A Crew Called the Iona Unseaworthy. The Cutter Called It Mutiny.
Before the Italian bark Iona could leave Port Townsend, its sailors refused to sail. A survey said the ship was sound; a revenue cutter's officer put the men in irons and warned them of a mutiny trial.
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.
Mutiny.—Last Monday, as the Italian bark Iona was preparing to get under way for sea, the crew refused duty, on the pretext that the vessel was unseaworthy. The fact being made known to the consignees, E. S. Fowler & Co., a survey was held, resulting in the determination that the bark was in a seaworthy condition. The crew were not satisfied, and still refusing to go to work, an appeal was had to the cutter then lying at her moorings close by, and in a few minutes her boat was alongside the bark. As soon as the officer had mounted the deck and witnessed the state of affairs he caused the mutineers to be put in irons, and at the same time gave them to understand that persistence in their course would result in a trial for the crime of mutiny. The officer then returned to the cutter. After a few hours, however, the crew, concluding that discretion was the better part of valor, professed a desire to have their irons removed and promised to resume work. The cutter was signaled, and again the boat came, but this time to give them their liberty on condition of strict obedience to orders. The next morning she weighed anchor and put to sea.
“The crew, concluding that discretion was the better part of valor, professed a desire to have their irons removed and promised to resume work.”
The standoff has a familiar modern shape: workers refuse a job they believe is unsafe, the employer produces a report saying otherwise, and the state arrives on the employer's side. In a port economy built on wooden ships and borrowed labor, the question of who defines "seaworthy" was never merely technical.
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