The Reverend’s Smuggled Sawdust
A customs inspector discovers nearly a hundred pounds of opium hidden inside a shipment of 'books' addressed to a clergyman.
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.
Customs Inspector Bradford made a seizure of ninety-six pounds of prepared opium yesterday morning on the steamship City of Puebla, while in transit from Port Townsend to Seattle. On Monday, Bradford visited Victoria, where he observed a small boat pull alongside the Puebla in the darkness and pass items through an ash port. After the vessel crossed into U.S. waters, he investigated and found a box in the upper hold addressed to a Rev. Charles Mitchel of Helena, Montana. The manifest described the shipment as a 200-pound case of books, but upon opening it, the inspector found sawdust—an unusual packing material—concealing 192 five-tael cans of prepared opium. No one claimed the illicit cargo, and the inspector took possession of the entire shipment.
“On closely examining it, he could see that it contained sawdust, which was rather an unusual material in which to pack books.”
This 1891 seizure highlights the early, highly racialized enforcement of drug interdiction in the Pacific Northwest. Today, the location of the old wharves where such goods were landed is largely occupied by the dense commercial and transit infrastructure of the modern Seattle waterfront.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.