The Steamer Volga Seized for Smuggling Chinese Laborers
Federal agents intercept a clandestine landing operation at Oyster Bay, leading to the arrest of a local captain and the seizure of a vessel.
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.
As a sequence of the seizure of thirteen contraband Chinese near Olympia on Sunday by Chinese Inspector Meredith, the small steamer Volga was seized yesterday afternoon, and Capt. Edward M. Barrington, of the steamer Greyhound, was arrested, charged with aiding and abetting the illegal landing of Chinese in this country. Capt. Barrington had chartered the Volga, a small tug that had been laid up for a year and a half, ostensibly for a trip to Edmonds to have the boat’s bottom cleaned. Customs officers allege that the boat instead facilitated the landing of Chinese laborers at Oyster Bay. The steamer was located after a man attempted to file change-of-master papers at the customhouse. When officials seized the vessel, they found only the engineer, W. R. Baldwin, who claimed the captain had gone uptown. Tacoma authorities report that the jail is now crowded, holding twenty-two individuals in connection with the smuggling operation.
“The thirteen Chinamen were arraigned today... They are an unusually dirty appearing lot. T. N. Allen, of Olympia, appeared to represent them, which further evidences that the contrabands are not wholly without 'friends' at Olympia.”
This incident occurred during the height of the anti-Chinese exclusion era in the Pacific Northwest, a period marked by state-sanctioned hostility and forced expulsions. Today, the geography of Oyster Bay remains a quiet maritime space, while the history of the 1880s Exclusion Acts remains a foundational, albeit painful, part of Seattle's civic story regarding migration and labor.
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