A Telegraph Prank Turned a Boat Trip into an Armed Standoff
When someone wired Port Ludlow that a steamer carried smallpox, the town's 'commercial travelers' met a wall of shotguns — and a joke got out of hand.
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 large party of drummers were at Port Townsend yesterday and, hearing that some more of their own kidney were on their way across from Victoria on the North Pacific, chartered the Phantom to bring them to Ludlow. Some wag telegraphed to the latter place that "the Ghost" had two cases of small-pox on board. Judge of the horror of the "commercial travelers" on nearing the Ludlow wharf, to find a large lot of men armed to the teeth, who refused to let them land.
Mr. Barking—"I say, I'm the agent for 'Opkins' 'Olland Gin, you know." First Citizen—"You be d—d. You're one of old Minor's small-pox nurses, from Townsend, dern you." Mr. Ingleheimer—"Haw, you see, I'm representing Muggs, Chuggs & Co., sole agents for Pefferson's Pizzerinktum Purgative." Second Citizen—"You lie, you villain; you've got a small-pox patient aboard that." Mr. Blinkhooley—"Sir, I'd have ye underständ I'm to wurk for P. O'Blunderbuss, howlesail whisky daylers. So I am." Third Citizen—"Git away from that or we'll make daylight shine through the whole caboodle of ye." (Exit Phantom and passengers.) Now, who put up that job?
“Git away from that or we'll make daylight shine through the whole caboodle of ye.”
Long before viral misinformation, a telegraph wire was enough to turn a harmless boat trip into an armed standoff. The 1877 Ludlow scare is a reminder that a single rumor about disease could close a port — and that the instinct to defend the community against a perceived contagion is not new.
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