From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library

In the last few years we have read about cruise ship vacations gone bad, to the point where the passengers form a “mutiny.” As we can see by the May 31, 1900 article from Port Townsend’s Weekly Leader, this sort of thing is nothing new:

CONDITION ABOARD OF THE ABERDEEN

Wild Rumors Circulated to the Effect that Passengers Had Mutinied.

INSPECTORS OF VESSELS SEVERELY CRITICISED

Forty Men and Women Compelled to Remain on Crowded Deck Over Night.

“Wild rumors were floating up and down the coast yesterday and correspondents here were queried relative to the report that mutiny had occurred on board the steam schooner Aberdeen, which sailed for Cape Nome last Monday, and that the captain in order to quell the mutiny had killed the men. This report as it traveled lost none of its sensational features and the coast press was anxious to secure a confirmation or denial and hence correspondents here received numerous telegrams of inquiry, but were unable to obtain anything further than the report.”

“However, from all accounts there was some trouble aboard the vessel before she passed Cape Flattery and after getting out to sea there is every indication that more trouble occurred, but probably to no such serious extent as indicated in the rumors.”

“One of the Aberdeen‘s passengers sent the following to the Oregonian, which gives a fair insight into the condition of affairs on board of that vessel before she passed out to sea, and under such conditions before the vessel reached the billowy ocean, when passengers commenced getting seasick, it is a hard matter to conjecture just what might happen and perhaps it was on the strength of which the wild rumors were circulated:”

“Aboard the Aberdeen, Neah Bay, May 21, 2 P.M.– The steamer Aberdeen left Seattle at 2:30 this morning, with over 300 passengers, and accommodations for but 160. Many of those aboard loudly demanded return of passage money and over 40 men and women were kept on the crowded decks over night without berths.”

“Towards morning the passengers became mutinous, and the order was given to put in to Port Townsend and discharge the overloaded vessel, which order was soon changed by the captain when it became evident that many of those on board were anxious for a chance to libel the ship for breach of contract and obtaining money under false pretenses.”

“Neah Bay was the selected as a favorable port for discharging the angered argonauts, which, on account of the lack of telegraphic communication and inability of the injured ones to secure legal action, was an ideal harbor in which to unload.”

“Passengers and crew were fighting all night. Women and men were sleeping out on the open on hay bales. The officers were independent and insolent, and offered but little assistance to the unfortunate ones who had paid $125 for a worse than steerage accommodation.”

“The decks were piled high with freight of all descriptions, including 40 head of horses, lumber, hay, boats, etc. The inspectors passed so many on board that there is not over 60 cubic feet of air space to each passenger, while the deck space is so limited that there is no opportunity for any exercise whatever, and they are compelled to remain in the stuffy staterooms, while there are six sleeping in rooms 6×7 feet, or considerably less than 60 cubic feet for each passenger. So much freight was loaded at the last moment that it was decided to take the inside passage, in order to lesson the danger to life.”

“The passengers are furious, and threaten legal action against the promoters of the iniquitous enterprise, as well as bodily injury to members of the crew. Unless something is done to alleviate their grievances, a general uprising will result and passengers will take matters into their own hands.”

“Shipping men on the Sound are unanimous in saying that if the inspector would establish a rule not to allow any craft, no matter what her condition or what trade he wished to engage in, more than double her regular passenger allowance, it would quickly put a stop to vessels putting to sea in the cramped condition of the Aberdeen and a dozen others this month. Such a rule would allow the Aberdeen 62 passengers, fully 200 less than she had on board when she lay alongside the dock in Seattle.”

The Aberdeen was among the first ships to bring legions of goldseekers to Cape Nome. Obviously  commercial maritime transportation was caught by surprise when gold fever hit the lower 48.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library

Do you believe in water witchcraft? The following article was found in the October 15, 1891 issue of the Big Bend Empire, from, appropriately enough, Waterville, Washington. A small chunk of the article is missing so I have tried to transcribe this around it.

