Nehalem Valley Historical Society, located beneath the Pine Grove Community House in Manzanita, guides visitors chronologically through a room of exhibits. Beginning with the stories of the Clatsop and Nehalem tribes, the series layers on the arrival of white settlers, the development of local industries like fishing and logging and the establishment of public lands.

But the museum’s newest pair of exhibits drift apart from this sequence, as introduced by historical society board president Tom Campbell. “This area of the museum has become our maritime display,” he said, gesturing to a wall that features a handful of famed local shipwrecks.

In March, the museum added an exhibit focused on the Beeswax ship, an undiscovered vessel carrying large quantities of beeswax, thought to have been a Spanish galleon ship en route between the Philippines and Mexico.

This local legend caught the attention of historian Mark Beach. “The beeswax ship has been a story around here, sometimes used to sell, sometimes used to sort of perpetuate a legend, and increasingly as a real basis for professional research,” Beach said. He notes that local Indigenous tribes began finding large quantities of beeswax more than 200 years ago.

Now, anthropologists and scientists hope to find the remains of the ship that carried them, thought by some to be the Santo Cristo de Burgos, which disappeared in 1693. “There was a great trade in beeswax from the Philippines, gathering up beeswax and a lot of other goods, and sailing to Mexico, and one of the ships lost its way,” Beach said. The exhibit includes large samples of beeswax, as well as trading route maps and other artifacts.

These are joined by the museum’s latest addition, an exhibit focused on British explorer Sir Francis Drake. “There is evidence in the records left by Francis Drake’s exploits that he did careen and repair the ship at a port somewhere on the West Coast,” Beach said. This landing point, titled Nova Albion, is federally recognized as occurring at Drakes Bay, near Point Reyes, California.

Still, historians throughout the Northwest have suggested other locations. Nehalem Bay, believed by some to align with historic maps and descriptions, is the subject of the historical society’s exhibit.

Placed at the center of the museum’s maritime display, it aims to tell a story. “This exhibit is about the debate of whether Sir Francis Drake came to Nehalem Bay,” Campbell said.

For Nehalem Valley Historical Society vice president Tom Mock, the idea awakens a sense of curiosity. “There’s a lot of legend, a lot of mystery,” he said. The exhibit also features a small replica of Drake’s ship, The Golden Hind, as well as books on the subject from local authors.

Members of the historical society are keenly aware that this effort wouldn’t have been possible without volunteer and community support. “There’s half a dozen people who got interested in this, and so they’re willing to put in the time and effort,” Beach said. “All of the panels that you see, it’s all done by volunteers,” he added.

Campbell hopes the pair of exhibits will start conversations between neighbors and visitors about local history and folklore. “We just want to tell the story,” he said, “what’s in this little maritime cove is really unusual.”

Nehalem Valley Historical Society

225 Laneda Ave., Manzanita

Museum open Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m.

www.nehalemvalleyhistory.org