Coulter -- The Steam Schooner North Fork -- December 17, 2023

San Francisco Call, 01-January-1898

WA Coulter did many maritime drawings for the San Francisco Call. Steam schooners like the North Fork were once common on the Pacific Coast, carrying lumber and other products. They usually had accommodations for a small number of passengers. "While on the bar she was pooped three times in succession..." This means that large waves washed over the poop deck. 

CAUGHT ON A

BREAKING BAR

The North Fork Had a

Hard Time of It Getting

Into Eureka.

The steam schooner North Fork had a narrow escape on the Eureka bar last Monday. She left here early Sunday morning and had a rough time of it all the way up the coast. Crossing in at Eureka three heavy seas swept her, one after the other, and several of the passengers thought she was going down. The railing was torn from the upper deck, stairs carried away, stateroom doors broken in, staterooms flooded to a depth of two feet and the smoking-room gutted. A private letter received yesterday says the doors were torn off staterooms 6, 8 and 10 and the occupants drowned out. The seas swept almost over the pilot-house and the whole steamer was almost under water. She rose out of the trough of the sea like a bird, only to be buried again and again until the passengers gave up hope and began to say their prayers. It was all over in half an hour, and when everybody was safely on terra firma they began to laugh at their fears. The North Fork will be due back here to-day.