Having written last of Fort Stevens on the south side of the mouth of the Columbia River, the lynchpin of the triad of forts arranged to guard the entrance from the sea from 1865 until 1947, it is time to turn our attention to the north side of the river. First, Fort Canby set up on the headland on the north side of the entrance to the mouth. Even today, a visit by car to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center – literally erected upon the aprons of one of Fort Canby’s former battery aprons – takes you winding along a narrow densely forested lane giving you just a taste of the primeval nature of the site.

IDEA OF TWO FORTS

As discussed last time, the idea of fortifying the river mouth took a long time to germinate and come to fruition. In the American Civil War plans, three forts were called for: Point Adams (Fort Stevens), Cape Disappointment (Fort Canby) and Chinook Head (Fort Columbia). Point Adams on the Oregon side of the river’s mouth with Fort Canby and Fort Columbia on the Washington side. Money procured, but partly due to the difficulty in shipping enough artillery pieces to the-then farthest reaches of the country – in the midst of a war against itself – a semblance of a fort on the Washington side went up only on the Cape Disappointment headland. The last piece of the triangle waited until the Endicott Board ordered a totally new scheme of defense for the American seaboard in 1886.

STATE PARKS TODAY

Like on the Oregon side of the river, the State of Washington moved to protect the two forts that did eventually come forth at the turn of the 19th century – Cape Disappointment State Park – formerly Fort Canby State Park – and Fort Columbia State Park. Cape Disappointment State Park, like its brother to the south, Fort Stevens State Park, is very popular, especially with campers. Reservations are a must in the summer. Also, like Fort Stevens and Cape Disappointment share little lake settings along with wide long beaches.

BEGINNINGS

The name Cape Disappointment came about when in 1788, English captain John Meares mistook the river bar passage and ended up against the cliffs and rocks of the cape. Not able to get across, he gave the cape its name. A few years later, 1792, American Robert Gray was able to get over the river bar, moving upstream as far about as Chinook Point. He name the river after his ship, the Columbia Redivia. The first part of the name stuck, the second part meant the ship had been rebuilt, or in Latin “revived”.

Until early in the 20th century, the Columbia River bar was one of the most dangerous places for ships to cross. Tides, everchanging sands, winds and huge outward flow of one of North America’s greatest rivers conspired to destroy over 2,000 vessels. The taming or at least quieting this stretch of sea is the subject for another post, I am sure.

LIGHTING UP THE NIGHT

One of the first modifications to the river mouth was the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse in 1856. This was the eighth lighthouse on the West Coast and the oldest one still functioning.

The first attempt at building the lighthouse made in 1853. The Oriole out of San Francisco came north carrying supplies to build the light. Alas, the Oriole sank off the cliffs she was aiming to build a light atop. The crew saves themselves, but the supplies for building lost. It was not until two years later before work could actually begin.

Lighthouse keepers had to undergo great difficulties to survive here on the edge of the world. It was only after 1865. a small stove sent out to help the Keepers stay warm during the long damp winter nights in the lighthouse.

a new service

One of the keepers, Captain J.W. Munson, rescued a beached longboat and rebuilt the vessel over time. With other local men as volunteers, Munson created one of the first life-saving stations in the country in 1871. The station later became a part of the Life-Saving Service, now part of the US Coast Guard. The station was located down on Baker Bay where the then Fort Canby garrison was and today’s Coast Guard Station and Motor Lifeboat School is located.

Thinking the mouth of the river well marked with entrance lights and a lightship offshore, the Coast Guard sought to decommission the lighthouse in 1965. After the bar pilots protested, the Coast Guard relented. The lighthouse remains in service with the Coast Guard also manning an observation station to monitor traffic across the river bar. One of the lenses used went to the new North Head lighthouse in 1898. That lens is on display at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.

alas, today

NOTE: A trail of about 1.5 miles from the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center to the Lighthouse but can be closed by the Coast Guard periodically. Something about too many rescues of people going off trail, especially to a popular little beach – Deadman’s Cove – attracting many people who might have enjoyed partying too much.

The trail also allowed access to the Coast Guard station on the bay from the back door, so to speak. In the spirit of Homeland Security in 2021, the Coast Guard just closed off the whole thing. It was not long before the trail was opened though access to the base is limited to those who need to be there.

A sign at the Interpretive Center notes the view is just as good from there. The view of the lighthouse is good from there, but the view over the river mouth and across to the sweeping beaches of Clatsop County in Oregon is much more dramatic.

MORE LIGHT TO KEEP THE LONG NIGHT AT BAY

A quick aside. The State Park actually boasts of two lighthouses. On a headland just to the two miles to the north of Cape Disappointment is the North Head Lighthouse. As important as the light on Cape Disappointment was to mark the entrance and river bar for mariners, ships from the north kept running aground when approaching from the north. They could not see the light until it was too late.

The North Head lighthouse erected in 1898 at the same time Fort Canby received a big upgrade, itself. The first-order Fresnel lens from Cape Disappointment transferred up to the new lighthouse. Cape Disappointment’s lighthouse added its distinctive black band underneath the top light tower after North Head – around 1930. This helped differentiate one light from the other. They also both have different light signals – red and white flashing for the Cape and solid white for North Head.

