Tragedy and Heroism on the Sound
A sailing party from Port Blakeley met disaster in the middle of Puget Sound, leaving one dead and survivors rescued only after hours of clinging to a swamped vessel.
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.
Three men and one Indian woman, comprising a party that sailed from Port Blakeley to Seattle yesterday afternoon, were capsized in the middle of the Sound about 5:30 o'clock and left in the water, clinging to the boat until 11:30 o'clock last night, when picked up by the tug Iola. One man was dead, or breathing his last, and the others were nearly exhausted. The victim was Charles Armstrong, a mill hand at Port Blakeley. The survivors recounted that a squall came up unexpectedly and capsized their sloop. Martin Bowen, one of the survivors, noted the heroic actions of the Indian woman, referred to as 'Alice,' who saved Hunter's life twice by grabbing his coat collar and also helped the drowning Armstrong. She was the hero of the occasion and seemed to be utterly fearless of death. Capt. Gillespie of the Iola spotted the object in the water near West Point and performed the rescue. Armstrong was alive when brought on board but died shortly after. The woman was later taken to the police station for care.
“She was the hero of the occasion, and seemed to be utterly fearless of death.”
Small-craft incidents on the Sound remain a common danger in the region, but this story provides a rare, albeit era-typical, glimpse into the courage of Indigenous individuals who were often ignored or marginalized by the press of the time.
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