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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 22 |
| 1889 | 18 |
| 1891 | 7 |
| 1892 | 47 |
| 1893 | 62 |
| 1894 | 37 |
| 1895 | 34 |
227 stories
- The Sad Tale of a Mail-Order Marriage
A romantic courtship by mail ended in divorce, a sheriff's sale, and a supreme court battle over a farm in Leland Valley.
- The Contract Wife Who Would Not Be Shaken Off
Florence Bucklin Byers followed a wealthy Chilean consul to California, then returned to Port Townsend vowing to enforce their handwritten marriage contract—or sue him for divorce.
- A Crepe-Draped Cleveland and the Custom-House Deal
Port Townsend Democrats gather amid patronage bargains, a sacrificed ally, and a prank that put the president's portrait in mourning.
- The Night Fort Townsend Burned
A lamp explosion, a magazine full of cartridges, and a town’s fear that the Army would leave.
- The Opium Cipher That Cost a Customs Inspector His Job
Port Townsend's S. G. Glen Todd denies he was fired for sleeping on duty—or for ignoring opium and Chinese smuggling—and produces a cipher telegram to prove he reported both.
- The Vice President's Cousin and the $1,000 Port Townsend Swindle
A smooth-tongued 'loan agent' traded on Adlai Stevenson's name to collect membership fees from Port Townsend's most respectable Democrats — then hid behind unreturned abstracts and 'free stock' worth $100 a share.
- The Lost Heir Who Never Was
A charming stranger said he was hunting a brother and a family fortune. His new friends found out the fortune was fiction—and their money was gone.
- The Customs Inspector Who Planned to Print His Own Money
A Port Townsend official's plaster-of-Paris counterfeiting scheme unraveled after his mistress went to police — then he caught a midnight boat for Victoria.
- The Slow Pace of Chinese Registration
A local official reports back to Seattle after an unsuccessful attempt to register Chinese residents, highlighting the tensions surrounding the Chinese Exclusion Act.
- The Perils of the Tyler Street Wharf
A maritime worker loses his final attempt to sue the city for injuries sustained on a dangerous pier.
- The Opium Smuggler of the City of Kingston
A baggage master is caught red-handed smuggling forty-five pounds of opium, but the customs inspector he tried to bribe was playing a double game.
- Smuggling Ring Exposed at Port Townsend
A customs inspector is accused of taking bribes to let opium cross the border, revealing a deeper scandal within the agency.
- Storms and Steamers on the Sound
The steamer Rosalie returns to port after springing a leak in heavy seas, as gale winds batter the Puget Sound maritime trade.
- The Steam Came Through the Firebox
Fred Hutchinson was feeding wood into the Monticello's boiler when a loose pipe cap gave way. Scalded across his face, neck, chest and hands, he was rushed to Port Townsend while the steamer was towed in.
- The Border Drawn Through the Hop Fields
First Nations pickers from British Columbia were crossing into Washington to bring in the hop crop. The Treasury ordered them deported — while the inspector admitted the growers could not do without them.
- The Postmaster’s Morality Purge
A Port Townsend postmaster suspends a Methodist minister and mail carrier, citing the moral tone of the department—while his own divorce scandal simmers.
- The Silk in Her Bustle: A Port Townsend Smuggling Arrest
A customs inspector grows suspicious of Mrs. M. E. Collins’s unusually pronounced bustle aboard the City of Kingston—and finds a bolt of contraband silk.
- A Customs Official, a Forged Check, and the Opium Hidden in Coal-Oil Tins
Ex-immigration inspector Thomas M. Fisher was arrested at Port Townsend for allegedly forging a Canadian officer's endorsement and pocketing a $350 opium-seizure reward.
- Three Deaths Haunt One Ship in Port Townsend Harbor
Archibald Anderson is knocked into the hold and killed instantly, capping a grim three-month run of fatal misfortune aboard the British ship Linlithgowshire.
- The Customs Officer and the Paper Trail
A San Francisco dispatch accuses a former Port Townsend customs inspector of leading a ring that forged Chinese immigration certificates. His neighbors call it a smear.
- A Son of the Clallam Chief Goes to Court to Settle His Brother's Estate
In what the paper calls the first case of its kind in the country, an Indigenous man asks a Port Townsend judge to let him administer his late brother's estate — a son of the Duke of York.
- The High Price of Opium Smuggling
A ship's cook is arrested in Port Townsend after attempting to bribe an inspector to ignore a hidden cache of opium.
- The Fight Over Washington’s Missing School Sections
A Port Townsend case over “lieu lands” reaches a federal courtroom—and the title to hundreds of thousands of acres of school land.
- The Messy Business of Mapping the Waterfront
A state land commission discovers chaotic record-keeping that effectively clouded the titles to Jefferson County’s prime waterfront property.
- The Great Sweep: Jefferson County Goes Republican for the First Time
In a historic political shift for Washington Territory, the newly elected county officers in Port Townsend take office, marking the first time Jefferson County has been governed exclusively by Republicans.