Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 9/The Wax of Nehalem Beach
THE WAX OF NEHALEM BEACH.[1]
By O. F. Stafford.
Thirty miles south of the mouth of the Columbia River the Oregon coast line, which for a greater part of the distance has been composed of picturesquely rugged headlands and most charming stretches of ocean beach, swings around the sacred mountain Nekahnie, of the Indians, and spreads out within a distance of two or three miles into a flat, sandy spit which serves to separate Nehalem Bay from the Pacific. Here is a spot not only beautiful in its surroundings, but rich in mysterious legends of shipwreck and buried treasure, as well as vague traditions regarding the first comings of white men to the great Northwest. There are now, to be sure, no certain relics of the shipwrecks, and about all that remains to recall the traditions are occasional pieces of wax, rescued from the sands of the spit, perchance, by a passer-by. It is of this wax particularly that the present article will deal, for it has long been a subject of interest, speculation, and even of warm controversy. In this substance many have tried to fathom an ancient mystery of the sea; others have hoped to find it a guiding index to a vault in Nature's treasure house. It has been at once an enigma to the theorizing antiquarian, the despair of the sordid promoter, and the solace of the newspaper space writer. Yet when all of the evidence bearing upon the matter is summarized the enigmatical aspects of the question are seen to disappear almost entirely.
For our first historical mention of this wax deposit we are indebted to that admirable representative of the Northwest Company, Alexander Henry, who, in company with David Thompson, official geographer of the same company, made an expedition down the Columbia to the present site of Astoria in the winter of 1813-14. Henry's journal, reproduced and annotated in Coues' "New Light on the History of the Greater Northwest" (Vol. II.), contains, under the date of December 8, 1813, at which time Henry was at Astoria, the following notation:
"The old Clatsop chief arrived with some excellent salmon and the meat of a large biche. There came with him a man about thirty years of age, who has extraordinarily dark red hair, and is the supposed offspring of a ship that was wrecked within a few miles of the entrance of this river many years ago. Great quantities of beeswax continue to be dug out of the sand near this spot, and the Indians bring it to trade with us."
Later, in the entry for February 28, 1814, there appears:
"* * * They bring us frequently lumps of beeswax fresh out of the sand which they collect on the coast to the S., where the Spanish ship was cast away some years ago and the crew all murdered by the natives."
It is seen that Henry speaks very positively concerning the origin of the wax deposit, and doubtless his utterances represent accurately the beliefs of the people of the time and place regarding the matter. It is to be regretted that other early explorers failed to take account of the occurrence of this wax. There is no mention of the matter, for example, in the journals of Lewis and Clark. As Coues remarks, this, wax is about the only product peculiar to the place that these men seem to have missed.
Horace S. Lyman, in his "History of Oregon," gives an interesting discussion of the first appearances of white men upon the Oregon coast as preserved in Indian traditions. His main authority is Silas B. Smith, an intelligent halfbreed, whose mother was a daughter of the Clatsop chief, Kobaiway. Mr. Smith made a special study of the traditions of his mother's people, as a result of which he assigns the earlier comings of white men to three separate occasions, the second of which was the wrecking of a vessel near Nehalem. To quote from Lyman: The Indians state that ship of the white men was driven ashore here and wrecked. The crew, however, survived, and reaching- land lived for some time with the natives. A large part of the vessel's cargo was beeswax. But in the course of several months the white men became obnoxious to the Indians because of violating their marital relations. The whites were consequently killed, but fought to defend themselves with slungshot. As Mr. Smith notes, this would indicate that they had lost their arms and ammunition."
This account, it is to be observed, agrees essentially with the details given by Henry.
