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Terror at the Dragon's Teeth: Sinking of the SS Brother Jonathan
A Documentary / Docudrama Screenplay In Development
A Ken Burns Documentary style complete with AI Created1850 Photographs and coupled with 3D Photorealistic Animation including dozens of interviews of Character Avatars representing people who were key to telling this story. Work on the documentary was approved by the Del Norte County Historical Society. Much has been written about the sinking of the Steam Ship Brother Jonathan and tragic loss of life, but video representative of the event are scarce. Since there are few images available from the period most electronic storytelling of the Brother Jonathan tragedy tends to highlight the 126 year search for the treasure that was onboard the ship and the legal fight between salvagers and the State of California over the ownership of the gold found in 1993.
We decided to focus our film on the last voyage from San Francisco on July 28th 1865 through the sinking off shore just south of the California / Oregon boarder on July 30th 1865. We're using advanced technology to put viewers on the ship during her final voyage. The one hundred and twenty-six year search for the missing gold lost on the SS Brother Jonathan, is a footnote in our feature film. We believe the real gold in this story is found in the stories of the passengers, their families and the compassion of the people of Crescent City.
On July 30th 1865 the heavily loaded SS Brother Jonathan attempted to return to the safety of the Crescent City California harbor having faced a Nor Wester storm with rogue 30 foot waves the ship and turned back near the California / Oregon state border. Trying to get relieve from the storm Captain Samuel DeWolf sailed closer to land just inside of the Point Saint George Reef . The Brother Jonathan was riding high on a wave when a lookout notice a rock just barely sticking out of the water and not listed on any charts.
The ship rode right down on to a 275 foot spire shooting up from the sea floor. In 45 minutes, the ship sinks with only 19 out of 244 surviving the catastrophe. The smallest lifeboat, really a surfboat made of wood, which many tried to avoid in favor of the large lifeboats which all foundered near the sinking ship. This is a story of an unknown rock sinking a ship and claiming so many lives it remains the worst civilian loss of life in a maritime episode on the west coast of the United States till this day.
