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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 38 |
| 1877 | 6 |
44 stories
- The First Scythes: Makah Men Arrive in Port Townsend Looking for Work
Five men from Neah Bay came to town in 1876 to hire themselves out as mowers. A local editor praised their tools—and exposed the era's patronizing ideas about 'civilizing' Native people.
- The Sovereign Grand Commander Comes to Port Townsend
General Albert Pike arrives by steamer to inspect the local lodges, lectures to the brethren, and is feted with a banquet and a Scow Bay clambake.
- Before the Next High Tide
An 1878 editorial warns that hauling gravel and pulling drift logs off the Point Hudson spit has already helped flood Port Townsend twice—and calls for an ordinance before the winter storms return.
- Why Is There No Sawmill on Port Townsend Bay?
With foreign lumber ships crowding the harbor and the mills all seventy miles up the Sound, the Argus does the arithmetic on what the town is throwing away.
- A Body in the Bay: The Cryptic Note Left in a Dead Man's Skiff
An unidentified man is found adrift in Admiralty Bay, and the only clue is a strange note in his pocket about a neighbor, a house, and cloth nailed to the walls.
- A Spark on the Roof: Fire at Rothschild & Co. Spurs a Petition Against Fireworks
Quick action saved a downtown Port Townsend store from burning, and the close call prompted residents to demand a ban on fireworks within town limits.
- A Taxpayer Fights the Assessor for Six Years — and Loses
William Craswell petitions the county board to strike fraudulent assessments from the rolls and demands back the money already taken; the commissioners refuse, then set the rates for everyone else.
- Port Ludlow Wakes Up: New Boilers, a New Schooner, and a Boom in Houses
A correspondent's New Year letter from the sawmill town: the mill comes back to life after three dark weeks, a 140-foot vessel rises on the Hall ways for the Coos Bay coal trade, and even the hotelkeeper is building himself a house.
- A Reader Says Smiles and Bows Won't Save Port Townsend
A letter to the editor takes aim at the sentimental notion that a town prospers on politeness alone, insisting that Port Townsend needs capital, labor and trade — not suave manners and boosterism.
- Port Discovery’s Busy Wharves and the Mill That Ran Full Time
A short steamer voyage from Port Townsend in 1876 found new wharves, a bigger engine house, and a lumber mill employing about 100 men.
- Man Overboard: A Desperate Rescue Off the Port Townsend Wharf
When a crewman is swept off the steamer North Pacific just after she leaves the dock, two boats race the heavy swell to pull him from the water alive.
- A Seven-Day Ordeal at Sea: The City of Panama Limps into Port Townsend
A midnight collision with a lumber schooner, a hurricane off the Oregon coast, and a pointed comparison to the steamer Pacific — which went down with more than 200 souls aboard.
- The Tumor That Ate Through a Man's Spine
A Port Townsend autopsy found that a long-growing aneurysm had eroded bone and pushed through the skin of the spinal column.
- The Judge's Warning: Stop Selling Whiskey to Indians
A Port Townsend grand jury was told that federal law treated every Native person as under an Indian agent's charge—and that local liquor sellers were profiting from open violation.
- The Revivalist Who Left Discord Behind
A traveling evangelist spent a summer working Puget Sound's Baptist pulpits — and the association's verdict was blunt: imposter.
- A Potlatch at Neah Bay: Blankets, Money, and a Makah Celebration
A newspaper correspondent visits a Makah potlatch and finds hundreds gathered, a wealthy widow, and gifts of cash and blankets distributed to friends and relations.
- A Log Raft Turns Deadly Off Decatur Island
Amos Plasket, a San Juan County resident, fell from a log into the water within yards of shore and drowned before he could be recovered.
- The Log Jam That Held Back a Valley: Skagit Settlers Propose a DIY River Clearance
With a massive log jam blocking navigation on the Skagit River, a settler proposes that landowners take matters into their own hands rather than wait for Congress.
- Judson Asks Seattle: Why Can't Washingtonians Fill Their Own Offices?
At a Seattle mass meeting, the Democratic candidate for Congress made outsider rule the issue.