On the Harbor: a little history

Captain Samuel Sumner Dunnels

By LEN BOSE

As you all might guess, there is not a lot going on around the harbor at this time because of the virus. I thought I’d write something about the history of the harbor and was quickly reminded that the libraries, OCC Schools of Seamanship and Nautical Museum are all closed at this time. What I have learned is that there is some very interesting information regarding our harbor at Sherman Library, which I plan on diving into once we can get back into the pool again.

Searching for a story, I was able to come up with a few small tidbits on how we became Newport Beach. If I was to guess, the first people to use the harbor would have been fishermen from the Tongva tribe, who inhabited the Bolsa Chica Mesa area, (the cliffs in Huntington Beach) just as you head north on Warner Avenue off Pacific Coast Highway, some 8,500 years ago. Can you picture a couple of Tongva kids grabbing their boats and heading south then finding our harbor? They would have noticed the animal hide holding the westerly breezes; one of them would have built a small mast for their boats and just like that...sailboat racing started. Let’s call the two kids Gabriel and Fernando. Gabriel was a skinny little kid and he had the advantage in the light breezes in the waterways south of the village. That was until Fernando built a better sail out of cattails than figured out the shoal spots in the harbor.

Now jump forward some 8,326 years. The people were referring to the harbor as Bolsa de Gengara, Bolsa de San Joaquin and San Joaquin Bay. Then on September 10, 1870, Captain Samuel Sumner Dunnels cautiously guided his 105 ton, flat-bottomed steamer Vaquero into the virtually unexplored Newport Bay, then known as San Joaquin Bay. Vaquero was loaded with 5,000 shingles and 5,000 feet of lumber from San Diego, as he cautiously enters the bay at first light. Dunnels was successful, and our harbor finally had a source of needed supplies. In a short period of time, Dunnels had built a small wharf and warehouse near the west end of today’s Newport Bay bridge. There is not any proof, but I prefer the story that “Newport” came from Captain Dunnels when he said that he had found a “new port” after navigating through the sand bars.

If you have never noticed the California Registered historical landmark No. 198 “Old Landing” on the corner of PCH and Bayshore directly in front of the Bay Shores Apartment sign, you will find one of the few mariner landmarks around our harbor. Once the libraries and Historical Society open back up, I will dig up a few more particulars regarding the history of our harbor.

I am having one of my silly ideas by asking this question: Why do we not have a Will Wright’s Ice Cream parlor historical landmark? If you have not figured it out yet, I am starting to get a little landlocked and need to head out to sea before I get any more silly ideas.

Sea ya.

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Len Bose is a yachting enthusiast, yacht broker and harbor columnist for Stu News Newport.