The Trial of John Trumbull
A Port Townsend lawyer is accused of facilitating the unlawful entry of Chinese immigrants into the United States via forged certificates.
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.
The trial of John Trumbull, the Port Townsend attorney charged with aiding and abetting the unlawful entrance of Chinese people into this country, began yesterday. The prosecution was conducted by Prosecuting Attorney Patrick Henry Winston, while A. U. Coleman of Port Townsend represented the defendant. The evidence introduced during the day consisted of testimony from customs officers who claimed Trumbull furnished certificates representing Chinese individuals as merchants and residents of Seattle, Port Townsend, and other towns on the Sound. The prosecution will resume its case this morning.
“The evidence introduced during the day was not of itself of a great deal of importance.”
This trial highlights the intense and discriminatory enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1890s Washington, a precursor to the modern legal struggles over immigration status and federal border policy in the Pacific Northwest.
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