A Look Back:

Several old wooden sailing vessels, including a real pirate ship and a schooner that became home to an old sea captain after it ended up wrecked at the mouth of Newport Harbor, were used to film movies around Newport Beach during the early days of Hollywood.

An old pirate ship called the Fremont sunk just off Newport Harbor during the production of an early film adaptation of “Treasure Island,” according to a Los Angeles Times article dated Oct. 19, 1919.

“But a few of the adventuring old ships are left, decrepit, obsolete, every timber reeking with tar and romance, and among them none has seen stranger sights, perhaps, than the scarred old Fremont,” the Times reported.

The tall ship Fremont was launched in Philadelphia in 1850, the Times reported, and was first used in the slave trade, swapping rum, muskets and bolts of cloth for slaves on the East African coast.

The Fremont then became a blockade runner during the Civil War.

“But after a while the black flag was hauled to her mizzen peak, and she was sailed by pirates,” the Times reported.

In its later years, the Fremont was a cargo carrier, until government inspectors condemned the vessel, and it was sold to a film production company to be used as a prop.

The Fremont was made over to look like a Spanish galleon and used in early filmmaker Maurice Tourneur’s silent adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” in 1919.

The ship ran aground on a shoal just off Newport Harbor during filming in October 1919, the Times reported.

“...[The Fremont] made new history last Tuesday, when she went aground with forty-five persons aboard,” the Times reported. “Their lives were in peril all night, while waves broke over her and boatmen refused to attempt a rescue. Next day the people were taken off with a breeches buoy.”

Another old vessel, the Muriel, was used in the filming of the 1924 silent film “The Sea Hawk,” directed by Frank Lloyd. The film tells the story of an English nobleman sold into slavery who later escapes and becomes a pirate. Lloyd used old ships outfitted with new wooded exteriors in the film.

The Muriel was later abandoned after it ran aground on a sand bar at the entrance to Newport Harbor, the Times reported on Aug. 8, 1925.

“At low tide, the boat that figured in filming of The Seahawk [sic], can be boarded from dry land,” the Times reported. “After resting on the bar for over a month, the ship has been practically abandoned until the government steps in to attempt to move her.”

Capt. Ole Eliasen, a veteran deep-sea diver, attempted to salvage the Muriel, and famously fought off and killed a 15-foot octopus with a crowbar while surveying the wreckage, the Times reported on July 2, 1927.

Eliasen later sued Newport Beach for $25,000 after city workers blew up and burned the wreckage of the Muriel, the Times reported on March 29, 1931.

The old sea captain claimed he was given the right to salvage the Muriel

“Eliasen moved his diving apparatus and personal belongings to the captain’s cabin of the old ship and began calking the vessel,” the Times reported. “It was during one of these trips into the water-filled hold that he fought the octopus, but he failed to float the Muriel, and finally simply established his home on board where he lifted the simple life of a retired seaman.”

City officials tried for years to find a way to clear the Muriel from the harbor entrance and finally obtained a government permit to blow it up “as a menace to navigation,” the Times reported.

The old sea captain was dislodged from the Muriel, before the vessel was dynamited. The remains of the ship were then burned.

“Meanwhile, Eliasen was deprived of a cabin which had become a real home,” the Times reported. “He protested to the City Council, Chamber of Commerce and everyone else who would give him a hearing.”