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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 24 |
| 1877 | 7 |
31 stories matching time
- A Ferry Before the Ferry: The Fight to Replace Open Boats on Admiralty Inlet
Whidbey Islanders were crossing to Port Townsend in open rowboats through tide rips and chopping seas. Local merchants and an island resident with $4,000 wanted piers, a steamer and a regular route.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- A Campaign Comes Ashore in Port Townsend
In 1876, Democratic candidates arrived by steamer to cannon fire and a cornet band, then packed Good Templars Hall for a night of speeches.
- A Pioneer Returns to the Old Home to Die
James J. Harned reached the Pacific at seventeen, became one of Port Townsend’s most useful citizens, and came back one last time to say goodbye.
- 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.
- 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.
- A Bottle of Whisky, a Deadly Dose, and a Doctor Called in Time
A ship's steward and his wife nearly die after drinking from a bottle doctored with croton oil — whether by accident or by design no one can say.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- Life at the Port Discovery Mill
A dispatch from the bustling lumber town of Port Discovery, where 200 men—including Chinese and Indigenous laborers—keep one of the Pacific Coast's largest mills running day and night.
- A New Frontier Near Neah Bay
Surveyor R.P. Shotts reports on the opening of a new township, promising a flourishing settlement for hardy pioneers.
- Twelve Days in Jail for a Drunken Woman—and the Men Who Walked Free
A Port Townsend letter protests a double standard after a woman is locked up for disorderly drinking while the town's inebriated men go unpunished.
- Olympia Rolls Out the Torchlight for Judson
John P. Judson's 1876 campaign swing through Olympia brought cannon fire, bonfires and a packed Columbia Hall—and the Argus predicted a Democratic landslide.
- The Canoe Habit: A Barrier to Progress
A traveler visits Dungeness and finds the local reliance on canoes and traditional methods a stubborn obstacle to the region's economic modernization.
- 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 Tragic End of a Timber Titan
Arthur Phinney, the driving force behind the Port Ludlow mill, dies from a long-standing internal injury.
- 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.
- Old Yank, the Sequim Inventor Who Rigged His Counter to Sting Thieves
A correspondent visits Professor Watkins of Sequim Prairie, an eccentric mechanic whose inventions ranged from a needle-spring burglar trap to a wooden mowing machine and a windmill made to grind the prairie's wheat.