Water Witches

“Witches used to be held in fear and abhorrence, in the olden times. People suspected of dealing in the supernatural were persecuted and put to death. A familiar test, which was inflicted upon those falling under the ban of suspicion, was the ducking stool, which was a see-saw contrivance, with a chair at one end in which to seat the victim, securely tied. The loaded end projected over a pond, and the chair and its occupant were soused into the water, in order to determine by the cries and struggles of the half-drowned wretch, whether she was witch or not. An ability to take water with composure was the test. What a number of condemned would there be nowadays, were the same tests applied.”

“Perhaps this enforced familiarity with water, may have descended to later generations of dealers in the mysterious. Be that as it may, witches, so called, are not unusual figures in the wonderful country of the Big Bend of the Columbia, and most singular of all, they are in demand. Many honest grangers have dug and dug for water on their claims, in locations of their own choosing, scouting the idea that the efforts of water witches were anything but nonsense. A majority of these unbelievers after sadly depleting their pockets in vain endeavors to strike moisture, at last come reluctantly to the point of trying the water witch.”

“With his cabalistic stick held in both hands, the magnetic individual struts across fields indicating the course of veins and pointing out the proper place to dig. He even tells within a foot or so, just how far down the well must be sunk before water is reached. The witch claims nothing supernatural about his work. He says it is electricity. As he goes over the ground, when passing above a vein of water, his stick visibly turns and points out the location of the underground stream. It is simple enough. He holds the magnetic stick and it does the rest. […]over this phenomenon may be […]d dozens of settlers will tes-[…] finding water through such a […] Some of the so-called water witches have never been known to fail, […] confident of their powers are they, that they contract to pay for the cost of digging, if their location proves a barren one. Often 60 or 70 even 100 feet down do the diggers go, the witch indicating beforehand the depth to which his guarantee runs, and paying for the work in the event of failure. If he succeeds he gets $5.”

Interestingly, 70 years later the periodical Northwest Science pointed out (v. 35, issue 4, 1961): “the number of water witches is greatest where chances are smallest that any one well will be successful. They state that in the Columbia Plateau the ratio of witches to population is the highest in the United States. The reason is not that water is scarce, but rather that the permeability of the Columbia River Basalt is extremely variable. A well that yields large quantities of water can be drilled within a few tens of feet of a well that was a dry hole.”

Adequate water supply was more important than gold to many of the residents in the Columbia Plateau. Some of our readers might recall the post we ran awhile back, also from the Big Bend Empire, regarding the rainmaker Charles Hatfield visiting the area in 1920.

Water witching, also known as dowsing, has been around for a long time but has never been fully accepted as a legitimate tool by the scientific community. The Dewey Decimal classification system places dowsing in 133.323 in the neighborhood of fortune-telling, parapsychology and occultism.

A federal publication entitled The Divining Rod : a History of Water Witching, With a Bibliography / by Arthur J. Ellis for the US Geological Survey,  originally published in 1917, is pretty blunt: “It is doubtful whether so much investigation and discussion have been bestowed on any other subject with such absolute lack of positive results. It is difficult to see how for practical purposes the entire matter could be more thoroughly discredited, and it should be obvious to everyone that further tests by the United States Geological Survey of this so-called ‘witching’ for water, oil, or other minerals would be a misuse of public funds.”

As late as 1977, in the publication Water Dowsing, the Feds would write: “Despite almost unanimous condemnation by geologists and technicians, the practice of water dowsing has spread throughout America. It has been speculated that thousands of dowsers are active in the United States; many are members of the American Society of Dowsers, Inc.”

But a brief walk through Internet will demonstrate that dowsing is as strong as ever, and just as controversial now as it was in 1891.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

Time has rewarded the Dutchman who ran the potato-bug newspaper, while The Argus is now mostly a political footnote in Washington State political history.

