The Gospel-Ship Scam on Puget Sound
How a pious Olympia minister raised international funds to build a missionary vessel, only to pivot it into a lucrative towboat business.
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.
There is now plying on the waters of Puget Sound a handsome little steamer called the Evangel, built by subscriptions from those who believe the Gospel should be preached in Alaska, but which has been used as a towboat for coin ever since she was launched. The Rev. James J. Ludlow, formerly of the Olympia Baptist Church, conceived the idea of a gospel-ship. He circulated a pamphlet in Europe and the East, raising thousands of dollars from 'religious spinsters' and zealous ladies in Paris—who even purchased a chronometer for the vessel. Ludlow, having forsaken the ministry for a clerkship in the Territorial District Court, saw the ship outfitted with the donated funds, only to immediately place her into the commercial towing trade. He assured his donors that if the work was ever yielded up, their 'loans to the Lord' would be returned, but the ship remains a business venture for the ex-parson and his associates.
“As the sequel shows, the mission... was the hoodwinking of Eastern religious people to make them contribute to the cost of building a steamer to be used as a tugboat on Puget Sound.”
This 1886 expose of 'missionary' grifting highlights the intersection of public faith and private commerce in early Seattle history. Today, the names of prominent civic leaders and judges cited in Ludlow's pamphlet remind us that the 'boosterism' of the era was often built on the same opportunistic hustle that fuels modern urban development schemes.
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