Here’s one of several newspaper articles I have collected about the 
Beeswax wreck
 
* Remember it is an article of 1891, so it will reflect what was known at 
that time.

* The date of the wreck by today’s  experts estimated to be from the 1693 
wreck of a Spanish ship

* Not known at the time of the article was that a tsunami that hit the 
Oregon coast Jan. 26, 1700 which may have affected the dispersing of the 
wreck and the beeswax cargo. 

* Note some were presenting faulty facts based assumptions, and perhaps 
used their position of authority to further the falsities.   

* Archeologists today have stated that an exact position of the wreck was 
never made, however, this article appears to give such a location.   

Galveston Daily News
Sunday, December 27, 1891 Galveston, Texas

=====article start=====

FROM A SPANISH SHIP.

Hunting For Beeswax Buried in
the Sands

By the Waves of a Century - A Legend
Well Authenticated - Covered 
With Letters.

Sunday Oregonian.
"Mining for beeswax, sounds rather odd,
does it not?" said a Nehalem rancher, who for
a quarter of a century has dwelt in that rich
but inaccessible quarter of the world. "But it
is a fact, nevertheless; and when I strike the
'signs' I am following now I am just as sure
of unearthing a chunk of beeswax, large or
small, as the other kind of miners are of
finding ore when they discover the float or
surface outcroppings, which invariably lead
up to a body of ore." The above remarks
were addressed to the writer a few weeks
ago as he was "mining for clams" at the
mouth of the Nehalem river, and they 
recalled an ancient tale that has oft been told
and the truth of which has oft been questioned.
From the time when Washington
Irving threw a halo of romance around this
Oregon of ours in his Bonneville tales, this
charming land of the west has been the field
of many a legend, tradition and romance,
largely founded on facts, and the wreck of the
beeswax ship is one of these facts. Periodically
some scientific sharp who draws a salary
from the government with the understanding
that he is expected to know something about
geology, appears in print with an article 
heavily ballasted with high-sounding terms,
and explaining that the beeswax ship of Nehalem
is a myth, and that the article which the
Nehalemites mine is mineral wax. The Scientific
American in a recent issue says: "The
wax is probably of a mineral nature. The fact
that it is found in the soil at a distance from
the beach, and elevated above the sea level,
entirely discredits the Indian legend to the
effect that it came from a vessel that was wrecked
on the coast. The occurrence in quantity
indicates the possibility of a cretaceous or
tottiary lignite bed in the neighborhood. The
wax belongs to the hydrocarbon series allied to
the retinites and ambers -the fossil remains
from the resinous trees of the tertiary age."
This reads well, and has a scientific jingle to
it that might carry conviction to some who are
unfamiliar with the situations surrounding the
beeswax mine.

According to the legends of the Indians,
whose

ANCESTORS WERE HERE,

and the observations of the white men who
came afterward, the beeswax came from a
Spanish vessel that was wrecked at the mouth
of the Nehalem river about 120 years ago.
Adam, the venerable Clatsop Indian, who died
in Tillamook last year at the advanced age of 
105 years, often stated that the vessel was
wrecked when his father was a young man,
and the testimony of other Indians, who received
the story from their ancestors, all place
the date about 1770. The theory most commonly
advanced is that the vessel was a Spanish
brig trading between China and some of
the Mexicans or South American cities, and
that by some accident, mutiny, or, other
trouble, she was driven far out of her course
and during thick weather went ashore on
Nehalem split. This statement is verified by
the finding of several dishes made of red clay
such as was not used for that purpose in this
country at that time. These dishes and jars
were frequently found on the beach when
John Hobson of this city came here with
several other white men, forty-nine years ago,
and some of them are still in possession of
Indians at Tillamook. At that time all traces 
of the wreck had not disappeared and pieces
of her timbers were occasionally found. Mr.
Hobson secured a piece of a timber to which
two spikes were still clinging. The specimen
was teak wood. The spikes were of copper,
excellently finished and the timbers had been
strapped with the same metal. The exact location
of the wreck from the most reliable reports
obtainable from the Indians was a few
hundred feet north of the present mouth of
the Nehalem river on a sand split which at that
time stretched away in a southerly direction
on the north side of the river.

