A Deadly Dispute on the Waterfront
A local longshoreman is accused of murder after a violent fight leaves one man dead and his ex-wife seeking justice.
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.
Pat McCollup died at the city and county hospital following a fight with Harry Clabby, a longshoreman. McCollup’s ex-wife, now Mrs. Capt. William Dwars, publicly accused Clabby of murder after discovering the extent of McCollup’s injuries, including broken ribs. While Clabby admitted to the altercation at the Elite saloon, he claimed it was in self-defense against a man wielding cordwood. The case highlights the tensions and occasional violence within the waterfront labor community, as local witnesses provide conflicting accounts of Clabby's character.
“McCollup's vest was saturated with blood and is now at Hayden's undertaking parlors.”
This account captures the raw, often unpoliced violence of 1890s waterfront life in Tacoma. It serves as a reminder of how social and labor tensions often manifested in lethal private disputes outside the reach of the nascent legal system.
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