The Cabin Boy Who Escaped a Shipwreck
A teenage runaway from England found adventure, fire, and a new life in Tacoma after deserting his vessel.
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.
If the ship Lamorna and her crew were lost, as now seems certain, one member of the crew which brought the ship to Tacoma saved his life by deserting. Oswald Palmer, a 17-year-old boy, was bound out by his father to become a sailor and study navigation on the Lamorna before the ship left England. Life on shipboard was not to young Palmer's liking, and when the vessel reached Tacoma he deserted and shipped as cabin boy on a coasting vessel. He went as far south as San Pedro, and thinking that the Lamorna would have put to sea by that time, he came back to Tacoma. What was his surprise on reaching there to find the vessel still here. Fear that he would be arrested and compelled to complete the voyage drove him from here again. He went to Port Blakely and shipped on a vessel bound for San Francisco. Young Palmer seemed drawn by some strange attraction to Tacoma and started back on the first vessel bound this way. Unfortunately for him, he shipped on the Queen on her last trip to Puget Sound, when fire threatened the destruction of the vessel and all on board. He was in the water with a passenger over an hour and was taken on board after the fire, almost lifeless. The boy made his way back to Tacoma finally and to his relief found the dreaded Lamorna gone. Realizing that he was far away from home, without friends or money, the first thing he did was look for work, and soon found employment at the St. Paul mill. The boy's mother is dead and he has no desire to go back to England to his father. He will stay in America, become a subject of Uncle Sam, and, as he hopes, make his fortune.
“As a souvenir of the trip he has a burned and blackened teacup, which he found in the dining room.”
Oswald Palmer’s tale is a reminder of Tacoma's status as a bustling port city that once defined the lives of transient laborers and runaway sailors. Today, the maritime history of the waterfront has largely transitioned from lumber mill employment to modern logistics and tourism.
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