The Desperado of Port Angeles
A suspected smuggler is captured in Skagit County, reviving rumors of a notorious, armed escape from customs officers years prior.
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.
There is a suspicion in the mind of one of the customs officials that one of the three Chinese men captured by Inspectors W. L. Meredith and Bowers, between Woolley and Sedro a few nights ago, is the identical man who made a desperate fight with customs officers at Port Angeles a little over two years ago. He gives his name as Wong Sing, but the official says his right name is Wong Feong and that he is a regular desperado who makes a business of smuggling in Chinese. During the prior incident at Port Angeles, when officers attempted to stop a landing party, a battle ensued where a Chinese youth was killed. The leader fled to an upper room over a saloon, setting up a dummy to trick officers. When they entered, he opened fire with two revolvers and escaped in the confusion, sweeping through the streets while firing to hold off pursuers.
“He got upstairs over a saloon and set up a dummy in the middle of one room and then stood in the corner in the darkness with two revolvers.”
This account reflects the intense, often violent, climate surrounding the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which drove desperate laborers into the hands of smugglers. While the paper uses the dehumanizing language of its day, the story captures the immense stakes for those risking everything to survive in a hostile territory.
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