Captain Rees

The story and brief history of my great-great grandfather, Captain Rees. His life of trade, travel, and fifty years of memories and myth. BY JACK WILLIAMS

South Wales, 1850, the people engulfed by grinding poverty. Staying in Wales would have meant continuing the struggle involved in raising and trying to feed a family. One of eight children, my great-great grandfather, enrolled in a maritime training academy to give him the education needed to afford a family. From his humble beginnings in Wales to the bravery and courage to sail around the world as a sailor and trader to being a hotel owner in Washington, my great-great grandfather Rees Williams was an intelligent risk taker. By todays standards he did not live a long life, but he lived an exciting, interesting one.

Living on the South coast of Wales in the town of LLangrannog lived the Williams family. To be exact there was David Williams and Elinor Williams, their names inscribed on the family tomb stone in the LLangrannog congregational Church (LLangrannog). In their cliff side, stone cottage they resided with their eight children; including their four sons, David, Rees, Daniel and Lewis and their four daughters, Mary, Elizabeth, Hannah and Rachel. All but one of their children left to America. One stayed and became a master mariner and captain of a ship. This was my great, great grandfather Rees Williams.

Rees Williams was born in Wales on the 18th of January, in the year of 1846. In February 1871, a year before he received his masters license, he was married to Sarah Rowlands. She was the daughter of the successful merchant shipper, importer, and exporter, David Rowlands. Once the license was received on October 12th, (Williams, R) 1872, Rees acquired, outfitted and provisioned his boat, The Barque Zephrus, with financial help of Mr. Rowlands.

In December of 1872, with a shipment of welsh woolen bolts, Captain Rees and the crew of the Zephrus sailed to San Francisco. After five months at sea, they arrived at San Francisco and after selling the woolens, a deal was struck with Rees. The deal was to be this: transport, cut and dressed building stone (granite) to Portland, Oregon. At this time, only a few other ships had ever sailed across the bar and never carried such heavy materials, like granite, creating a large amount of weight; from account he never once struck the bar. (Williams, J)

Before the stone was sold to the builders in Portland, Rees stopped at Unity (now known as Ilwaco). Thinking it would be the port of the Pacific Northwest, he made investments in the city including the construction of the Bay View Hotel.

Later the stone was sold to Kerr-Gifford who exchanged it for money but mostly wheat, after which he went on to once again cross the Columbia bar and on to travel to Hong Kong. Arriving in Hong Kong, Captain Rees would do the following: trade his shipload of wheat for a load of tea, have his portrait painted, and purchase a Chinese lacquer table and two Chinese cloisonn vases.

To return to Wales form Hong Kong, Captain Rees sailed Africa. Although not precisely known how long it took for him to reach his destination it was believed to have been around one year and ten months; two other trips would take little over year to return.

The world cruise was a financial success as Rees was able to pay for the ship to Mr. Rowlands, the shipment of woolens to the factories, the salary of the crew, and the provisions of the next trip. The second voyage took anchor in early December and followed the same pattern of cargo, trade, and route.

Reess brother Lewis D. would come to America through New York at the age of 17, the year 1870. The only job at that time he could get was working at a steel mill in Ohio. After receiving letters from Rees of the prosperous life in Ilwaco, Lewis would travel by train to San Francisco, then once again by train to a city in Washington (unknown) where he would walk to Ilwaco in the late 1875. At that point, Lewis and Rees would travel on the Zephrus for a second and third voyage. (Williams, D)

After each voyage, Rees would return to his family and a new baby. For instance, Sarah Williams was born in September of 1875 in Wales and then David Williams was born nine months after Sarah. As Rees was away from Ilwaco, he would allow Lewis, his brother, to make decisions on his property and later made him co-owner of all his properties, such as the Bay View Hotel. (Williams, D)

After the third voyage, he and his wife Sarah would make the decision to permanently move to Ilwaco with their children. The part which our whole family has tried to determine is which story is true. There are three versions of the story.

Version 1: The family took a stagecoach to Swansea and boarded the Zephrus taking the same route of going around the horn and going over the Columbian bar and ended the trip at Ilwaco where they would live. During the trip Reess younger brother Dan would die from Yellow Fever while in the Indian Ocean.

Version 2: In this possibility the family sells the Zephrus and takes a commercial passenger boat to San Francisco where they take another boat up to Bakers Bay and then took to Ilwaco by coach. The only really large problem is there is never a reason of how Dan dies.

Version 3: In this hypothesis they really took the Zephrus to New York where they sold the Zephrus. With that money they would take a train to Chicago where Dan dies of unknown illness, then to San Francisco where they would take one last sea trip to Ilwaco.(Williams, D)

Thereafter, the family settled in the Bay View Hotel and on February 6, 1881, they had the first of their 7 children, Hannah Catherine Stefina Williams. A few weeks after the birth of Hannah, the Bay View Hotel burned down and they would need to go to a cottage

until rebuilt. This though, was really a blessing in disguise as the Bay View would be built larger with more rooms and another wing altogether. On August 29, 1889 they had their last child, Thomas Jacob Williams, and the family was complete. With a life to look forward to, Captain Rees Williams would die. He died by contracting Typhoid Fever and died in Ilwaco in the year 1893 at the age of 48. (Williams, D)

All in all, Rees Williams lived a full, complete life. At the age of fortyeight, he had sailed around the world three times for trade, had four children, and became a successful hotel owner. Although dying before fifty he lived and experienced more than the average person. The adventures he faced have changed his life as well as the lives of others, including generations after.