Research the archive
Narrow 25,724 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 3 |
| 1877 | 1 |
| 1878 | 1 |
| 1885 | 2 |
| 1887 | 1 |
| 1889 | 3 |
| 1892 | 1 |
| 1893 | 4 |
| 1904 | 1 |
| 1909 | 1 |
18 stories matching boatman
- The Waterfront Vigilante: A Seattle Harbor Scandal
A customs official and a boatman ambushed a crew of sailors returning to shore at Point Hudson, leading to a senseless shooting that left a seaman's life hanging in the balance.
- Turf War at the Eleventh Street Bridge
A boatman is harassed and detained by police for the crime of competing for ferry passengers.
- Vanished in the Night: The Tragedy of 'Long Johnson'
A well-known Port Gamble boatman disappears in the gale, his cries for help lost to the dark sea.
- The Mystery of the Admiralty Bay Boatman
A lonely death in a remote bay leaves more questions than answers about a man whose final protest was written on a slip of paper.
- The High School Baseball Slugfest
While the Tigers dominated the scorecard, a young pitcher from Puyallup signaled the rise of a new local talent.
- Banking Crisis Hits Puyallup
The Bank of Puyallup closes its doors due to over-extension on agricultural crop loans.
- 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.
- The Unsolved Disappearance of Nellie Holgate
After a saleswoman vanished from Lake Washington, a web of suspicious rewards, unidentified buttons, and mysterious boat trips left the city wondering if she had been killed or simply fled.
- The Ghostly Search for a Lost Sailor
When a sailor drowned at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1876, his grieving colleagues turned to a grim folk remedy to recover his body.
- The River's Mystery
A young businesswoman visiting her family in Aberdeen vanishes while rowing alone on the Wishkah River, sparking a frantic and desperate search.
- The Boomtown Race: Puyallup Stakes its Future on Banking
As the population surges, local business leaders in Puyallup rush to establish a formal financial institution, mirroring the rapid civic growth of late 19th-century Washington.
- The Mystery of the Mast
Two Seattle brothers discover a man adrift off Blakely Rocks with a bullet in his forehead, sparking a murder investigation in a quiet maritime town.
- The Strange Career of Captain Mauritzen
A crafty imposter poses as a Scandinavian official and newspaper correspondent to fleece local islanders and investigate a non-existent murder.
- The Sealers’ Rebellion at Neah Bay
A rebellious maritime labor dispute unfolds at the edge of the Washington Territory, where independent seal hunters stand their ground against a heavy-handed federal agent.
- The Mail Must Go Through: A Fatal Storm on the Coast
A dedicated mail carrier and his father lost their lives in a treacherous storm off the Washington coast while attempting to deliver the mail from Montesano to Chehalis Point.
- The Riverboat Captain Who Was Everyone’s Personal Errands Boy
Before the age of reliable logistics, the Snohomish riverboat captain was the community’s unofficial delivery service, tasked with everything from baby shoes to engine parts.
- Fifteen Minutes to Confess: The Morphine Trial of Port Townsend's Captain De Lion
A former mayor, Chilean consul and dry-dock promoter worth half a million dollars sits in superior court while his emaciated wife describes a year of morphine, delusion and a pocket watch set on the table between them.
- The Wig and the Wire: How a Tacoma Newspaper Owner Tried to Destroy a Judge
In the sensational Wickersham trial of 1889, prosecutor R.P. Radebaugh’s own past and his alleged conspiracy to frame Judge Wickersham for 'immorality' were laid bare in court.