References to the wax other than those just given are rather infrequent until recent times. Belcher, an early navigator, obtained some specimens in 1837. It is said that six tons of wax from the mouth of the Columbia were received at a Hawaiian port about 1847. Professor George Davidson, of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, while at Cape Disappointment in 1851, obtained a specimen which had been picked up on Clatsop beach. Later, in the Coast Pilot for California, Oregon and Washington Territory, 1869, Professor Davidson describes the wax deposit and evidences of the wreck from which it supposedly came. Others to refer to the subject are C. W. Brooks, in a paper before the California Academy of Science, 1875, and H. M. Davis, in a communication to the American Antiquarian Society, April, 1892.
During this whole period of eighty years extending from 1813 to 1893 no one seems to have questioned that the deposit of wax was due to any other cause than the thing traditionally accepted as its origin— a wrecked vessel. The only difference of opinion apparent in the matter was regarding the nationality of the vessel, some investigators having it of Spanish ownership, others of Chinese or Japanese. In 1893, however, a new aspect was introduced by two circumstances. The first was an opinion rendered regarding the nature of the wax by the commissioner in charge of the Austrian exhibit at the Columbian Exposition. A part of this exhibit consisted of ozokerite, a wax of mineral origin which is of considerable economic importance, and the commissioner in charge did not hesitate to pose as an expert authority in judging substances of this kind. A sample of Nehalem wax was submitted to this official by Colonel A. W. Miller, of Portland, with the result that it was pronounced ozokerite. It should be noted, however, that a chemist in the employ of the exposition to whom the same sample was submitted insisted that it was beeswax, pure and simple.
The second circumstance tending to raise the question as to whether the substance might be beeswax or ozokerite was the publication of a series of three articles in Science (New York) during the summer of 1893. The first of these, appearing in the issue of June 16, was by Mr. George P. Merrill, head curator in the Department of Geology, United States National Museum, Washington, and was descriptive of samples of Nehalem wax received from a correspondent at Portland, Oregon. Quoting from this article:
"The samples are of a material closely resembling if not identical with beeswax. Such it would unhesitatingly have been pronounced but for certain stated conditions relating to its occurrence. * * * The material is a grayish color on the outer surface, indicating oxidation, but interiorly it has all the characteristics of genuine beeswax, as regards physical conditions, color, smell, fusing point, and conduct toward chemical reagents. * * * It is said to be found in masses of all sizes up to 250 pounds in weight; that it occurs in the sand, being found while digging clams at low tide and at a depth of twenty feet below the surface when digging wells. * * * The material has been traced for a distance of thirty miles up the river. * * * Tradition has it that many hundred years ago a foreign vessel laden with wax was wrecked off this coast. This, at first thought, seems plausible, but aside from the difficulty in accounting for the presence in these waters and at that date of a vessel loaded with wax, it seems scarcely credible that the material could be brought in a single cargo in such quantities nor buried over so large an area. * * * My correspondent states that the material has been mined by the whites for over twenty years, but not to any great extent excepting the last eight or ten years, during which time many hundred tons have been shipped to San Francisco and Portland. * * * Concerning the accurracy of the above account the present writer knows nothing. It is here given in the hope of gaining more information on the subject."
The above communication is obviously an admission of complete mystification upon the part of its writer. He has little doubt about the substance being beeswax; in fact, in a later note to the present writer he says that he had no doubt about it. Yet the facts regarding the way the wax is found, as reported to him, are absolutely incompatible with any credible occurrence of beeswax. It was simply a matter requiring more information and the article is virtually an appeal for such.
Two articles were almost immediately published in Science in response to this appeal. The first was from Judge J. Wickersham, of Tacoma, Washington, who shows by reference to the writings of Brooks, Davidson, and Davis that many shipwrecks of Oriental vessels actually have occurred upon American shores and that therefore a wreck as the source of the wax was at any rate within the limits of possibility. He also calls attention to an error made in the information to Mr. Merrill regarding the amount of wax that had been recovered— no such quantities as those mentioned were ever found.
