The legacy of Astor and the Tonquin survives today as the town of Astoria, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River. But the ship and much of its crew met with a bloody end.
As told by Irving, while trading for furs somewhere on the coast of Vancouver Island, the Tonquin's captain, a prickly New Yorker named Jonathan Thorn, slapped a local chief with a sea otter pelt.
Outraged, scores of Indians mounted an assault on the ship the next day, massacring most of the crew. Nevertheless, one man, a clerk, survived long enough to set fire to an estimated 4.5 tons of gunpowder in the Tonquin's hold.
Irving described the destruction, relayed by an Indian translator who survived the incident:
"The ship had disappeared, but the bay was covered with fragments of the wreck, with shattered canoes, and Indians swimming for their lives, or struggling with the agonies of death."
Since the 1950s, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on efforts to find the lost ship.
On a recent evening, a small group gathered in Palm's kitchen to discuss his discovery and the formation of a Tonquin Foundation.
Joining Palm were David Griffiths, a documentary filmmaker and diver, and Joseph Martin, a member of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations, whose traditional territory rings Clayoquot Sound.
The goal of the foundation, Griffiths said, would be to "leapfrog all of that heavy meanderings at the different levels of government" that could bog down any archaeological work. He said the foundation planned to work closely with the local Tla-o-qui-aht tribe, whose members have an oral history describing their part in the Tonquin disaster, to raise enough money to finance a survey of the strait to determine if a wreck was present.
Until then, he said, Palm would hold on to the anchor, possibly using it as the centerpiece of a future maritime heritage center in Tofino.
The provincial government is likely to object.
Steven Acheson, an archaeologist with British Columbia's Archaeology and Registry Services Branch in Victoria, said a provincial law, the Heritage Conservation Act, gave the government of British Columbia ultimate authority over any artifacts discovered in the province.
He saidthat, according to the law, the anchor should be turned over to a research institution for analysis.
Palm said he would oppose any efforts to remove the anchor from the Strawberry Island site.
"I don't think they would try to take it away from here," he said. "It's just too hot. I'm just a little worried that they're going to stomp all over Rod Palm."
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