The Bold Navigator and the Tatoosh Island Light-Keeper
A maritime dispute over a salvaged anchor reveals the shady side-hustles of a government lighthouse official.
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.
I recently made a trip on the schooner Elizabeth from Port Townsend to Neah Bay. This packet was built long ago as a launch for an English ship-of-the-line, was later the royal yacht of Kamehameha I, and eventually made its way to Fuca Straits under Captain James A. Melvin. While anchored near the Indian village of Kiddecibbut, we encountered a British steamer, the H.B.M. Decatur, grounded on a rock. Captain Melvin piloted the ship to safety, declining upfront payment. When he later returned to recover an anchor the ship had slipped, he found it stolen. It turned out that the keeper of the Tatoosh Island light, a man named Winsor, had made a sally from his stronghold to pilfer the property. Melvin eventually won a writ of replevin against Winsor in a Dungeness court and delivered the anchor to the Admiral at Esquimalt. The affair caused such a stir that when Melvin anchored off Fowler’s wharf in Port Townsend, the boys fired a salute and cheered his success.
“This man, like an old fish-hawk or carrion-crow, perches himself in his eyrie on Tatooche Island, watching every opportunity to make a descent on the adjacent coast.”
This story highlights a classic Pacific Northwest maritime hustle, echoing the long history of independent mariners navigating the complex regulatory and physical waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Today, Tatoosh Island remains a restricted, sensitive site, but the 19th-century struggle between official government posts and the 'bold' freelance captains who actually ran the coast is a recurring theme in Washington's maritime heritage.
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