William Tell (I)

This ship was built for the North Atlantic packet service. This vessel was sailing inbound in ballast from Simonstown South Africa and had reached Dungeness Spit on the US shore when shifting winds forced her back west of Race Rocks. Unfavorable winds prevented her from anchoring so this vesselspent three days fighting the wind in Juan de Fuca Strait. On December 23, 1865 while under command of Captain Jones this vessel broke up on a reef three miles northwest of Port San Juan. The mainmast was cut so that it formed a bridge to the shore and a crew member was able to take a line ashore at low tide. The whole crew of twenty-two was saved. Captain Spring arrived on the scene with a First Nations crew in a canoe which took them off. The schooner Surprise carried the crew to Victoria.