The second article was from the pen of C. D. Hiscox, of New York. It is a little peculiar in that it leaves the reader with a strong doubt about its writer ever having even seen a sample of Nehalem wax. There is given a description, to be sure, which would apply equally well to true beeswax, Nehalem wax, or ozokerite, but from the language of the article it is impossible to say which was meant. For the rest the author evidently simply consulted a dictionary and reproduced a lot of statistics for ozokerite. Although this article is often cited as an authority in discussions of Nehalem wax such citation is not justified for the reason that there is not to be found in it a single significant statement for which there is any proof.
The situation, after these developments of 1893, was not altogether clear to the average citizen without scientific training who might be interested in unusual natural products of his country. The old belief that Nehalem wax was beeswax, while not entirely discredited, was at any rate suddenly in the doubtful list. The doctors were unable to agree, apparently, which was further proof that there were at least two sides to the question. And if this were so, why not the possibility of great ledges of this material— at eighteen cents per pound? Or better yet, widespread strata of oil-bearing sands down deep below which should supply this Northwestern country with sadly needed heat units? It is not difficult to arouse public interest— sometimes. The interest created in this instance had at least one good result in that it brought about an examination of the Nehalem field by a competent geologist.
Among other duties assigned during the summer of 1895 to Dr. J. S. Diller, one of the ablest field geologists of the United States Geological Survey, was an investigation of this problem. Dr. Diller made his findings public through a let.er to the Morning Oregonian of March 27, 1896. This letter is not only the most authoritative discussion ever published upon the subject of Nehalem wax, particularly as regards its geological aspects, but also deals so tritely with some of the other points at issue that a number of paragraphs are bodily reproduced here. Dr. Diller says:
"During a trip from Astoria southward along the coast the only place where we found fragments of the wax was near the mouth of the Nehalem. At this point it occurs buried in the deep sand just above the present high tide limit. From the accumulated sediments of the river the beach is gradually growing seaward, and not many generations ago the sea reached the place now occupied by the wax. Mr. Edwards, who was my guide at the place, showed me the stakes marking the areas already dug over by himself in obtaining almost three tons of wax. It was found in the deep sand within ten feet of the surface. He expected to continue working later in the summer, but regarded the locality as almost 'mined out.' We picked up a number of smaller fragments coated with sand, and he showed me others previously collected. Among the latter were several short, cylindrical, hollow pieces like candles from which the wick has disappeared. A few larger pieces weighing from fifty to seventy-five pounds were found some years ago by Mr. Edwards, and also by Mr. Colwell. They bore marks apparently of trade. As the large pieces had all been disposed of I was unfortunately unable to study these marks. The beeswax has been found some miles up the Nehalem river, but always, so far as I could learn, close to the high tide limit. From the Nehalem beach it has been spread along the coast southward by the strong seabreezes of summer, and northward by the storms of winter.
"There are two coal fields on the Nehalem, one in Columbia county, and the other in Clatsop near the mouth of the Nehalem, but nothing whatever occurs in either field which resembles the wax, and it is evident from the location of the body of the wax that it was not derived from the adjacent land, but was transported in a body by the sea and dumped not far from its present position.
"Its mode of occurrence and the marks upon it clearly indicate that the material is not a natural product of Oregon, but they do not prove that it is wax and not ozokerite brought from elsewhere. The two substances, although very similar in their general composition, are readily distinguishable by chemical tests. Mr. H. N. Stokes, one of the chemists of the Geological Survey, to whom it was referred for examination, says: *The substance in question is sharply distinguished from ozokerite and other paraffins by its easy decomposition by warm, strong sulphuric acid, and by being saponified by boiling with alcoholic potash, giving soaps which dissolve in hot water, and from which acids throw down insoluble fatty acids. In view of this behavior the material is evidently wax and not ozokerite.
"Its melting point determined by Mr. Stokes is 64 degrees, centigrade, which coresponds to that of beeswax and distinguishes it from wax of other kinds known to trade."
