The wreck of the Strathblane led directly to construction of North Head Lighthouse, which celebrated its centennial in 1998. One of the original architectural drawings of the lighthouse now is the front-page logo of the Chinook Observer, a tribute to the young man who survived the wreck and went on to help get the newspaper off to a solid beginning. This cut-away version of the drawing shows the lighthouse’s internal structure.

Charles Angus “Jack” Payne

Again and again, the breakers crashed over him as he strove toward shore. It was a cold, foggy morning — Nov. 3, 1891. Suddenly ahead, a gigantic creature appeared thrashing straight for him! With what little strength he had left, he tried to maneuver out of its way. “Better to drown than to be kicked to death by a crazed horse!” he thought.

And then came the shouts. “Grab his tail! Grab the horse’s tail. He’ll tow you in!” the hundreds of onlookers lining the beach yelled over and over and Jack Payne, no doubt thinking, “What the hell…” did just that. The great stallion dragged him onto the beach and with a toss of his head turned surf-ward again, his owner and trainer on his back looking for the next drowning sailor.

Pull Quote

‘Better to drown than to be kicked to death by a crazed horse!’

Jack Payne, Chinook Observer

With that terrifying arrival on the North Beach Peninsula, Jack Payne vowed never to go to sea again. He claimed he was 16 and that his name was Charles Angus Payne, “but you can call me Jack,” he said. And everyone did.

Perhaps the fact that he had joined the British Merchant Navy as an indentured apprentice under his birth name, Charles Arthur Lowry Payne, had something to do with his fuzzy identity. Or the fact that according to his Glasgow birth records he was born in May 1872, making him 19 when he was miraculously saved from the pounding surf at Klipsan Beach.

Whatever his reasons for inaccurately revealing his correct name and age, Jack kept his vow to never return to the sea. Although he was listed in the 1900 Chinook, Washington, census as a “fisherman,” it was fish-trapping he did, presumably staying within the confines of the Columbia River, never crossing the bar or entering the Pacific Ocean.

By 1903, he was listed as associate editor of the Chinook Observer and would also serve as business manager, and publisher, eventually buying out owner George Hibbert in 1912. Meanwhile, he had sent to Glasgow for his 31-year-old sister, Amy Ethel Payne who arrived in New York in October 1906 with a final destination as Chinook.

In 1905, the Chinook Observer moved into its very own building, the first two-story building in town. In describing it, a townsman said, “The printing presses and office were located on the ground floor and his [Payne’s] living quarters were above. The bedroom was a small ship’s stateroom, complete to built-in bunk, a port hole and ship’s clock.”

Though laid up now and then with angina pectoris, Payne not only kept the Observer in print through a slowing economy, he managed to continue his energetic and exuberant lifestyle. Also. during those years and throughout the rest of his life, Payne was active in the Improved Order of Redmen, one of many popular Fraternal organizations of those years.

He owned a Flying Merkel motorcycle, and after his first jaunt in an airplane in 1915, asked if there was anyone who would like to trade a second-hand hydroplane for a first-class weekly Christian newspaper. Perhaps this was the first hint that the issue of June 10, 1916 would be his last. Payne sold the Chinook Observer to W.E. Clancy.

By the time of the 1930 census, Charles A. Payne was listed in Seattle as “Head of Household” with two sisters — Amy and Edith living with him. His occupation is noted as “Collector: Internal Revenue Service.” Charles Angus “Jack” Payne died Nov. 1, 1932 in Seattle and was listed as 60 years old.

Though there are many local stories recorded and told of Jack Payne’s association and reputation of the fledgling Chinook Observer and of his movement up in the ranks at the state and national levels of the Improved Order of Red Men, it was the recounting of his turbulent arrival on the shores on the Peninsula that he, himself, proudly told for the rest of his life.