The Lost Letter of Port Townsend
A postal worker at the Port Townsend wharf brushes off a man’s frantic search for a missing letter, revealing a small, forgotten drama of 1888.
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.
A colored man went up to the general delivery window of the post office and asked if there were any letters for Mr. Pete Potter. 'No,' the clerk replied. 'Look here, ain't you ever going to find that letter? I tell you there is nothing for you.' 'I know you tell me that, but I got reasons to think that you've got it, and I want it,' said Pete. 'I don't care what you've got; get out of here.' 'I don't care what you say, boss, but it's mighty curious that there ain't no letter there for me. I can tell you that right now.' He turned away and, muttering to himself, said: 'Might be strange what come of that letter, for I put it in there last night myself. Fetch a lot of rigmarole when I try to see me get that letter out, and it ain't off the premises! Mebby that white man didn't put my name on it right. Folks kind of like to lie or manipulate if they treat me like this. Going to have some influence of a different kind pretty soon. Going to get somebody to send me one down here to see if I get that.'
“Mebby that white man didn't put my name on it right. Folks kind of like to lie or manipulate if they treat me like this.”
While this brief incident captures a mundane bureaucracy, it reveals the casual erasure and dehumanization faced by Black residents in 1880s Washington. Today, the site of the Port Townsend wharf remains a hub of transit, but the 'lost' letter serves as a reminder of the historical struggle to have one's presence and rights acknowledged in the public sphere.
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