PORT ANGELES — Larry Lang will talk about the Hudson’s Bay Co. schooner Cadboro at the Clallam County Historical Society’s History Tales lecture series at 2:30 p.m. today (Sunday, Jan. 5).
The free presentation will be at the First United Methodist Church, 110 E. Seventh St., Port Angeles.
Parking and entry to the church’s social hall are on Laurel Street.
Lang — a retired National Park Service ranger, a lifelong amateur historian and genealogist and a volunteer with the Clallam County Historical Society — will discuss the history of the Cadboro in relation to Clallam County.
In May 1826, Cadboro set sail from England. Its home base would be Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.
It arrived eight months later, having traveled a distance of 15,000 miles via Easter Island and the Sandwich Islands — the Hawaiian Islands, named the Sandwich Islands by Capt. James Cook in 1778.
Thus began a term of more than 30 years’ service transporting personnel and goods to Alaska, California and the Sandwich Islands.
The schooner facilitated the establishment of trade with native tribes in remote coastal areas that were otherwise inaccessible and was instrumental in the establishment of outposts that became the British Columbia cities of Victoria and Vancouver.
The most tragic incident involving the Cadboro was the little-remembered destruction, by cannon fire, of the native village at New Dungeness in 1828.
The schooner wrecked on the shore 10 miles from there in 1862. Several of the cannons from the wreck were salvaged decades later, only to be lost to history.
In June 2013, one of the cannons came to light.
Proving the origin of the cannon, its possible involvement in the village raid and the Cadboro’s involvement in Clallam County are the subjects of this presentation.
For more information, call the Clallam County Historical Society’s office at 360-452-2662 or e-mail
artifact@olypen.com.