NORTH HEAD FORWARD

Mabel Bretherton transferred to North Head from Cape Blanco in 1905 as a second assistant keeper. She married an assistant keeper at Coquille River Lighthouse until his death in February 1903. The Lighthouse Service often offered employment to widows of keepers to help them support their families. She eventually left lightkeeping in 1907 finding her way to Portland in 1910. She became superintendent of the Women’s Exchange in Portland. The building where she worked changed in 1917 with an interesting history concerning the Rajneesh movement in the 1980’s

North Head’s light was automated in 1961. The lighthouse was given over to the State of Washington in 1983 after a Coast Guard renovation. The station is one of the most intact lighthouse stations to be found complete with lighthouse Keeper homes – rented out for vacationers, oil houses, barn, chicken coops, etc. Tours normally given in the lighthouse except now in the time of Covid. The original lens used here exhibited today at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. A replacement lens from 1937 is on display at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria.

CIVIL WAR BATTERIES AND FORT

Even before the development of the lighthouse on Cape Disappointment, the headland had been already reserved as a military reservation in 1852. Three earthen batteries went up on the headland, part of the triad plan for the defense of the river mouth that would include Fort Canby, Fort Stevens and Fort Columbia. Smoothbore cannons dragged up to arm the batteries overlooking the northern entrance to the river bar.

Making up the three batteries, there was the “Left”, “Middle” and the “Lighthouse Battery”, with a total of 22 cannons. The Lighthouse Battery featured two 8-inch, four 10-inch and one very large 15-inch Rodman cannons. The guns placed up on a cliff right next to the lighthouse – the flat ground still there on the east side. Deleterious effects from the concussion of test firing the guns occurred. The concussions had a nasty habit of breaking the windows in the lighthouse. The Lighthouse Service’s remedy called for the Keeper to open all windows before test firing of the cannons. Another problem with the headland batteries being the difficulty in depressing the cannons set high above on a cliff.

GARRISON

On the Baker Bay – north – side of the headland, garrison buildings went up to support the batteries on the cliffs above – barracks, supply buildings, a few officer’s houses and administrative huts. All together, the accumulation equaled Fort Cape Disappointment. Completed in April 1864, following the end of the Civil War the post continued to be manned though slowly rotting away in the very wet maritime environment. While Fort Canby had gotten its start, Fort Columbia would have to wait.

There was also a cemetery at one time which included soldiers, their dependents as well as lightkeepers and their families. That cemetery was closed at the end of the 19th century with the fifty bodies moved across the river to the Fort Stevens Cemetery.

CANBY, THE MAN

In 1875, a new name came to the fort, Fort Canby. The name honored the recently dead Brigadier General Edward R. S. Canby murdered by Captain Jack, the leader of the Modoc tribe in northern California. Canby was trying to bring about peace with the Modocs who did not want to be sent to share a reservation with the Klamath tribe. The murder shocked the nation bringing about a call for harsher measures seriously damaging the peace attempts President Grant was attempting.

a civil war general

Canby was an 1839 graduate of West Point. A a young officer, he saw action in both the Second Seminole War in Florida and in the Mexican War. Posted in New Mexico before the Civil War, he led the Federal response as a brigadier general of volunteers to the invasion of that territory in 1862 by Confederate forces from Texas led by his former assistant, Henry H. Sibley. After initial reverses, Canby eventually defeated Sibley’s force after the battle of Glorieta Pass. Relieved after allowing the Confederates to retreat back to Texas, went East.

A series of assignments followed, including command of New York City after the draft riots of 1863. Promoted to major general of volunteers, he replaced Nathaniel Banks in Louisiana. Near the end of the war, he commanded the forces responsible for capturing Mobile, Alabama and accepted surrender of most of the remaining Confederate forces in the West during May 1865.

Postwar

Assignments in the South followed the war with Canby filling Reconstruction administrative posts before coming out to the Department of the Columbia in 1872. Canby lies with his wife in the Crown Point Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana. Generals Sherman, Sheridan, Lew Wallace and Irwin McDowell all attended his funeral.

ANOTHER OCCUPANT TO FORT CANBY

The Army was joined, as seen earlier, by volunteers of the Life Saving Service in 1877. Because of the perilous nature of the river bar – “The Graveyard of the Pacific” – the Life Saving Station is the oldest in the Pacific Northwest. Eventually, the Life Saving Service merged with the U.S. Revenue Marine Cutter Service in 1915 to become the U.S. Coast Guard. The station is one of the busiest in the nation responding to 300-400 calls for rescue a year.

The Coast Guard used their base here at Fort Canby until 1967 when the base totally rebuilt, added the National Motor Lifeboat School. Both the station and school are separate. You used to be able to see the men practicing in the waters of the bar from the cliffs up by the lighthouse, but the Coast Guard with the recent closure, access to both the lighthouse and the Civil War area where the cannons used to sit is unavailable at present.

