A Waterfront Captain's Sudden Death, and the Suicide Rumor That Didn't Hold
Capt. J. H. O'Hara died at his wharf office in Tacoma; a post-mortem found no truth to talk of suicide, while friends remembered a hard-drinking but well-liked waterfront figure.
Tacoma, May 1.—Special.—Capt. J. H. O'Hara, who died suddenly at his office on the wharf Tuesday night, will be buried tomorrow at 2 o'clock. A post-mortem examination by Coroner Park showed that there was no truth in the suicide theory. The deceased used alcoholic liquors to excess and had been on a spree for three weeks. Everybody on the water front knew Capt. O'Hara, and admired him for his many excellent qualities. He was a member of a Poland lodge of the A. O. U. W., left a small sum of money and some real estate.
“Everybody on the water front knew Capt. O'Hara, and admired him for his many excellent qualities.”
Tacoma's waterfront was a working world of wharves, saloons and sudden deaths, and O'Hara's obituary shows how coroner's inquiries sorted rumor from fact before modern forensic science. It also reflects an era when heavy drinking was openly noted in the paper and lodge membership helped define a man's public standing.
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