The Town That Lost Its Custom House
An observant traveler visits Port Townsend and finds a community reeling from political retaliation and questionable pulpit interpretations.
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.
On a trip from Victoria to this place our craft put in at Port Townsend, and hearing of the great notoriety of that place I concluded to spend a few days there and take items. Port Townsend is situated on a low flat, at the mouth of a bay of the same name. Just back of it is a high steep bluff, which would make a man, had he the patience of Job, 'wilt,' if he were compelled to travel up and down it more than a dozen times a day. Between the town and bluff is a beautiful pond of stagnant water, which gives the place a healthful appearance all the year round. Port Townsend was formerly the Port of Entry, but the new Administration appointed a Collector who did not exactly suit that community, for they wanted the appointment to fall upon one of their own men, when he, to retaliate, removed the Custom-house from that port, which put them in a worse predicament than they were before. During my stay divine service was held, which I attended. The text was an explanation of the 3d chapter of Genesis, on the fall of man. It was listened to with marked attention. All of a sudden the congregation were enlightened by being told that the serpent that lured Eve to taste of the forbidden fruit was no more nor less than an Ourang Outang. You may judge what effect that announcement had upon a civilized community. Every man has his weak points. Verily a new translation of the Bible is needed.
“All of a sudden the congregation were enlightened by being told that the serpent that lured Eve to taste of the forbidden fruit was no more nor less than an Ourang Outang.”
Port Townsend's history is defined by its dramatic bluff and its on-again, off-again relationship with regional trade power. While the 'stagnant pond' was long ago drained to accommodate the town's expansion, the local resentment toward distant federal administrators remains a recurring theme in the history of Washington's coastal outposts.
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