The $350 Fine That Stopped a Ship: Smuggling and Sovereignty on the Strait
In July 1876, the schooner Superior was seized by U.S. authorities for entering Victoria without clearance, sparking a legal battle over customs laws and the volatile border between Washington Territory and British Columbia.
Townsend Argus says: The schooner Superior, which was run away from Sheriffsman by San Francisco on the night of the 11th of May, arriving at Victoria, B.C. on the 1st of June, leaving that port for Burrard Inlet on the 15th, arrived here [Seattle] on the 21st, with Captain J. A. Johnson in command, and was immediately seized by the Collector of Customs and fined $350 for unlawfully entering a British port, and immediately thereafter Sheriff Van Buren of this place, upon receipt of a telegram from San Francisco, attached her. He procured the necessary bonds of $18,000 from Rothschild & Co. and held her until Saturday, when the Deputy Sheriff of San Francisco arrived, took the Custom House claim and stood with her for San Francisco.
This incident highlights the tense, porous nature of the 49th parallel border in the 1870s, where maritime smuggling was common and legal jurisdictions overlapped confusingly. Today, the Strait of Juan de Fuca remains a critical trade corridor, but the legal framework is far more defined; this story serves as a reminder of how recently the U.S.-Canada border was a zone of ambiguity rather than a settled international boundary.
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