Collision at Sea
A schooner captain blames a lack of lights for a mid-sound collision that scattered wood into the water.
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.
Schooner Rear Admiral, Captain Sam Barlow, arrived in port from Richardson Saturday night and is unloading wood at the city dock. When off Point Iceberg, the sea was so rough that the passengers commenced praying. Saturday morning the Admiral was in collision with schooner Wanderer and lost four cords of wood. The Wanderer lost her bobstay. Captain Barlow says the collision was due to the fact that the Wanderer had no lights.
“When off Point Iceberg, the sea was so rough that the passengers commenced praying.”
Mariners navigating the Sound in 1894 dealt with hazards as basic as a missing lantern. The intensity of the passengers' reaction—'commenced praying'—recalls a time when sea travel through Puget Sound was a genuinely perilous daily necessity.
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