A Mutiny of the Seas at Port Blakely
When sailors on the ship 'Carrie E. Davenport' refused to sail, a local legal battle over labor rights and ship contracts ignited in the courts.
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.
It will be remembered that after a delegation of sailors belonging to the union went on board the ship Carrie E. Davenport at Port Blakely and took her crew out of her, the captain went to Victoria and engaged a crew, which crew went before the Shipping Commissioner at Port Townsend and signed the articles. They then came to Seattle, intending to board the ship, but on their arrival here they were met by a 'trouble-maker' belonging to the Sailors' Union and induced to refuse to join the ship. The captain had them arrested for violation of their shipping articles, and after a hearing Judge Lyon ordered them on board the ship for duty. Yesterday some attorneys for the Union got out a writ of habeas corpus to have the men brought before Judge Greene and make the captain show cause why they should not be released from the ship. The first writ was dissolved, but another one was immediately sent out, made returnable before Judge Hoyt at Olympia.
“They then came to Seattle, intending to board the ship, but on their arrival here they were met by a 'trouble-maker' belonging to the Sailors' Union and induced to refuse to join the ship.”
This legal skirmish over maritime labor contracts highlights the volatile nature of work in Seattle’s early industrial maritime sector, echoing long-standing tensions between labor unions and capital interests in the Pacific Northwest.
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