Cape D was one of the sites used in the movie The Guardian with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher from 2006. For more adrenalin of several others to be found, check out this video of the 47-foot lifeboats at practice on the mouth of the river from the School. More relaxed music is found here.

A NEW FORT – ENDICOTT VERSION OF FORT CANBY

The Endicott Plan of 1885 established a new blueprint for the defensive scheme for the American seaboard. The Columbia River mouth defenses were finally addressed beginning in 1895 with three new forts – one in Oregon side and two in Washington. The garrison buildings of Fort Canby retained and added on to, but the Rodman batteries disappeared by the end of the century. In their place, two new batteries featuring 6-inch guns mounted on disappearing carriages arose.

BATTERY HARVEY ALLEN

The best preserved of the two new Endicott batteries is Battery Harvey Allen. The battery casement with two of the three gun pits is right next to the parking lot for the Lewis & Clark Interpretative Center – built literally on the former gun aprons of the battery. One of the 6-inchers removed during World War I for mobile usage in France.

Parking costs $10 for a day visit or $30 for a yearly Washington State Discovery Pass – they make a living off of $99 tickets, so beware. The former battery still well maintained with powder canisters still on racks for the artillery shells. To see what the six inchers on a disappearing carriage look like, you need to visit Battery Pratt at Fort Stevens – another $5 for parking.

Harvey Allen

Another West Pointer of the class of 1841, Harvey Allen served valorously in the Mexican War winning brevet ranks. As a captain during the Civil War, he took part in the relief of Fort Pickens in Florida in 1861, staying there as commander until the fall of 1864. Promoted to major in the US 2nd Artillery Regiment, he went on to command the San Francisco Harbor after the war. In September 1871, Allen went north to Sitka to become the Military Governor of Alaska. He finished his career gaining promotion to Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment in 1877 before his retirement.

BATTERY ELIJAH O’FLYNG

Battery O’Flyng, another twin 6-inch battery set atop disappearing casements erected on the same Lighthouse headland, replaced the older “Center” battery. These guns literally covered the river bar from up high. This battery, installed in 1904, saw the guns taken out during World War I for possible use in France, not that they got anywhere close before the war ended. They were never replaced leaving only the guns at Battery Allen in place.

Elijah O’Flyng was an ensign or second lieutenant with the 23rd US Infantry. Elijah was one of four brothers and their father, Patrick – a veteran of the Revolutionary War, enlisted in the fight against the British during the War of 1812. Promoted to officer after the Battle of Lundy Lane, he was wounded at Fort Erie, Ontario in an American assault on British batteries besieging the American-held fort 17 September dying the next day.

The battery ruins are in the woods above the trail leading to the lighthouse. Like access to the lighthouse, you need to get Coast Guard permission to visit the old battery.

BATTERY FRANCIS GUENTHER

With jetties built to the south and north of the Columbia River mouth, the effect
moved the real entrance of the river farther out to sea. This moved the entrance beyond the range of the heavy guns at Fort Stevens on Point Adams, Oregon, and
only reached by Fort Canby’s batteries. Batteries Alien and O’Flyng – only with 6-inch guns – could hardly inflict much damage upon heavy naval vessels and in 1913, artillery
officers recommended a mortar battery built at Fort Canby.

So, Battery Guenther was the last battery built here. Four mortars were taken from Battery Clark at Fort Stevens when it was decided four mortars to a mortar pit were two too many. They were brought across the river here. Each mortar test fired twice in 1922 before Fort Canby was inactivated until 1941. In that time a sergeant and two enlisted men cared for the fort. With a new war, the fort reactivated, but the mortar battery again deactivated in 1942. The two test firings the only shots ever fired out from the battery.

Francis Guenther

The battery was named for Brigadier General Francis L. Guenther, a West Pointer of 1859. He was a veteran of The Civil War where he served mainly in the Army of the Ohio/Cumberland taking part in battles from Shiloh to Nashville. After the war, he spent a couple of years back at West Point teaching before moving west to command at Alcatraz Island in the early 1890’s. Moving up the command chain slowly in the post-Civil War Army he finally made colonel and given command of the 4th US Artillery in Washington, D.C.. During the Spanish American War he gained two separate division commands, but spent most of his time ill unable to serve. He returned for a final command at Fort Monroe in charge also of the Army Artillery School.

NOTE: Both O’Flyng and Guenther are on Coast Guard property. They are closed to visitors.

BATTERY 247

The last battery here, Battery 247 went ip on MacKenzie Head, a headland just further to the north from Cape Disappointment. A 200-series battery like those found at Fort Stevens and Fort Columbia, the battery featured two 6-inch Model T2-M1 guns firing out of shielded barbettes open to the rear. They fired 105 mm shells over fifteen miles at rate of five shell per minute.

BUNKER BETWEEN

A bunker between the two guns housed ammunition and gun controls. Fire control information was provided from a series of coastal observation stations and a nearby radar site. There is a small parking lot – “MacKenzie Head” – with a short trail leading up to the foundations of the World War II site. The guns moved out in 1946.