The Mysterious Collapse of a Port Townsend Official
A former Customs official, clutching a frantic stack of papers detailing a feud with his superior, is found delirious and dying in a Chicago train station.
CHICAGO, May 21—An old, gray-haired man dressed in black and wearing a long mustache was brought to the insane department of the County Court on Saturday, having been found at the Union Depot by a police officer. He had just arrived on a train from the West and could give no intelligent account of himself. In the inside pocket of his vest was found a letter of introduction to United States Senator J. N. Dolph of Oregon. The letter was dated May 19th at Port Townsend, Washington Territory, and identified the man as A. L. Blake, ex-Deputy Collector of Customs at Port Townsend, who had for four years been in charge of the correspondence and the Chinese business. The letter explained that Blake, who was an honest and capable man, had recently been discharged from the employ of the Government and went to Washington for the purpose of laying before the President or the Secretary of the Treasury certain charges which had been preferred against him by ex-Collector of Customs Beecher of Port Townsend. Mr. Blake appeared to be suffering from physical as well as mental illness. In addition to his traveling equipment, his valise contains a mass of papers and correspondence neatly arranged and setting forth his case against ex-Collector Beecher. Blake sank into a stupor this morning from which he cannot be roused. He is evidently dying.
“Those of our citizens not holding office and thus entirely free from the solemn obligations of protecting the interests of the people, often fail to realize that their public servants are, to a large extent, debarred in official action from the indulgence of those charitable impulses which, in private life, are not only harmless, but commendable.”
While political squabbles and whistleblower retaliation were common features of 1880s Customs house culture in Port Townsend, the tragic, sudden mental collapse of a public servant highlights the intense, often invisible stakes of territorial governance. Today, we might recognize this as a severe psychological crisis exacerbated by professional burnout and institutional instability, a precursor to the modern discussions of high-stress administrative roles.
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