The Brutal Reality of Being 'Shanghaied' in Puget Sound
A survivor recounts the terrifying process of being drugged and forced onto a deep-sea vessel, exposing the dark side of local maritime labor practices.
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.
Since the revelations of the methods used to secure sailors for foreign ships leaving Puget Sound were made in The Times Saturday evening, a specific case, in which the rumors are substantiated, has come to light. The informant is George Corbett, who came from Kobe on the steamship Lyra. Mr. Corbett’s story is to the effect that while he was in Port Townsend several months ago, having a celebration after several weeks in the logging camps, he was doped and put aboard the ship Americana, bound for Shanghai. At Shanghai, Corbett swam ashore from the ship and made his way to Kobe. He claims that he tried to interest the American consul in his case but was told by that official that he would have to return to America before anything could be done. He is now in Seattle and says that he will institute proceedings against the proprietor of the Port Townsend sailors' agency.
“While he was in Port Townsend several months ago, having a celebration after several weeks in the logging camps he was doped and put aboard the ship Americana.”
The 'shanghaiing' of laborers was a notorious practice in West Coast port cities, where predatory boarding-house keepers would drug or kidnap men to fill labor shortages on ships. Today, this serves as a stark reminder of the extreme precarity and lack of legal protection faced by transient, often immigrant or working-class, labor populations in the early 20th century.
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