The Natchez of Puget Sound: A Commercial Hub Rising from the Mist
A dispatch from Port Townsend reveals a bustling port city defined by its Customs House and steamship trade, sharply contrasting with Seattle's own rapid development.
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.
It was breaking daylight, cold, gray and raw, as the Eliza Anderson steamed out of Seattle a week ago and moved away towards the great and restless sea. The stalwart figure of George Messenger was at the wheel. While Capt. Morgan, quick and lively, hustled about among his passengers and attended to their wants.
It is in one sense of the word a misnomer to call this place the 'Natchez of Puget Sound' for Natchez, when we were there twenty years ago, was filled by two classes: on the hill resided the very proudest of Southern aristocrats... while under the hill, were gathered all the riffraff and human flotsam of the river. On the contrary, Port Townsend has no millionaires who play off a sugar moon on a single hand of poker; nor has she an army of cutthroats and river pirates living under the tall bluff that clads with orchards and homes, rises gracefully above the seething Sound.
In a word, Port Townsend is to us a ramblish on the one hand nor benighted on the other. She may be properly called A COMMERCIAL CITY. Of no mean importance for her size. With scarcely a thousand people within her corporate limits, she maintains an extensive trade not only with the up-Sound ports and the numerous islands about the Straits of Rosario and Canado Pass, but with Nanaimo, Fort Wrangel and Sitka as well.
Her position at the mouth of the Sound causes her to be the port of entry, the Custom House having been taken back there from Port Angeles some years ago. It never should have been taken away from there in the first place. It is to the interest of Seattle to keep the Custom House at Port Townsend and the Capitol at Olympia for then we catch the trade which goes both ways.
The Revenue Service is managed here by Henry A. Webster, as Collector, and L. H. Briggs as Deputy Collector and Auditor of the Custom House... The revenue cutter Oliver Wolcott, commanded by Capt. J. M. Skenes, makes this her headquarters... It is her duty to succor vessels in distress and for this purpose she is allowed to cruise as far south as Port Orford and north as far as the mouth of Fraser river.
Within the past year a number of noticeable improvements were made about Port Townsend. H. L. Tibbals, Esq., agent of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, is putting on an addition to his house... Collector Webster is also building a new house which is nearly completed... The new Central Hotel, erected by Pugh and Dodd at the bend of the wharf, beats anything between Portland and Victoria for good sized and well-ventilated rooms. All this shows a spirit of enterprise that is warranted by business established on the sound-and-sure principle.
In 1876, Port Townsend was the undisputed commercial gateway to the Pacific Northwest, holding the federal Custom House and acting as the primary entry point for trade with Alaska and Asia. Seattle’s rise would soon eclipse it, but this article captures a pivotal moment where civic leaders in neighboring towns were actively debating the flow of wealth and political power across Puget Sound.
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