The election of 1896 was preceded by one of the most emotionally charged campaigns in the history of the United States. William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic and Populist parties nominee, had excited a large portion of the agrarian and Western population through his charisma and rhetoric. Meanwhile the Republicans stood by an Establishment status-quo man, William McKinley.

The Argus was a weekly Republican organ out of Seattle. The following piece is from their issue of August 8, 1896:

WHO IS A JUDAS?

“The Review, a contemptible little one horse rag with a sworn circulation of 400 copies, which moved from Fremont to Seattle when the Telegraph died with the aim of becoming the democratic ‘orgin,’ worked itself into a frenzy last week because Receiver BAKER, of the Merchants’ National Bank, had refused to support BRYAN and the populistic platform.”

“The Dutchman who presides over the editorial columns of the little potato-bug must have partaken of too much limberger, intermixed with sauerkraut and dunderfunk and the whole heterogenous mass must have resulted in a bad case of infantile colic, thus causing him to work off his anarchistic sentiments all at once, with the hope of wiping Receiver BAKER off the face of the earth with one fell swoop.”

“It is refreshing to hear this fellow whose only aim seems to be to work all of the legal notices possible out of the land office, Call Receiver BAKER, who is to him what a diamond is to a dung-hill, ‘Benedict Arnold or Judas Iscariot,’ simply because that gentleman has too much self respect to stand in with his little play to get the land offices for another four years.”

“A democrat is a funny thing, but this democrat is especially funny.”

Several follow-ups here worth noting:

Bryan did lose the Presidential election, but the Populists won every, and I mean every, statewide elective office in 1896. The closest parallel I can think of in living memory was the widespread election of post-Watergate “outsiders” in 1974 and 1976, including President Jimmy Carter and Governor Dixy Lee Ray. In both historical cases, the bubble was short-lived.

Receiver Baker was Charles H. Baker, who was later the force behind the electrical generating plant at Snoqualmie Falls.

The Seattle Telegraph had a run from 1890 to Feb. 1896.

The Argus changed title to Argus Magazine in the early 1980s but then it died shortly after, ironically in the era of Ronald Reagan.

The Review, mentioned here in such a condescending way, was also known through time as the Fremont Saturday Review and the Seattle Review and the Fremont Herald. Apparently the Fremont Saturday Review had the subtitle: “Fremont First — the World Afterward — Heaven Next.” It is my sad duty as a librarian to inform you that no manifestations of this newspaper exist in any library, according to OCLC. Unless someone out there steps forward, this is yet another newspaper lost to history.

In 1896 the term “Dutchman” was an ethnic slur against German-Americans, a shortening of Deutschmann. The additional references to limberger, sauerkraut and the obscene dunderfunk, not to mention anarchy, reflected a bit of xenophobia on the part of the The Argus. The prejudice against German-Americans was fairly short-lived, since many in that cultural group generally made it a top priority to quickly assimilate and mainstream. Much of this is outlined in Dale R. Wirsing’s Builders, Brewers and Burghers : Germans of Washington State (1977).

The German-American in this particular case was Ambrose Basileus Ernst (1861-1931). He came to America as a child with his family in 1872 and was raised in Wisconsin. In 1890 he migrated to Woolley, Washington and became the publisher of the Skagit County Times.

By 1892 Ambrose was active in the Seattle Democratic Party and running a newspaper out of Fremont. He later became involved with mining interests.

In 1906 Ernst was appointed to the Seattle Park Commission where he earned fame as “The Father of City Playfields.”

Gov. Lister appointed Ernst to the State Industrial Insurance Commission in 1913. A photo of Ernst can be found in the 2nd Annual Report of the Industrial Insurance Department.

Unfortunately for Ernst, a major swindle of the Commission took place under his watch in 1915, and although blameless, he became one of the political victims. He did serve the public in one more position as a member of the Civic Auditorium Commission in 1919. He died in Seattle in 1931.

