Camp Castaway

Camp Castaway was the first white settlement in the area of Oregon now known as Coos Bay and was a winter military/shipwreck encampment.

Camp Castaway was established by the survivors of the wreck of the Captain Lincoln, a U.S. transport schooner, on January 3rd, 1852. The ship began taking on water during a storm while en route from San Francisco Bay to Fort Orford (now Port Orford, Curry County, Oregon). To avoid sinking, the captain decided to beach the ship north of Cape Arago. All of the roughly 30 troops (U.S. 1st Dragoons, Company C, predecessors to the U.S. cavalry) on board and the ship’s crew survived the wreck and most of the cargo was salvaged. At the time no U.S. settlement was present at Coos Bay, so commanding officer Lt. Henry Stanton decided to establish the camp to protect the cargo until it could be transported to Fort Orford, some 50 miles south on the Oregon coast. The troops and crew used spars, booms and sail cloth from the schooner to build tent structures for housing and for protecting the cargo from winter rains and blowing sand, they named the temporary post Camp Castaway. The camp endured for four months in the open dunes with help from Coos Bay Indians who traded fresh foods to the soldiers for silverware, biscuits and other nonlocal goods. Chief Hanis (or "Hanness") of the Coos is among the Native Americans who reportedly visited Camp Castaway while the soldiers were present.