Mutiny in Port Townsend Harbor
The crew of the Arctic whaler J. D. Peters refused to work after being denied a discharge — and an officer from the cutter Grant clapped them in irons.
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.
Part of the crew of the bark J. D. Peters, which arrived yesterday from the Arctic Ocean, mutinied and were placed in irons by an officer from the cutter Grant. The men signed in San Francisco for a voyage to Port Clarence and return. The vessel arrived here, and the crew, on being refused their discharge, refused duty. The shipping commissioner investigated the case and ordered the men to resume duty until their arrival in San Francisco. They refused, and are now in irons.
“They refused, and are now in irons.”
Sailors in the 1890s signed articles that bound them to a ship until its return, and refusing duty could land a man in irons. Port Townsend, then a busy customs and shipping port, was where those contracts were enforced — an early chapter in the long fight over a worker's freedom to leave a job.
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