A summary of the evidence presented by Dr. Diller shows conclusively that the wax deposit is confined, so far as is known, to a single locality, the Nehalem spit, and that fragments found up the Nehalem, or scattered along the coast, might easily be accounted for as incidental drift; that a few generations ago the sea reached the place now occupied by the wax; that the wax is not derived from the adjacent land; and finally, that although these considerations show only that the wax must have been deposited upon the beach from the ocean, and therefore give no light upon the question as to its nature, chemical tests show decisively that it is not ozokerite, but beeswax.
It is difficult to understand how anyone could deliberately summon the temerity requisite for calling into question the points established so thoroughly by Dr. Diller, and, indeed, it must have been because of an entire ignorance of his work that the subject was opened up again in 1903, once more by adherents of the ozokerite hypothesis. An analysis of the arguments presented by these people at this time shows that they are founded upon two main assertions, viz., that the amount of wax taken out and sold is by far greater than could have been carried by a ship of a hundred or two hundred years ago, and that the substance actually proves to be ozokerite by analysis. Now, the first of these assertions is unsustained by any proof whatsoever, while the second is fully met by the evidence of Merrill and Stokes. Yet it is interesting to follow out the proofs offered, as they were advanced honestly with the full belief that they established their case.
Naturally it is impossible to arrive at any very accurate estimate upon the total amount of wax contained in the Nehalem deposit, or obtained from it. The believers in the ozokerite idea make estimates running as high as hundreds of tons, it being asserted that one man recovered 17,000 pounds. The present writer, however, after due investigation, is unable to account for so much. It is hardly probable that the early Indian traffic, such as Henry mentions, could have been very extensive. The Indians themselves, it is likely, had but little use for the wax, and there is no known record of any considerable trade in this substance by the early whites. The first hint of any extensive traffic is contained in the unsubstantiated report referred to above that six tons were shipped to Hawaii about 1847. From this time until about the eighties the only record concerning the recovery of wax is a notation by J. J. Gilbert, of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, who made the survey of this part of the coast. He learned that early settlers had plowed the site of the old wreck and obtained 450 pounds of the wax, which was sold as beeswax. Dr. Diller's guide and informant, Mr. Edwards, is said to be no longer living, so that further testimony from him is not available. He is accredited, however, by all old residents of the Nehalem country, from whom it has been possible to get an opinion, with having taken out by far a greater amount of the wax than any other person. Mr. Edwards' own estimate of the amount of wax obtained by him, as he gave it to Dr. Diller, was "almost three tons." Mr. D. S. Boyakin, at present and for many years past a resident of Nehalem, and who as a merchant has kept in close touch with traffic affairs of all sorts in that locality, estimates that Edwards and other active wax gatherers known to him have secured in all not much over four tons. This, added to the six tons that may have been shipped to Hawaii in 1847, gives ten tons. Another ton or two for Indian traffic, etc., probably places a liberal estimate upon the whole amount recovered. It is almost impossible to find a piece of the wax upon the beach at the present time, and the consensus of opinion among those most expert in finding it is that the deposit is practically exhausted. The available facts, then, are not incompatible with the wreck hypothesis as far as the amount of wax to be considered is concerned.
