The Schooner That Never Came Back
A Steilacoom resident and a captain vanish after leaving Port Townsend; a rumor from Vancouver Island speaks of a wreck and murder.
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.
In the latter part of January last, Mr. E. Selmer sailed from Port Townsend in the schooner [name illegible]. Some six or seven weeks have passed since her departure, during which time nothing has been heard of either the vessel or anyone on board. Serious apprehensions are felt for their safety. An Indian arrived in town this week with a report of the destruction of a small vessel, and the murder of those on board, in an inlet on Vancouver's Island, in retaliation for injuries sustained by the Indians. How much truth remains in this story we are unable to say. Mr. Selmer is an old resident of this Territory and is widely known to all persons doing business on Puget Sound. Should he indeed be lost, a deep feeling of regret cannot but be felt by those who knew him. At different periods he has been engaged in business in several towns on the Sound, but latterly Steilacoom has been his home. The mother of Capt. Stowe makes it her home, and is anxiously in great distress concerning her son. Any information relative to the missing schooner, addressed to Mrs. H. Stowe or S. W. Herring, Winkum, will be thankfully received.
“Some six or seven weeks have passed since departure, during which time nothing has been heard of either the vessel or any one on board.”
Coastal disappearances were a grim fact of life on Puget Sound before modern navigation, and rumors often outran facts. Today, when a boat goes missing in the Salish Sea, the same blend of hope, rumor and community anxiety still plays out.
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