Neahkahnie Mountain has long been associated with stories and legends, including accounts of a shipwrecked source of beeswax, a buried pirate treasure, and the wreck of the Glenesslin. In the early 1800's, local native People brought beeswax to Astoria for trade even though there were no honeybees there, saying it came from a big ship washed up on Nehalem Spit. People later continued to find beeswax there along with teak ship timbers and Chinese porcelain. Archaeologists now identify that ship as a Spanish galleon, part of the trade between the Philippines and Mexico from 1565 to 1815, and scientists theorize that a tsunami in 1700 may have scattered the wax and possibly the wreck. Another local native story held that a pirate treasure trunk was buried on the Mountain, marked by an inscribed rock and guarded by the ghost of a man buried with it; treasure hunters found marked stones but no treasure, and the State Land Board stopped treasure hunting in 1989. In October 1913, on a clear, calm, sunny day, the Glenesslin ran onto the rocks of Neahkahnie Mountain and eventually sank, and whether it was driven there by current or wind or by the captain's intent remains unknown.