The Cannon Beach History Center and Museum is home to the original Cannon Beach cannon. This artifact has always been a subject of interest. The cannon story, however, became much more interesting when two cannons were uncovered on the beaches of Arch Cape, just south of Cannon Beach, in February 2008. An especially low tide made them visible about one and a half centuries after they were deposited on the beach. The relationship between the original cannon, found in Arch Cape in 1894, and the "new" cannons is yet to be determined scientifically, though it is probable that the recently uncovered cannons derived from the same ship as the original, the USS Schooner Shark.
The following link and narrative provide useful information on all three cannons of Arch Cape.
USS Shark Opens Portal to the Past
http://www.oregonlive.com
The Original Cannon and the USS Schooner Shark
The U .S. Naval schooner Shark, part of the surveying fleet under Lieutenant Neil M. Howison, arrived off the mouth of the Columbia River after a 25-day passage from Honolulu, in August, 1846. John Lattie, one of the few in the area with a genuine knowledge of bar passages, was summoned to the ship to guide her into safe haven off the Astor Colony.
Trouble plagued the arrival of the ship to present-day Astoria. Anxiety over the boundary question--involving the United States and Great Britain--had started rumors among settlers that war was near and that the arrival of the Shark was a war precaution and not a survey mission. The crew members, weary from long months at sea, began deserting, and replacements were unobtainable. Hard as they tried, the officers were unable to bribe the townspeople of the Astor Colony to divulge the hiding places of the deserters.
On September 10, without taking proper precautions, the vessel weighed anchor. Crossing the bar, she struck the outlying fangs of Clatsop Spit, this time with a death-dealing blow. The waters were not calm as on her inward trek, and the ship shuddered and trembled while mounting breakers drove into her wooden hull. With her weight fastening her to the bottom, she was working on the sands.
Captain Schenck was gravely concerned. He ordered the three masts chopped down and all twelve of the ship's cannon jettisoned in an effort to get the ship off the spit. But before these acts could be carried out, the ship began to break up. All hands were ordered to the boats. During the night, the wreck was battered to pieces, parts of it drifting out over the bar. Evidently the crew did not jettison all the cannon, for a large section of the wreck came ashore in the area of present-day Arch Cape, south of Cannon Beach. Fortunately, the crew of the Shark all reached safety and were looked after by the citizens of the Astor Colony.
In October 1846, Lieutenant Howison received information through the Tillamook people that part of the ship's hull "with guns upon it," had come ashore south of Tillamook Head. The lieutenant sent Midshipman Simes to visit the location. Simes reported finding the wreckage and succeeded in "getting one cannon above the high-water mark," while two others were left buried.
Then in December 1863, mail carrier John Hobson reported seeing a cannon at present-day Arch Cape Creek. Soon after, this cannon became lost when tides buried it in sand. In June 1898, however, it was spotted once again-this time by mail carrier George Luce. With the help of his Nehalem neighbors John and Mary Gerritse and their team of horses, Luce succeeded in pulling the cannon out of the sand, after which time it stood in front of the Austin House Post Office in Arch Cape for several years.
{Portions of this narrative were excerpted from Pacific Graveyard, by James A. Gibbs, 1993.}