Now as to the analyses reported to prove the substance ozokeri′e. A preliminary word of explanation should be given here, perhaps, in order that there may be in the minds of everyone a clear idea of the difficulties to be met in considering questions of this kind. Nature has curiously made a great many things in such a way that whereas they are fundamentally entirely different they may possess certain resemblances which are calculated to deceive even 
A review of the statements of authority under consideration should begin with the opinion rendered by the Austrian commissioner at Chicago and the paper by Hiscox, both of which have been discussed above. The Dearborn Drug and Chemical Company, of Chicago, made a report to Dr. August C. Kinney, of Astoria, indicating that the wax is "a crude paraffin mixed with organic and various mineral substances." This report would apply, to beeswax, as that substance normally contains as high as fifteen per cent of paraffin, the rest being organic substances of other kinds. The mineral substances here mentioned are in all probability beach sand particles such as are frequently found in the outer crusts of Nehalem wax. The Scientific American reported to Dr. Kinney that his sample was ozokerite, but the present writer has been unable to get from that paper any statement of the characters upon which their opinion was based. A sample of Nehalem wax submitted to Mr. John F. Carll, one time state geologist of Pennsylvania, was passed on to the chemist of a large oil refinery, Mr. E. B. Gray, of the Tide Water Pipe Line Company, Bayonne, New Jersey, who made a written report to Mr. Carll stating that the substance was ozokerite, but apparently basing his opinion upon nothing more than the hardness and melting point of the sample. Mr. Gray, however, when written directly for further information, replied that he had no record of any wax received from Mr. Carll. H. A. Mears, a mining operator in Southern Oregon and a pioneer in the gilsonite fields of Utah, has mentioned several competent authorities to whom he had submitted samples of the wax with the general verdict of ozokerite. In all of these cases the attempt has been made to get statements of the exact properties of this wax which led to the decisions, but without success, changes of address and other causes preventing communication. Mr. Mears' own convictions are based upon physical examinations of the substance, and it is highly probable that all of his authorities made the same mistake. Attention is again directed to the uncertain character of all of this evidence as compared with that offered by Merrill, Stokes, and Diller, and two independent analyses given below, which, by the way, completely confirm the earlier work by these men.
It sometimes happens to the chemist in Oregon that he is consulted with regard to a pitchy substance in which the finder has an interest, it may be, because of the hope that it is an indication of oil in the ground from which it was taken. The material almost invariably turns out to be a mass of pitch resulting from the slow destructive distillation process which may accompany the burning of an old fir stump or root. Such masses may be preserved in the ground for years, and have more than once been confounded with Nehalem wax. Such a specimen was taken in 1906 to Professor C. E. Bradley, then professor of chemistry at Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon, after having been widely proclaimed in the newspapers as Nehalem wax. Professor Bradley analyzed this material in parallel with true samples from Nehalem, showed the difference between the two, and incidentally proved the identity of the latter as beeswax.
Finally, there are the results of a very thorough analytical investigation of the Nehalem product as carried out in the laboratories of the University of Oregon under the direction of the writer by Mr. W. T. Carroll, who made this work the subject of his graduation thesis in 1903. The results are tabulated in parallel with the well established numerical values accepted for other commercial waxes in the case of each character determined so that comparisons can easily be made. It should be noted that the values given for beeswax are from a study of many samples of German, English, and American waxes, all of which are in essential agreement.
TABLE
The significance of the above fact in its bearing upon the origin of the Nehalem deposit is very evident. It is not only beeswax with which we are concerned, but beeswax from the Orient. The suggestion that the wrecked vessel was engaged in the carrying trade between the Philippines and Mexico is by no means a new one. Professor Davidson, who for half a century has been actively engaged in material to prove or disprove the existence of the Davidson Inshore Eddy Current along the Northwestern coast, is our highest present authority upon the matter of what the sea casts up on these shores. In a recent letter he says:
Judge Wickersham is also at the present time of the opinion that the wax came from the wreck of a Spanish vessel bound from the Philippines to Vera Cruz by way of the North Pacific Current (Kuro Shiwo), which, by the way, seems to have been the route universally taken by eastwardly bound vessels."My present belief is that the wax is from a wrecked galleon which, by stress of weather on her voyage from the Philippines, had been driven farther north than the usual route. They frequently got as high as 43 degrees, and I know of one wreck as high as the latitude of the Queniult River, Washington."
Dr. Joseph Schafer, professor of history at the University of Oregon, calls attention to two particularly interesting references in connection with the trade relationships existing between the Philippines and Mexico during early times. The first is from Blair and Robertson, "Philippine Islands," Vol. XV, p. 302:
"A Dutch writer of about 1600 in describing the Philippines says, 'They yield considerable quantities of honey and wax.'"
