You’ll never guess what washed up near Cannon Beach last week: a pair of really old cannons.
Not just any cannons, either, but likely the very same ones that inspired the name Cannon Beach, back around the time the town was formed in the early 1900s.
Archeologists are en route to Arch Cape to survey the relics, which are believed to have been aboard the U.S. Navy schooner Shark in 1846, when it sunk while attempting to cross the Columbia River Bar. 
“They’re almost exactly where everyone speculated they would be,” said David Pearson, executive director of the Columbia River Maritime Museum.
Excert The Oregonian
David Pearson, curator at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, said the Shark was launched from the Washington, D.C., naval yard in 1821. He said it will take a couple of days to determine whether the cannons are, in fact, from the Shark.
If they do turn out to be from the ship, “they would be very significant to the history of Oregon.”
Pearson said the Shark had 10 carronades — short cannons each fastened to the vessel with a single bolt on a wood mount. The ship’s original mission was to survey the Columbia River to help settle a dispute about the northern border of the United States. But by the time it arrived, the dispute had been settled, so the ship went ahead with its survey mission of the Columbia — one of the first vessels to do so, Pearson said..jpg)
But when it returned, the bar had shifted and the ship ran into a submerged sandbar and wrecked near the south spit of the mouth of the Columbia, an area near Fort Stevens State Park, which is north of the Arch Cape/Cannon Beach area.
A rock memorializing the vessel is now part of the maritime museum’s collection, Pearson said. It reads, “Here the Shark was lost. September 10, 1846.” Pearson said the rock sat in the middle of Astoria for a long time before it was relocated to the museum in 1965.
He said the museum also has on display an officer’s sword believed to be from the Shark.
After it wrecked, part of the ship came ashore near Hug Point. A trio of carronades was among the wreckage. At the time, a Navy sailor was sent to recover the wreckage, but he was able to reclaim only one of the cannons. He moved it to higher ground, but it eventually was covered in sand and disappeared until 1898, when it washed ashore. That cannon later became the namesake of Cannon Beach.
Pearson agreed it’s likely the two cannons found this week are from that same wreck.
“The potential that these two were with that one are quite high: same location, same measurements, everything matches,” he said.
Joanne Hill, a longtime resident of Arch Cape, said Tuesday morning the discovery has set the community atwitter.
“It’s thrilling,” she said. “The whole neighborhood and town are abuzz. It really is quite a wonderful discovery.”
Michael Rollins: 503-221-8388; michaelrollins@ news.oregonian.com Noelle Crombie: 503-276-7184; noellecrombie@news.oregonian.com
