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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1858 | 2 |
| 1860 | 2 |
| 1862 | 7 |
| 1863 | 1 |
| 1872 | 4 |
| 1876 | 42 |
| 1877 | 19 |
| 1878 | 3 |
| 1880 | 1 |
| 1882 | 2 |
| 1883 | 14 |
| 1884 | 2 |
| 1885 | 19 |
| 1886 | 6 |
| 1887 | 5 |
| 1888 | 20 |
| 1889 | 18 |
| 1890 | 1 |
| 1891 | 8 |
| 1892 | 42 |
| 1893 | 59 |
| 1894 | 35 |
| 1895 | 36 |
| 1899 | 1 |
| 1903 | 1 |
| 1904 | 8 |
| 1909 | 1 |
| 1910 | 1 |
36 stories
- Puget Sound Out-Sailed Every U.S. Port but New York in 1894
Customs records showed a young Washington district building an Oriental trade from scratch, even as falling wheat and lumber values masked the boom in raw tonnage.
- The Charcoal Burner Who Confessed to a Killing the Birds Made Him Do
Arrested for stealing chickens, Ah Wah turns out to be Ah Chung — the Port Townsend murderer who told police where to find his partner's body, and was saved from the gallows by two volunteer lawyers and a story about blue jays.
- The Fishhook Baited With Human Flesh
In a Port Townsend hotel, a sailor displays the improvised wire hook that kept survivors of the wrecked whaler James Allen alive after the disaster in Bering Sea.
- The Hoodooed Ship That Left Three Dead
At Port Townsend, sailors call the Linlithgowshire cursed after a third officer is killed—and the ship’s recent history makes the word stick.
- Uncle Sam Sells a Fort: Fort Townsend Is Set Adrift as Seattle Angles for the Garrison
President Cleveland approves transferring the old military reservation to the Interior Department for sale, clearing the way for a new post at Magnolia Bluff.
- The Card Sharps Who Picked the Wrong Captain—and Sailed to Peru
Two Seattle gamblers went to Port Townsend to fleece the master of the British ship Dimsdale. He found out, shanghaied them both, and set sail for Callao.
- Shanghaied Aboard the Babcock: A Captain's Escape and a Crew Taken at Gunpoint
Capt. Graham slipped his guards at Port Townsend while his wheat ship waited—after a Tacoma crew of 23 was rounded up with beatings, revolvers, and two bewildered Japanese men.
- The Captain Who Slipped the Marshal
A crew-hiring dispute lands a ship's master in irons in Port Townsend—until a death and a distracted guard give him a clear path to the sea.
- Port Townsend’s Fire Chief Quits After Council Cuts Pay
Salary reductions leave the department’s chief and engineer gone, with Engineer Draper refusing to juggle five jobs—engineer, janitor, teamster, alarm superintendent, and assistant chief—for less pay.
- Gold in the Black Sand: A Mining Rush at Cape Flattery
Three Port Townsend men stake claims on sixty acres of beach and start pulling $3 to $7 a day from the sand — and predict a rush.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- A Disgraced Immigration Inspector Says He Was Framed
Arrested in Port Townsend over a forged $50 check, Thomas M. Fisher finds defenders who say the case is a conspiracy—and a Portland lawyer may be the real culprit.
- The Mystery of the Vanishing Gold
A government shipment of gold disappears between Seattle and Port Townsend, leaving investigators baffled by a tampered seal.
- Washington's First Soldiers' Monument Rises in Port Townsend
On May 30, 1895, the Woman's Relief Corps presented a cannon-on-pedestal monument to Farragut Post—the first soldiers' monument in the state—as two little girls pulled the cord and an evening crowd gathered at the courthouse.
- The Sealing Monopoly Judge Swan Called a ‘Monumental Humbug’
A federal report from Port Townsend shows Puget Sound sealers thriving while a Smithsonian expert blasts the Alaska Commercial Company’s grip on the Pribilof Islands.
- A Stanchion, a Log Raft, and Two Ships That Never Came Home
Wreckage found off Cape Flattery leads Port Townsend mariners to suspect a double collier disaster hidden in a tangle of drifting timber.