The second reference is to Morga, long a governor of the Philippines, sailing from there to Mexico in 1603. His writings are considered the most authoritative extant as regards the Philippines of the early period. In describing the trade from the Islands to Mexico he says:
* * * these classes of merchandise (brought from Siam and other parts of the Orient) and in the productions of the Islands— namely, gold, cotton cloth, mendrinaque, and cakes of white and yellow wax—do the Spaniards effect their purchases, investments, and exports for Nueva Espana (Mexico)."
If anything more were needed to establish the hypothesis of a wrecked Spanish vessel it would be an authentic account of the wreck itself. Since the only account known is the one preserved in Indian tradition, we are denied such a crowning bit of evidence. We do have, however, the knowledge that exactly such wrecks did occur. In a reference kindly supplied by Professor Davidson, Venegas' History of California, Vol. II, p. 388, there is an account of the wreck of the San Augustin in Drake's Bay, 1595, where was left "great quantities of wax and chests of silk."
A most interesting feature of the question is presented by the appearance of the wax as it is taken from the sand of the beach. Some mention of this has already been made in the articles my Merrill and Diller given above. The irregular pieces have occurred in a great variety of sizes and shapes, while the "candles" vary from a half inch to three inches in diameter and up to ten inches in length, in all cases being broken, apparently, from greater original lengths. The wicks are usually entirely missing, an axial cavity occupying the place. In a specimen owned by the writer there is to be seen the conical cavity formerly common in candles for supporting them upon wooden pegs. A considerable number of the larger pieces of wax have been in the form of well-defined cakes bearing mysterious markings. One of these cakes is preserved in the Portland City Museum, together with several pieces of less regular shape and some candles. Most of them have been melted and sold, however, and the engraved characters consequently destroyed. Tracings of the characters have been preserved in a few cases, while enough others have been reproduced from memory to give a fair idea of their nature. Their meaning is problematical, although it is fairly certain that they are the brands of the makers or dealers originally handling them. In the various efforts that have been made to get light upon the origin of the wax these characters have been submitted to high authorities among the Japanese and Russians, as well as to Latin scholars in the Roman Catholic church and the libraries of Germany, but always without obtaining the least clue regarding their significance. Through the kindness of Dr. F. F. G. Schmidt, of the University of Oregon, a special effort was made during the summer of 1907 to get an interpretation of the marks from German sources. Even men highly skilled in deciphering old Latin manuscripts, in which a whole word or phrase is sometimes embodied in a single monogram-like character, failed to recognize anything intelligible in the marks. An importer and dealer in waxes, however, pronounced them marks of trade, such as he had often seen upon waxes
The first is also seen In the photograph of the specimen now in Portland City Museum. Numbers 2 to 8 inclusive were reported to Dr. Diller. Numbers 9, 10, and 11 are from tracings made by D. S. Boyakin, of Nehalem, 9 and 10 being upon the same cake. Number 12 was upon a cake reported by Professor Davidson. The size of the cake bearing number 1 was about 20×6×16 Inches, while the cake bearing numbers 9 and 10 was about 20×12×4 inches.
coming in from outside countries. After all, the trade-mark explanation is not unsatisfactory. The symbols can be said to have their counterparts in the brands devised for branding stock upon Western cattle ranches, and may be even less obscure in meaning than the year-mark upon a piece of Rookwood pottery is to the uninitiated.
Occasionally a piece of "sandstone" is found upon the beach impregnated with Nehalem wax. This, stone consists of beach sand, in the main, cemented together with the beeswax softened enough at some time by a drift fire, it may be, to percolate into the sand. Mr. Boyakin calls attention to the resemblance that this *' stone" bears to the residues left in the kettles used for melting down the wax for market, and it is altogether possible that these rare bits of material were formed in that way. At any rate it is now certain that the so-called sandstone is a consequence and not the cause of the wax deposit.
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Reprinted from the Sunday Oregonian of January 26, 1908.