A Mining Manager Vanishes, Then Walks Into Tacoma With a Kidnapping-at-Sea Story
T. A. Cox, missing from his Arizona home since December, resurfaces on Puget Sound claiming he was drugged, robbed and forced aboard a strange ship in San Francisco, then turned adrift.
Tacoma — The strange disappearance of T. A. Cox, general manager of the Arizona Pittsburg Mining Smelting Company, Tucson, Ariz., was partially cleared up late Sunday night, when he walked into Tacoma from some Puget Sound port, after having been absent from home since December 16 last.
While very reticent as to details, Mr. Cox alleges that he was shanghaied from the port of San Francisco and that his abductors placed him aboard a strange ship, robbed him of his jewelry and watch and about $175 in money, and that he was turned adrift last week.
He says he is withholding the details of his strange experience until he can set the machinery of the law in motion to bring his abductors to justice in San Francisco.
“He alleges that he was shanghaied from the port of San Francisco and that his abductors placed him aboard a strange ship, robbed him of his jewelry and watch and about $175 in money, and that he was turned adrift last week.”
Shanghaiing — drugging or kidnapping men to crew ships — was a real maritime crime a century ago, and the Pacific Coast was notorious for it. A manager who vanished for weeks and returned with a kidnapping tale still reads like a thriller, a reminder that forced labor at sea was a Pacific Northwest problem, not just a legend.
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