When the vessel broke up her cargo was
strewn along the beach for a long distance,
and while the storms and shifting sands covered
and uncovered it, and generations of
aborigines came and went, yet it withstood
the ravages of time, and when the pale-faced
Nehalemite began mining for it a century
after it had been deposited there, he found
that it would melt and mould as clear and
bright as though it were fresh from the hive of
the industrious bees who had made use of it in
their oriental homes ages before. To return
to the opening remark of this story. The men
who at present and for years past have been
collecting this beeswax have made almost a
science of discovering where it lies, and they
trail it down with as much nicety
and skill as the gold hunter displays
in following up a lead. Every year the Nehalem
river rises rapidly and rushes down
to the sea 

WITH TERRIFIC FORCE,

carrying with it great quantities of alluvial
matter which is deposited on the wide spit at
the month of the river. Beside this rich soil,
trees, stumps and logs in great numbers are
strewn along the beach at the mouth of this
mad little river, and as the large but buoyant
chunks of beeswax were knocked about by the
waves, they naturally lodged in behind many
of the huge logs that in time became covered
with other alluvial deposits which continued
to come down year after year until eventually
the logs were hidden from view, and
when the north wind blew, a layer of white
sand was spread over the rich black soil.
which had wandered far from where it
would be valuable in producing a crop of
fruit or vegetables. Years after the logs and
the beeswax had been hidden by the sand, the
white settlers came into this region, but at that
time they had no particular use for beeswax,
and merely picked up what was lying on the
beach, where it had been washed by severe
storms, not troubling themselves about that
which the Indians told them was lying beneath
the sand. Now matters are different; the
beeswax miner starts forth after a high tide
and storm and begins his search. Here and eddying
current has cut away a little gully on the
beach or split, and the walls of that gully, although
it be but a few inches in depth,
show a strata of rich black soil in strange
contrast to the white sand. This black soil
must have been caused by a decaying log,
against which similar soil had lodged generations
before. The removal of a few shovelsful
of sand gives the beeswax miner an idea
of the position in which the tree was lying
before it rolled away. Then it is an easy matter
to follow it up and unearth the pieces of
beeswax which may have lodged there and are
still intact, although years have elapsed since
the tree or log crumbled to dust. Of course
the beeswax miner does not find a chunk of
beeswax at every speck of black soil scattered
among the sands, but for along time there
have been several hundred pounds unearthed
and marketed every year. A grocery firm in
this city handles the most of the product, and
last week received a shipment of 1700 pounds
from one man who makes a business of collecting
it, he receiving for the lot 20 cents per 
pound.

Many of the pieces which are brought to
light are covered with letters, signs and 
indecipherable hieroglyphics. These are readily
sought for by lovers of the curious and

BRING GOOD ??????.

In this city there are almost a dozen such
pieces, ranging in weight from eight to twenty-
five pounds, and if the meaning of all the
strange marks on the larger pieces could be
determined would no doubt add a chapter
to the early history of the Pacific coast that
would prove interesting in the extreme. Mr.
Hobson, in his researches, succeeded in finding
a piece of a large candle made from the
wax. It had apparently melted so as to seal
up airtight a small piece of woolen wick,
which was revealed on cutting one end of
the candle. This effectually disproves the
theory that the substance is natural mineral
wax from a Nehalem ledge, even should the
hieroglyphics and the stories of the early
settlers fail in doing so, and while the theory
of the Scientific American has caused several
prospectors to look for the "mineral wax
ledge," yet it will not prove so
valuable a resource to be advertised
as the Nehalem coal ledges. The reason for
the public disbelieving the story of the beeswax
ship is no doubt because it has been so
frequently confused with the Nehalem treasure
ship, an unfortunate craft that, according
to the copper-colored historieua of a century
ago, discharged a large quantity of Spanish
doubloons near Kearney mountain, about six
miles north of the spot where the beeswax ship
left her bones. This treasure has caused almost
as much excitement and comment on the
Pacific coast as that of Captain Kidd caused
on the Atlantic coast. Every year parties
from the east come out and spend considerable
time and money endeavoring to locate
the wealth. One of these treasure-seekers,
who has been hunting the phantom for years,
showed me some interesting documents calculated
to prove the existence of the treasure,
and in a future letter I may give the story of
the "treasure ship," the existence of which,
while not so well established as that of the
beeswax ship, is still a part of the early history
or traditions of Oregon.

=====End=====

Category Folder - Archeology of Beekeeping

Topic - The Beeswax Wreck

Articles on file related to this topic:

1890 - A mine of Beeswax
1891 - From a Spanish Ship

Best Wishes,
Joe
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles

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