other woman floating near her and supported her. When I found them they must have been in the water for two hours, and the fortitude of this girl cannot be too highly praised. Her companion afterward became delirious and she worked over her all night. I picked up a number of others, but I did not learn their names.’” (Oakland Tribune, CA. “San Pedro Could Have Saved More Lives, He Claims.” 7-24-1907, p. 1.) Sources Associated Press. “Steamers Collide off the coast of Mendocino County. 150 Passengers Drowned.” Oakland Tribune, CA, 7-22-1907, p.1. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/oakland-tribune-jul-22-1907-p-1/ Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972. Dalton, Anthony. A Long, Dangerous Coastline: Shipwreck Tales from Alaska to California. Chapter 7, Columbia: Speed Kills,” pp. 60-65. Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary: Heritage House Publishing. 2010. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=LOQ67VeU3WwC&pg=PA63&dq=SS+Columbia+(1880)#v=onepage&q=SS%20Columbia%20(1880)&f=true Gibbs, Jim. Disaster Log of Ships: A Pictorial account of shipwrecks, California to Alaska. NY: Bonanza Books, 1971. Gibbs, Jim. Oregon’s Salty Coast. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1978. Oakland Tribune, CA. “Horrible Scenes Follow Collision At Sea.” 7-22-1907, p. 2. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/oakland-tribune-jul-22-1907-p-2/ Oakland Tribune, CA. “San Pedro Could Have Saved More Lives, He Claims.” 7-24-1907, p. 1. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/oakland-tribune-jul-24-1907-p-1/ Oakland Tribune, CA. “Shipwreck [San Juan] One of Worst Since Janeiro’s Loss, 1901.” 8-30-1929, D3. At: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=105413307 Oakland Tribune, CA. “Steamers Collide off the coast of Mendocino County. 150 Passengers Drowned.” 7-22-1907, p. 1. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/oakland-tribune-jul-22-1907-p-1/ The Bakersfield Californian. “Steamer Pomona Arrives With Seamen and One Passenger.” 8-23-1907, p1. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/bakersfield-californian-jul-23-1907-p-1/ United States Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce and Labor. Fortieth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States…For the Year Ended June 30, 1908. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1908. Digitized by Google. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=kF0uAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsn88028129#v=onepage&q&f=false United States Steamboat-Inspection Service. Annual Report of the Supervising Inspector General, Steamboat-Inspection Service to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1908. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1908. 387 pages. Digitized by Google. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=5FcpAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Wrecksite.eu. “Columbia SS (1880 ~1906) Columbia SS (+1907).” Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?275595