Steamship Tremont Collides in Heavy Fog
Dense fog leads to a collision near Marrowstone Point, stalling a major freighter's Pacific voyage.
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.
Late yesterday afternoon the steamship Tremont, which was rammed by the Ramona near Marrowstone Point, returned to Seattle for repairs. At Port Townsend it was found that several of her plates were bent, about sixty feet back of her stem. As soon as she was tied up that part of her huge cargo of flour stacked up against the damaged plates was removed. According to the reports, the collision came without warning and was made under conditions which will render it hard to fix the responsibility. Each of the crews blames the other. Both vessels were running slowly when the accident happened, and both were blowing whistles. The fog was very dense. The Tremont will be repaired in a short time and the vessel will once more start on its trip across the Pacific.
“The collision came without warning and was made under conditions which will render it hard to fix the responsibility.”
Shipping accidents were a staple of Northwest news during the golden age of steam, as fog often proved more dangerous than the open ocean. This incident highlights the heavy reliance on Puget Sound maritime commerce that still defines the region's economy.
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