June 15, 1811 marks the anniversary of the Battle of Woody Point, near Vancouver Island, British Columbia, when John Jacob Astor’s ship, the Tonquin, met her fate. Local history buffs will recall the Tonquin brought settlers to establish Fort Astoria in March 1811, then sailed north to trade. 

The accounts of the Tonquin’s demise are many, according to a 1922 article by F.W. Howay in the Washington Historical Quarterly. First told by the Tonquin’s interpreter, Lamayzie, the sole survivor, the already bloody tale took on some wild embellishments in the retelling. Even so, Howay constructed what he believes is a true narrative of what happened, summarized below. 

The Tonquin went to Woody Point to barter with the Tla-o-qui-aht tribe. During trading, Capt. Jonathan Thorne rashly insulted the chief by tossing some furs back at him. That evening Lamayzie reported that a woman told him the Nuu-chah-nulth tribe planned to attack the next day. Capt. Thorne didn’t heed the warning, but when a suspiciously large crowd showed up in canoes the following day, he ordered seven men into the rigging to set sail. 

Meanwhile, as the brisk trading continued on deck, the Nuu-chah-nulth were hiding their knives and strategically positioning themselves. The attack, once launched, was a slaughter. The surviving men in the rigging descended, but two were lost coming down. 

Four uninjured crewmen and one other, mortally wounded, headed for the cabin, found weapons, and managed to roust the invaders. Before dawn the next morning, the four boarded a longboat and left. Eventually, driven ashore by foul weather, they were caught, tortured and murdered. 

The one surviving wounded man stayed behind, professing he wanted to die on the Tonquin. After the others left, he leaned over the side, and gestured that he needed help. The Nuu-chah-nulth boarded, and while they were engrossed opening the hatches, he set fire to a 9,000-round magazine, blowing everyone, and the Tonquin, to smithereens. 

It took Lamayzie, who was already ashore when the ship exploded, 14 months to get back to Astoria to report the Tonquin’s bloody demise.