The Silent Cutters of Puget Sound

At the request of a gentleman employed in the Customs House, the Port Townsend correspondent of the Post-Intelligencer interviewed Collector Quincy A. Brooks regarding the failure of the revenue cutter Wolcott to go to the aid of the St. Stephen when the disaster to that craft was reported. Collector Brooks opened the conversation by demanding the source from which the reporter had obtained his knowledge. Having been answered that the public merely knew, in common with all citizens, that the cutter should have rendered assistance to the ill-fated ship and did not do so, the Collector protested: 'I have never been officially notified that the St. Stephen is or has been in want of assistance.' When asked if he were aware that the Post-Intelligencer published interviews with the officers of the bark Enoch Talbot regarding a ship seen off the Cape in distress, and that the loss of the St. Stephen had been generally accepted, Mr. Brooks replied: 'I have some recollection of the matter, but I was absent at the time. When I returned I supposed that Captain Glover had given the matter his attention.' Mr. Harned, Deputy Collector of Customs, explained: 'Under the regulations of 1874, revenue vessels are never to be used in towing except in cases of distress and then only when no other assistance is at hand. You understand, should the cutter have been dispatched to the aid of the ship, she might have interfered with the business of the tug companies and would, should that have been the case, willfully violated the regulations.' When the bark Austria was reported ashore on February 1st, the Wolcott was lying in the stream. Collector Brooks did not deny that he possessed the authority to order the Wolcott on public business to any point within his jurisdiction, but he thought Captain Glover ought to look out for wrecks and such things.