Mystery at Ft. Vancouver

I found myself at Old Ft. Vancouver for the Atlas Obscura Day tour.  It was a tour designed to show of little known and/or seldom accessed parts of the Fort.   All in all it was a great tour.  We saw where the gardens had been, rebuilt homes, the area where the workers lived, and  where the old wharf had been.
It was here at the edge of the Columbia River that our guide (insert name) mentioned that a huge anchor had been dredged up in the area of the wharf.  And interestingly the anchor probably came from a ship-of-the-line, and more interestingly there was no record of any ship that large being at Ft. Vancouver during the Hudson Bay area, or afterwards.  I love the discovery of a mystery.
The guide indicated the anchor was stored in a building within the old fort.  So I made my way there. Along the way I was momentarily distracted by another possible mystery.
In front of the former Governor’s House sit two cannon.  At least one is marked with the year 1804 and this same cannon is stamped with a royal type seal.  In looking at the seal it appears to contain the Fleur-de-lis.

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This is often a symbol for the French Monarch. As soon as I see this cannon and symbol coupled with the story of the anchor, I go into history connection overdrive.
Is this a French Royal cannon which passed on to the French Revolutionist and finally to Napoleon and his Imperial troops?  What if 1804 is not the year it was cast, but rather the year the British Navy captured it? What if a forgotten battle of the Napoleonic era took place here on the Columbia?  Did someone sabotage the British vessel, causing it to lose the anchor?

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As my brother, nephew, and I wandered about the fort, I was captured by the idea of this anchor and the cannons.  And I was impatient to get to the building the guide indicated the anchor was stored.  It was slow going with a four year old nephew easily entranced by whatever is around the next corner, or in the next building.  It was little surprise to find my brother and nephew in the Fort’s reconstructed kitchen.  It took some effort to get them to leave the delicious looking plates of food laid out for the re-enactors lunch.

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According to the National Park Service the Fort was established in 1825 by the Hudson Bay Company, as the headquarters for its trading operations.  An area, according to our guide, which extended north to Alaska, down to San Francisco, east to the Rockies and then stretching west all the way to the Hawaiian Islands. It was operational until 1860, when the Company left and moved operations north.
Once we made it to the large wooden building with red doors holding the fort’s archaeological finds, as well as, a reconstructed fur storage area, with bales of fur, old wooden barrels, tin candle holders, mounted on the wall, and a massive scale to weigh the furs, I discovered the anchor was nowhere to be seen. No worries.  It could easily be found online.

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And so we continued our slow tour around the fort.  Climbing the corner tower, to lookout over the plain.  Imagining we were looking out for the yearly ship arrival, or a trapping party trudging in from the vast Northwest interior with a season’s bounty of pelts, we peered through the firing slits. We pretended to fire a salute to visiting ships, carrying dignitaries, and brimming with news and trading goods.
It was in the counting house that any romantic idea of the cannons being French Royal ones came crashing to an end.  For it was here, while inspecting Capt. Baillie’s room that I discovered the very same symbol from the cannons on his naval headgear.  These are British Royal cannons.  It was a bit of a let down.  But at least the mystery of the anchor remained.
So how did this anchor end up in the Columbia River?
What if Napoleon realizing he needed more ships sent a party here to secretly build them? What if the British discovered his plans and sent a secret mission to stop it?
What if a British ship was exploring the world, made its way up the Columbia and before news of any discoveries could be sent out, the ship was lost?
What if the ship(which lost the anchor) was on a secret mission to survey before the US and British governments signed the treaty establishing boundaries between the countries?  And getting caught would be an international incident.
Perhaps the answer of how the anchor was lost will never be known, but it is great fun playing the What if….game.

Picture 1 Google search for Fleur de Lis.
A very royal image of the Fleur de Lis.

Picture 2 https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=gkXe8AFLU-XyYGhnubuAgQ
The cannons marked 1804 outside the governor’s house Ft. Vancouver.

Picture 3 Yahoo search for Ft. Vancouver
The kitchen area of Ft. Vancouver.

Picture 4 Yahoo search for Ft. Vancouver
The building where the guide indicated the anchor was housed.

Picture 5 Yahoo search for Ft. Vancouver
Inside one part of the building where the anchor is suppose to be

Sources
https://www.nps.gov/fova/index.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Vancouver_National_Historic_Site
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%27s_Bay_Company
https://www.nps.gov/fova/learn/historyculture/upload/countinghouse01b.pdf
Footnote 1
Note:Ship-of-the-line according to Wikipedia is “a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through to the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside firepower to bear.”

UPDATE:  So as I wrote this I was playing with the idea of whether to track down the anchor or not.  Obviously I posted without tracking down the anchor.  But after I posted I thought maybe I should.  Just in case someone asked.  So I called Ft. Vancouver and asked about this anchor.  And lo and behold the anchor is not in the building.  It is at the east end of the parking lot up by the visitor center and Officers' Row.  I plan to visit it and get a picture.