News Release

On October 5, Historian Jim Mockford Will Present “SHIPWRECKED IN JAPAN: Lt. Broughton of the Vancouver Expedition”

Date: September 18, 2019
Contact: Mary Rose, Executive Director, Friends of Fort Vancouver, [phone]

On October 5, 2019, at 1:30 pm at the Fort Vancouver Visitor Center, join historian Jim Mockford for a special presentation on the history of British Lieutenant William Robert Broughton's 1797 shipwreck in Japan. This free public program is hosted by the Friends of Fort Vancouver.

In October 1792, Captain George Vancouver sent Lt. William Robert Broughton to explore the Lower Columbia River. Over the course of that month, Broughton sailed up the river, as far east as present-day Multnomah County, Oregon. There, in view of the snowy volcano to the east, he named Mount Hood after British Viscount Samuel Hood, Admiral of the British Fleet.

Just five years after Lt. Broughton sailed from the Columbia River and returned to England from the Vancouver expedition, he charted the coast of Northeast Asia and Japan as captain of the HMS Providence. In 1797 Captain Broughton was shipwrecked at Miyako Island on an uncharted and unusual coral reef that appears like a phantom island once a year in the spring due to low tides. Miyako Island, located in the southern Ryukyu Islands, was then part of the Ryukyu Kingdom centered at Okinawa, and later became part of Japan.

In April, 2019, historian Jim Mockford travelled to Miyako Island to see the shipwreck site and learn about the story of HMS Providence from local historians. Mockford’s travels in search of Captain Broughton’s maritime adventures and history have taken him to Hawaii, Tahiti, Korea, the northernmost and southernmost Japanese Islands, and England as well as the Pacific Northwest. This lecture, titled SHIPWRECKED IN JAPAN: Lieutenant Broughton of the Vancouver Expedition, will present photographs and the story of this last exploring expedition by Captain Broughton, along with photographs of the site.

Jim Mockford is a historian who has researched the voyages of Captain George Vancouver and those of his lieutenants in the Pacific Ocean. His essays have been published in SEA HISTORY, the Oregon Historical Quarterly, Mains’l Haul by the San Diego Maritime Museum, Noticias del Puerto de Monterey, The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, and The Early Republic and the Sea: Essays on the Naval and Maritime History of the Early United States.

What: “SHIPWRECKED IN JAPAN: Lt. Broughton of the Vancouver Expedition” presented by historian Jim Mockford

Where: Fort Vancouver Visitor Center, 1501 E. Evergreen Blvd. Vancouver, WA 98661

When: Saturday, October 5, 2019, 1:30pm

Cost: Free