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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 48 |
| 1877 | 17 |
65 stories
- Two Hundred Lives, One Closed Door: The Pacific Inquiry
Witnesses swore in Port Townsend that the steamer Pacific was rotten when she sailed. Now the very inspectors who certified her seaworthy are investigating her loss — in secret.
- Seattle's Street Grading Unearthed Native Remains—and Discarded Them
In 1876, as Seattle graded its streets, workers found the remains of dead Indians and disposed of them without ceremony. A local paper reported it as just another improvement.
- Fatal Wharfside Shooting Leaves Town in Uproar
A long-standing feud ends in murder on Union Wharf, with the suspect fleeing by boat as the community demands accountability from local law enforcement.
- The Tragic End of a Timber Titan
Arthur Phinney, the driving force behind the Port Ludlow mill, dies from a long-standing internal injury.
- The Hatch Left Open: How a Passenger's Injury Put a Steamship Under Arrest
Mary Phelps was permanently maimed when a crew removed a hatch aboard the City of Panama. When the vessel reached Port Townsend, U.S. Marshal Hopkins seized it—prompting citizens to raise a $100,000 bond.
- The S'Klallam Village That Bought Its Own Ground on Dungeness Bay
A traveler describes Jamestown, a community of young Clallam Indians who pooled their earnings to buy a 160-acre farm and built an orderly village beside the logging railway.
- A Wood Wagon Sank in the Mud Outside Good Templars' Hall
A Port Townsend editor told the new town trustees to fix existing roads before launching grand new ones—after neighbors had to unload Peter Smith's wagon to free it.
- The Pacific’s Lesson: Floating Decks and Real Sailors
A correspondent proposes turning steamer decks into life-rafts—and blames the wreck of the Pacific on owners who replaced seamen with freight handlers.
- The Smallpox Ship at the Wharf
In September 1876, Port Townsend citizens met at the Old Court House to demand accountability after the steamer Dakota brought smallpox into their port.
- The Coin Toss That Named Portland — and the Man Who Founded Port Townsend
A.M. Pettygrove comes back to the town he laid out in 1851, and the Argus retells how a flipped coin gave Portland its name, how a claim was sold for $5,000 in cash and leather, and how a Puget Sound bluff became a city.
- Robert Ingersoll’s Warning to the Washington Clerk
The famous orator and freethinker warns young men against the soul-crushing nature of government bureaucracy in Washington D.C.
- A Drunken Stabbing—and a Churchgoer Shot Without Cause
On one violent Sunday, a wife stabbed her husband through the heart, and a young man shot a girl on her way to church before turning the gun on himself.
- A Convent Escape and a Steamer Waiting: The Elopement That Ended in Port Townsend
When her parents opposed the match on religious grounds, Mary Emma Kealy was cloistered in a convent. She escaped in a carriage, reached a waiting steamer, and married Ward Debeck in Port Townsend.
- Three Days Adrift: A Ferryman's Rescue Off Point Wilson
A German sailor in an open skiff, barely able to speak or move, is pulled from the water by Mr. Benson and brought to Port Townsend.
- The Night Port Townsend Refused a Boatload of Strikebreakers
Twenty-eight destitute men from a Nanaimo miners' strike were shipped to Port Townsend aboard the North Pacific. Sheriff Miller met them at the wharf and said they could not land.
- A Crew Called the Iona Unseaworthy. The Cutter Called It Mutiny.
Before the Italian bark Iona could leave Port Townsend, its sailors refused to sail. A survey said the ship was sound; a revenue cutter's officer put the men in irons and warned them of a mutiny trial.
- The Body in the Bay: Peter Samuelson's Mysterious Death
After nearly two weeks missing, a Port Townsend man was found dead on the shore, his boat capsized and his pockets still heavy with gold. A coroner's jury ruled accidental drowning.
- Nineteen Sailors Survive a Wreck Off Cape Flattery
The ship Commodore struck near Neah Bay in 1877, but its entire crew made it ashore, found shelter with a local family, and was ferried back to Port Townsend.
- Nine Good Men Never Came Home From the Seal Grounds
A hurricane off Cape Flattery swallows three canoes full of the strongest seal hunters of the tribe, all in the perilous work of gathering furs.
- The Pioneer Who Built Port Townsend's First Wharf
Captain Enoch S. Fowler, a Maine-born mariner turned merchant and officeholder, dies at 63, leaving a town shaped by his ships, wharves, and stone buildings.
- Governor Ferry Calls for a Special Election
Following a tie vote in the November 1876 election, the Governor orders a new vote for the Territorial Assembly representative for Clallam and San Juan counties.
- A Seven-Foot Sea Serpent Washes Up Near Cape Flattery
Capt. Stratton of Neah Bay brings a finned, many-toothed monster to Port Townsend, and the local editor reaches for the Laocoön to describe it.
- The Monster Canoe That Defeated a Donkey Engine
Judge James Swan's colossal Northwest canoe sat nine months on the wharf — until one determined shipping agent and a hundred willing hands hauled it aboard the Dakota for Philadelphia.
- The Preacher Who Turned 170 Acres of Wilderness Into a Home
When Port Townsend could not pay its Methodist minister enough to live on, Rev. Laubach moved to Discovery Bay and built a farm — house, fences, orchard and skiff — with his own hands.
- The Parade Ground Is Now a Ward: A Visitor Walks the Territory's Asylum
Where the 4th Infantry once drilled to fife and drum, a correspondent finds sagging fences, two overworked keepers to a men's ward, and a lone matron holding the women's department — all on an appropriation he calls 'a shame to our people.'