Squall Capsizes Boat Near Discovery Bay; Thomas Quinn Drowns
A logging excursion near Discovery Bay ends in a fatal struggle for survival when a sudden squall capsizes a small boat.
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.
On Thursday last, two discharged soldiers, who had been logging around Discovery Bay, took a small boat and started for Port Townsend. A sudden squall struck the boat and capsized it. One of the men succeeded in swimming ashore, but the other clung to the boat until he became too frozen and exhausted to hold on and he drowned. The name of the survivor is Jack Ward, and of the drowned, Thos. Quinn.
“A sudden squall struck the boat and capsized it. One of the men succeeded in swimming ashore, but the other clung to the boat until he became too frozen and exhausted to hold on and he drowned.”
This account of a 19th-century logging accident underscores how the perilous, unregulated nature of work in early Washington State relied on the stamina of transient laborers. Today, while workplace safety regulations are vastly different, the same waters of the Salish Sea continue to test the limits of human endurance for those working in the maritime and timber sectors.
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