The Narrow Escape in Whitechapel
After a laborer was robbed and tossed into the frigid tide flats of Seattle's waterfront, an unlikely group of rescuers saved him from a watery grave.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A Swedish laborer named P.J. Johnson was rescued from a watery grave in Whitechapel last evening after having been in the cold salt water, clinging to a pile for nearly three hours. When rescued, he was so exhausted he could not give an intelligent account of himself. All he could say, as he shuddered, was: 'I was drunk. They robbed me and dropped me in the water through a hole.' Officer M.T. Powers, while patrolling Jackson Street at 6 o'clock last evening, heard a plaintive human wail coming from under the Palace Theater, a four-story wooden building built out over the tide flats. The first story was located about twenty feet above the water. As soon as it became known there was a 'man overboard,' about seventy or eighty women who inhabit that part of the city swarmed around the officer to offer assistance. Ropes and lanterns were obtained, but the man could not be reached. The officer declared that someone would have to swim out. Eugene Walker, a good-natured negro, stepped forward and said: 'If you pay me, I’ll get him. I can swim, but the water is all-fired cold.' Walker stripped to a loincloth and was lowered into the water by a rope, but found the victim too helpless to bring back alone. Nakao Kama, the Japanese lightweight wrestler, signified his willingness to help, and in less than three minutes was in the water. Together, they swam back with the half-dead Swede between them, pulling him to safety amid the cheers of a crowd of several hundred onlookers. There are numerous trap doors in the dives and saloons of Whitechapel, and it is more than probable that Johnson was robbed and then dropped into the water by thieves.
“I was drunk. They robbed me and dropped me in the water through a hole.”
The waterfront district of Whitechapel, once a lawless zone of gambling dens and trap doors over the tide flats, has long since been filled in to form part of modern-day Pioneer Square. The story highlights the precariousness of life for transient laborers in 1890s Seattle and the diverse, working-class community that existed in the city's earliest, most dangerous corners.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.