Washington Myths and Legends by Bragg Lynn;

Author:Bragg, Lynn;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4086375
Publisher: TwoDot

SHANGHAIED!

Fifteen-year-old Harry Long left his Seattle house on Union Street December 21, 1901, and vanished. When Harry failed to return home by the next day, his parents filed a missing persons report with the Seattle Police Department. Worried, they told the authorities that Harry was not the type to run away, plus all of his clothes and possessions were still in his room. Harry was on his way to work when he disappeared, but he was known to stop and watch the ships in Elliott Bay along the way. The Long family believed that habit might have gotten young Harry shanghaied.

During the week of January 4, 1901, the names of eleven people, all but one men, were listed as missing in The Seattle Star. The newspaper routinely published the names and hometowns of missing persons given to them by the Seattle Police Department, which received a steady stream of inquiries from outside of Washington about missing loved ones. It was common for men to arrive on the West Coast, only to disappear. Did some, or all, of these men fall victim to the practice of shanghaiing?

“Shanghai,” the verb, is defined as “to put aboard a ship by force.” The term originated in San Francisco and referred to the end destination of many of the ships carrying crews obtained in just that manner. It was big business up and down the West Coast for crimps to make a good income by kidnapping or selling incapacitated men into servitude on outward-bound ships. In 1895, the United States government attempted to end the practice by passing a law that required sailors to read and sign the ship’s articles before hiring onto a crew. Federal law defined “shanghaiing” as the employment of any sailor who had not signed the ship’s articles, or who had signed unwilling or drunkenly.

Lurid stories were told of sailors who were shanghaied from San Francisco, Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle, but by far the most notorious and prolific port of all was Port Townsend. Well-known, respected citizens of Port Townsend became very wealthy by running sailors boarding houses from which their agents or crimps supplied ships in the harbor with crews. Many of these boarding houses, brothels, and bars were built over piers with trap-doors that opened to the saltwater below. The human cargo could easily be dropped through the hatch into a waiting rowboat and transported quietly out to a deep-water ship in the bay. The good citizens of Port Townsend seemed unconcerned about lowlife, waterfront rats who were given drugged drinks and sent out to sea. After all it helped to clean up their lovely town with its elaborate, Victorian-style houses on the hill. John Sutton’s story illustrates what could happen to an unsuspecting young man who wandered into Port Townsend.

When his logging camp shut down because of summer forest fires, twenty-three-year-old logger John Sutton headed to the nearest town for recreation. Sutton went straight to Water Street in Port Townsend where good, bootleg Canadian whiskey, girls, and gambling were plentiful.

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