Drugged and Held at Sea for Seven Weeks, an Engineer Reappears in Tacoma
T. A. Cox, part-owner of an Arizona mining company, says he was drugged with a lemonade in San Francisco and held prisoner aboard an unknown ship before being put ashore at Des Moines — then walked to Tacoma without a cent.
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.
Telling a story of having been drugged and then shanghaied aboard an unknown vessel in San Francisco on December 20, T. A. Cox, a civil engineer, part owner and general manager of the Arizona Pittsburg Mining company of Patagonia, Ariz., appeared in Tacoma late Saturday night and is now in St. Joseph's hospital where he is suffering from general exhaustion.
Didn't Know Name of Ship. Further than his word Cox can give nothing to substantiate his remarkable story. The name of the vessel on which he was kept a prisoner for seven weeks he does not know, nor does he seem to know whether it was a sailing ship or a steamer.
Kept Prisoner. "I was in a room in the hold of the ship when I awoke from the effects of the drug given me and I was kept there constantly, except for a short time each night when I was taken out to get air. I was put off the boat after midnight Friday at Des Moines and in an attempt to get a glimpse of the vessel, to learn her name, I was injured by my captors," said Cox as he lay on a bed in the hospital today.
Landed at Des Moines. Des Moines is a little settlement on the Sound between Tacoma and Seattle. From that place, Cox says, he walked to Tacoma, arriving here without a cent. He sent a collect message to his wife and then went to the hospital. Mrs. Cox in turn telegraphed friends here to look her husband up and they found him in the hospital late yesterday where he related his story.
Drugged in Cafe. Cox says he left Tucson, Arizona, December 16 for San Francisco, intending to leave on December 20 for Pittsburg to see capitalists who are interested with him in the mine. On reaching the depot on December 20 he found that he had missed his train and while there two men, whom he had met on the train coming from Tucson, approached him and together they went to a cafe where after positively refusing to drink any liquor he finally consented to take a lemonade. Cox declares that the drink was drugged, for soon after taking it he became drowsy and remembered nothing more until he awoke aboard a ship.
At the time Cox had about $150, a $100 watch and some jewelry and this, he says, was all taken, even his Elks lodge pin.
“I was in a room in the hold of the ship when I awoke from the effects of the drug given me and I was kept there constantly, except for a short time each night when I was taken out to get air.”
Shanghaiing — the drugging and forced service of men aboard ship — was a routine hazard of Pacific port cities a century ago, and crews were sometimes recruited straight out of waterfront saloons. The detail of a man put ashore at a tiny Puget Sound settlement and left to walk penniless into Tacoma reads like today's stories of people stranded or trafficked across borders with their documents and savings stripped away.
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