Colonial Despatches

According to this letter, from Staines to Boys on 6 July 1852, Demaris Cove was owned by Palmer & Balch, who operated a shipping company that ran between Puget Sound and San Francisco.

Staines notes that the ship sailed to Haida Gwaii in 1851 in search of gold; it did not stay long, as it was warned off by a letter that Captain Mitchell of the Una had left behind, presumably with a group of Haida people, who supposed it to be a letter of recommendation. Staines writes that the Demaris Cove returned to Olympia to bear news of the Georgianna's wreck on Haida Gwaii.

Staines mentions that once the ship returned to Puget Sound it was charted as a Revenue Vessel by the U.S. Collector of customs, Moses, to retrieve the Georgianna's crew from the East side of [Queen] Charlotte's Island. According to Scott, Captain Balch, with the Demaris Cove, managed to safely ransom all the Georgianna's crew.1

Demaris Cove was also involved in the rescue of passengers from the wreck of the Hudson's Bay Company ship Una.

• 1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 55.