SS Pacific was a wooden sidewheel steamer built in 1850 most notable for its sinking in 1875 as a result of a collision southwest of Cape Flattery, Washington.

Also aboard were William Brown, her builder, H. R. Dunham, who supplied her machinery, General Jose Antonio Paez, exiled President of Venezuela, several other steamship captains, and other invited guests.

[12] In 1850 there were no overland communications routes across North America, so news and mail from California reached the eastern United States through the steamship links at Panama.

The news of Western United States brought to New Orleans by Pacific was frequently the first word of events to reach the wider world.

A $40 or $50 "transit charge" levied in Nicaragua was twice what passengers had been promised, and the mule trains which carried baggage between the steamships were likewise more expensive than advertised.

The outraged passengers went so far as to form a committee to publish a scathing review of the new service, although they commented favorably on Pacific's Captain Bailey.

A town near the western terminus of the Nicaragua crossing tried to collect "port fees" and impose other controls on Vanderbilt's operations which were not called for in his charter from the national government.

In the fall of 1858 she reappears sailing for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company[29] between San Francisco, Portland, Puget Sound, and Victoria, British Columbia.

[31] In 1859 Pacific was purchased by the California Steam Navigation Company which continued to sail her between San Francisco, Portland, Puget Sound, and Victoria.

Among the notable people aboard were lumberman Sewell "Sue" Moody, founder of Moodyville, Captain Otis Parsons, who had just sold off his fleet of Fraser River steamers, and J.H.

[58] Passengers also included gold miners going home before the snows hit their diggings in northern British Columbia, and 41 unidentified "Chinamen".

Neil Henly was the ship's quartermaster, and Henry F. Jelly of Port Stanley, Ontario was a passenger in British Columbia to survey possible routes for the Canadian Pacific Railway.

[63] Orpheus continued her voyage north after the collision, intending to turn east into the Strait of Juan de Fuca once she passed the Cape Flattery lighthouse.

Wolcott's officers examined the wreck of Orpheus and confirmed Sawyer's account that Pacific had hit her near the bow and scraped along her starboard side.

[62] A coroner's inquest on some of the bodies recovered was held in Victoria in late November 1875. Henley and Jelly testified, as did Captain Sawyer and some of Orpheus' crew.

[59] All of Pacific's officers and most of her crew were killed in the event, and Captain Sawyer of Orpheus was below at the beginning of the incident so details of the collision are necessarily incomplete.

Had he been correct, his action would have saved the ship from wrecking on the rocky shore; however, the light was Pacific's, and by turning to the west, Orpheus ran directly in front of the approaching steamer.

Finally, Sawyer reported that Pacific blew its whistle, presumably as a warning, 30 seconds before the collision, but appeared not to take evasive action even though it had announced its understanding of the immediate danger.

The New York Times was particularly strident, commenting, "The sinking of the steamer Pacific by collision with a sailing vessel was a fair example of the worthlessness of some of the hulls now afloat.

The fact that he was the brother-in-law of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis, no doubt created a cloud of ill-feeling around him, but his experience as a mariner was comparable to other steamboat captains at the time.

He studied at the US Naval Academy prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War and commanded a gunboat for the Confederate Navy for two years.

Immediately prior to joining Goodall, Nelson, and Perkins, Howell had been captain of the North Pacific Transportation Company's steamers Idaho, Montana, Pelican and others.

[68] By the time that Captain Sawyer embarked for California, the world had discovered that Pacific was sunk with huge loss of life, and that Orpheus had sailed away without attempting a rescue.

[69] It was speculated that Captain Sawyer had wrecked his ship on purpose either to "eliminate the evidence" or to collect on his insurance, since his normal profits would not be sufficient to repair the damages from the collision.

Finally, after over a century on the sea floor, the wooden hull and other organic matter in the wreck would have decomposed leaving little more than a flat debris field, some of which was likely covered in silt.

It matched the composition of coal from a mine in Coos Bay, Oregon that was owned by Goodall, Nelson, and Perkins, suggesting that it may have come from Pacific's bunkers.

In follow-up surveys during the summer and fall of 2022, the wreck was photographed using a deep-diving remotely operated underwater vehicle, and a number of artifacts were brought to the surface.

[76] On November 23, 2022, the United States District Court in Western Washington granted exclusive salvage rights to the wreck to Rockfish for 12 months.

Nonetheless, the Court found the evidence sufficiently persuasive that it ordered the public notice of the grant of salvage rights to characterize it as "currently believed to be S.S.

[75] The Northwest Shipwreck Alliance is a non-profit corporation [78] headed by Matthew McCauley,[79] a long-time partner of Jeff Hummel in numerous salvage efforts.