A Brutal Pacific Crossing—and Five Passengers Held at the Dock
The Japanese liner Tosa Maru limped into Seattle after fourteen days at eight knots. Then immigration officers detained two Russians, two Japanese and one Korean for questioning.
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.
SEATTLE, Jan. 18.—The Nippon Yusen Kaisha's steamship Tosa Maru, which has arrived from the Orient, had one of the roughest voyages ever made by any vessel between the Far East and Puget Sound. Though staunch and of good speed, she was unable to do better than an average of eight knots an hour for fourteen days. She was compelled to lie for twelve hours off Cape Flattery, unable to enter the Straits.
The vessel carried two first-class and eighty second-class passengers and 20,000 packages of freight, including 890 bales of raw silk, valued at $250,000.
Two Russians, two Japanese and one Korean were held by the immigration officers for further examination at the hands of the special board of inquiry. The Russians, they think, are contract laborers, and the Japanese detained gave unsatisfactory answers to the questions propounded.
“Two Russians, two Japanese and one Korean were held by the immigration officers for further examination at the hands of the special board of inquiry.”
The Tosa Maru's passengers arrived in an era when federal immigration officers on Puget Sound were enforcing contract-labor exclusions and interrogating Asian travelers at the dock. The brief item captures how a routine shipping arrival could become a deportation hearing—a checkpoint in the long history of who Washington would let in.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.