SS Great Republic was a sidewheel steamship and the largest passenger liner on the US west coast when it ran aground near the mouth of the Columbia River, on Sand Island, south of Ilwaco, Washington, in 1879, in a region of frequent wrecks known as the Graveyard of the Pacific.

[1] Immediately after the launch the steamer was taken to the wharf of the Novelty Iron Works (New York), at the foot of Twelfth Street, where she received her machinery, after being copper-bottomed at the Erie Basin Dock.

[2] After crossing the Columbia Bar at the beginning of an ebb tide, the pilot failed to heed the captain's warnings and ran aground on Sand Island.

Stranded on sand in a falling tide with a storm approaching the next morning, the captain evacuated the 896 passengers to Astoria, Oregon, on local boats.

The last boat to leave (except for that of the captain and pilot) overturned after a steering oar broke, casting 14 men into the water, resulting in the death of eleven, or all 14.

The book Pacific Graveyard by James Gibbs Jr. states that Great Republic left San Francisco in the spring of 1879 and arrived off the mouth of the Columbia River at midnight on April 18, and was on the way to Portland, Oregon, heading upriver, when it ran aground on Sand Island and was lost.

He made no reply, but ran along for about five minutes and then put the helm hard aport, and the vessel swung up, heading toward Astoria, but the ebb tide caught her on the starboard bow and, being so near the island, sent her on the spit.