The Sad, Abandoned Remains of the MARY D. HUME (1881) - Arctic Whaler and Tugboat

we're looking at a unique piece of maritime history or at least the remains of it this is the mary d hume she's battled the arctic storms hauled in some of the largest whaling catches and claims the title of being the longest serving commercial vessel on the american west coast all the while retaining her initial name a detail that's not common with ships that have served for so long it seems that almost every step of her career was colored by some sort of curiosity or point of interest and she still today sits derelict on the oregon coast rotting away despite being a registered historic site [Music] while i find her story to be interesting this is not the tale of some perilous shipwreck or timeless drama at sea although she did have her fair share of both this is simply a tired old ship suffering decades of neglect that i feel deserves to have her story told [Music] the story of the mary d hume began with a man named robert hume born to a poor family in augusta maine he found work at his brother's cannery on the west coast when he was 18 and moved up the ladder until he founded his own along the rogue river in oregon in the 1870s his cannery produced hundreds of tons of salmon for the united states until he became the self-proclaimed salmon king of oregon robert built a town for his company across from ellensburg modern day gold beach oregon and built his company empire including a fleet of freight steamships one of these ships the varuna beached itself on the bar at the mouth of the gold river in june 1880 robert's company salvaged the engines and some of the fixtures and immediately set out to work at replacing the wrecked freighter while the state of oregon today is still covered in heavy forests the forests in the 1880s were still mostly old wood meaning ancient trees that had grown to be massive robert found a white cedar that was 141 feet tall which served as the ship's keel it was cut down and floated down the river supposedly being called the largest tree ever brought down the rogue river it was so large that this tree enabled his company to craft this new 98-foot ship's entire keel out of a single tree the ribs were made of cedar roots and myrtle wood was used as its dowels ellensburg was not a shipbuilding town but it was financially struggling and unemployment was high robert wanted to build the ship in this town not for his own convenience but to help out the local community this was exciting for the town workers were at once employed with building a new shipyard and then on with building the vessel herself the ship took a few months to construct and was built only a few hundred feet from where she now rests the steam engines from the wreck of the varuna were installed in her but in the week before her launch she was almost completely destroyed when the rogue river swelled flooding the nearby towns finally on january 20 1881 the mary d hume was launched to a crowd of spectators and named after robert's second wife mary duncan hume she served as a freighter exporting seafood out of the rogue river down to san francisco and returning with lumber and other goods occasionally the mary hume would act as a tug or a tow boat often pulling log rafts down the river for the lumber industry she acted in this role for less than nine years before her real adventure started when she was sold to the pacific whaling company for twenty five thousand dollars in eighteen eighty nine today that's about seven hundred and ninety five thousand dollars and next week it'll be a lot more whaling in the arctic was at its peak during this time and the mary hume became one of the icons of the industry she was rigged up as a brigantine before being sent up from the american west coast towards the beaufort sea above alaska however she encountered a rough storm in the aleutian islands tearing off her brand new rigging which needed to be replaced with the leftover masts from an old whaling vessel from here she would sail two significant whaling voyages the first one set a record for being the most lucrative whaling voyage in history scoring 37 kills and returning with a catch worth 400 000 in 1892 or almost 13 million dollars today the second voyage however was a much darker affair perhaps set up for it by the success of her first voyage the mary hume's crew were determined to stay in the arctic until they had a prize to return with they had bad luck finding any whales at first and ended up spending six whole winters in the arctic waiting they wintered near herschel island by the border of canada and alaska and while wintering they often entertain the natives and let them tour their vessel with the first mate snapping some of these photographs along the way but cabin fever set in as winters alone in the arctic will inevitably result in suicide attempts became common and illness spread the crew that died were kept frozen in the winter until the spring thaw allowed their fellow crewmen to bury them on herschel island where they still are today the pacific whaling company frequently sent up fresh supplies and at different intervals throughout the voyage would replace the crew and officers on her final return voyage from the arctic after having nearly set a second record this time for the longest whaling voyage into the arctic she encountered another nasty storm her boats were torn off her hatches ripped away and two crewmen were washed off the deck and drowned only a few days from returning home from their long arctic venture the mary hume was nearly lost but her crew kept her afloat until she limped back into harbor her wailing career was over and the mary hume was now sold to the northwest fisheries company who used her as a freighter and tow boat after acquiring her in 1900 the old engines from the varuna were replaced with brand new ones but before they were fully broken in the mary hume sank in the new chegek river she was raised and towed down to seattle where she was fixed up once more she sailed out of seattle for the american tugboat company and they're the ones who had her superstructure rebuilt to what you see today giving her the large cabin and upper deck house she was fitted out as an ocean-going tug and would sail as one for the rest of her career in 1939 she was given another second-hand engine this one salvaged from the columbia river light ship and in 1954 the mary hume was converted to diesel she was finally retired in 1978 having served the longest career of any commercial vessel on the west coast at 97 years she was donated to the curry county historical society and steamed into gold beach formerly ellensburg where she was built under her own power with this gentleman a man named captain lawrence mo johnson captaining her home with pride she was to become a museum ship with the town celebrating her return and the appreciation for what her construction meant to the town nearly a hundred years prior was not forgotten she was to be the pride of gold beach she was hoisted up onto a sling to allow for work to be conducted under her hull but the sling collapsed a hole was ripped into the hull and she sank in four feet of water she wasn't a total loss right away and there was hope for re-floating and fixing her but there was a lawsuit over the ownership of the vessel and lawyers drained away all the money meant for her restoration after a hundred years at sea sailing to the far reaches of the globe and being promised a place of honor in the town that she saved the mary hume was abandoned this wasn't for lack of trying the town's folk of gold beach really did give it their all but without the funds nothing was possible it was in 1985 that she fell from her cradle and sank in the rogue river mud many of her fittings were stripped but the nearly 40 years since have rotted her timbers and collapsed her deck houses at times exceptionally low tides will reveal even her lower hull while the highest of tides nearly submerged the more than 140 year old vessel completely what we see today is her hull still mostly intact but her super structure collapsing away her deck machinery and possibly even her engine are still in place as well as her forward anchor crane and winch it amazes me that we can still see the wooden interior decor of her wheelhouse the funnel stands prominently and the ship still rests against the cradle that failed her her brass portholes are long gone and grass grows thick on her after deck we see the door frame that once led from the deck into the crew quarters and a lone life boat davit stands on the port side although one can still distinguish her features today she doesn't have much longer until she's nothing more than an unrecognizable heap of soggy timber [Music] if you enjoyed this video please take a moment to like comment and subscribe for more a special thank you to my patreon supporters who helped me to be able to document these stories of maritime history and ghost towns the way that i've always wanted to a special thanks to supporters kaiser wilhelm ii trent gregor zach richards tom shavada donald anderson cody henriks rob m amos mayhew corey andrews dakota charbonneau nicholas masella zolt bognar eric morang history army productions and marlo perez thank you very much for watching

Channel: Part-Time Explorer

Views: 136,055

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Id: nUEsydEOfKg

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 18 2022