An Arson Plot Aboard the Steamer Messenger
A cook discharged after a dispute is suspected of rigging candles to burn a vessel mid-transit.
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.
Tacoma, April 26.—An attempt was made to burn the steamer Messenger while en route to Seattle yesterday with a tow of 150 cords of wood from Maury Island. When about half way to the city, the fireman, while going into the cook’s apartments for a lunch, found a fire under the cook's bunk, where a candle had been placed in a potato among a lot of paper. Later, another candle was found among some pitch kindling wood in another part of the vessel. It is claimed that when the candles burned low enough, there would have been a lively fire. George Coggins, the Messenger’s cook, was discharged Wednesday after some trouble with the captain and was left on Maury Island. Coggins was suspected of firing the steamer, though he denied it. Had the vessel burned, the scow load of wood would likely have been lost as well, as it had sprung a leak off Alki Point.
“In either case it is claimed when the candles burned low enough there would have been a lively fire.”
While steamships and wood-towing scows have vanished from the daily commute, the history of Maury Island as a place of industry and occasional conflict remains. This incident highlights the precarious, often volatile nature of maritime labor relations in the 1890s, where a personal grievance could turn into a dangerous act of sabotage.
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