The Great Tugboat Escape
A United States marshal is left stranded on the wharf while his prisoner escapes aboard a government tug to Port Townsend.
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.
SEATTLE, Jan. 20.—Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Captain George Stuart, master of the United States engineers' tug General J. M. Wilson; George Layton, his first mate; a deckhand, the steward and cook of the boat. Deputy United States Marshal Fred H. Inline left at midnight last night for Port Townsend to arrest the five men. Captain Stuart is wanted for having aided in the escape of a prisoner who had been arrested by the United States marshal for assaulting a deckhand. Layton had asked to be permitted to go aboard the tug for his dunnage. Accompanied by Deputy Marshal Berry, he went aboard the tug just as Captain Stuart was getting ready to leave for Port Townsend. The officer didn't want to go to Port Townsend, so he scrambled back onto the wharf, while the boat swung out into the channel with the prisoner. And now the deputy marshal is getting the merry ha-ha from his brother officers.
“The officer didn't want to go to Port Townsend, so he scrambled back onto the wharf, while the boat swung out into the channel with the prisoner.”
This mix of bureaucratic incompetence and maritime mischief highlights the wilder, less structured era of early 20th-century law enforcement on the Sound. It reads like a slapstick procedural that would likely cause a massive PR headache for modern federal agencies.
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