Ambrose B. Ernst has had the last laugh on the snarky Argus editorialist of 1896. Over a decade ago a Seattle city park was dedicated next to the Fremont Library and it was named A.B. Ernst Park in honor of Ambrose’s significant contributions when he was on the Park Commission. His former home (no longer standing) was almost across the street from the  park. Not a bad tribute for the editor of a potato-bug newspaper.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

We are in the upper lefthand corner. We are on the edge. We are an experiment.

Compared to the rest of the Lower 48, Washington State has always been an inviting place to start anew and try out ideas that would not be allowed elsewhere.

The book Utopias on Puget Sound, 1885-1915 by Charles Pierce LeWarne outlines the collective settlements of Freeland, Home, and Equality.

And here on this very blog we have highlighted the history of Burley.

Not all the cooperative colonies turned out so well. The Newell Colony of 1880 didn’t survive very long:

But one colony, very different than all of the others, apparently never broke ground. It was to be a Dry City, the brainchild of a prohibitionist, and to be set in one of the most two-fisted logger counties in Washington State. The following article was found in The Olympia State Capital, Oct. 12, 1906, but was also run in several other regional papers.

CLEAN TOWN IN MASON

 Prohibition Colony to be Established by Wealthy Architect.

 “Tacoma, Oct. 8. — A city without a saloon, brothel, theater or Sunday cigar store is in process of incubation for the state of Washington. William Arthur, an architect, of Omaha, Neb., intends to establish a city in which the prohibitionists will control and he has selected this state for his colony.”

“In a letter to Rev. Mr. Ketchum, of this city, Arthur says he is negotiating for land in Mason county, which he expects to secure, and he will then proceed to organize his colony and city. Every deed for land will contain a clause forever prohibiting its use for any saloon, brewery or distillery. Municipal ownership of all public utilities, including street railways, will be the order and other advanced ideas of government will be incorporated in the new community.”

“Arthur is a man of considerable means and he is enlisting citizens in the project all over the United States.”

The history of prohibition in Washington State is covered in a most excellent manner by my former faculty colleague and acquaintance Norman H. Clark (1925-2004) in his work The Dry Years. But William Arthur came in under Norman’s radar and was not documented in his works. As far as I can ascertain, Arthur’s plan for a Mason County community never went beyond the concept stage.

Most of the Washington State Prohibition Party activists in the late 19th/early 20th century were educators or ministers. August Bernhardt Louis Gellerman, who established Peninsular College in Oysterville, 1895-1897, came the closest to establishing a place to make the dry vision come true.

William Arthur was born in Scotland in 1860. He immigrated to the United States in 1881 and settled in the area of Omaha, where he apparently joined relatives. He earned a living in the building contract trade and wrote books on the subject such as The Building Estimator, The Contractors’ and Builders’ Handbook, Estimating Building Costs, The Home Builders’ Guide, The New Building Estimator, and Appraisers’ and Adjusters’ handbook. Apparently Mr. Arthur was  not really an architect, he was an engineer.

About the time of the news article above, Arthur wrote The Well-Ordered Household, reissued as Our Home City in 1911. These are the works outlining his vision for a new urban way of living through his planned communities. In the early 1920s in the wake of the Great War he issued a couple books promoting English as the world language in the road to international peace. He died in Omaha July 26, 1945.

A city of 5000 prohibitionists deep in Mason County during the early 20th century would have been a major counterbalance in the history of that area if it had actually happened. Mr. William Arthur deserves a whole chapter in the Washington State book of intriguing historical “what ifs.”

Thanks to Mr. Bill Arthur, grandson of William Arthur, for providing valuable background information for this post.

Photo  from Washington, West of the Cascades

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

In the midst of one of the worst economic depressions of the 19th century, thousands of unemployed workers were called upon nationwide to march in protest at Washington D.C. in 1894. They gained the nickname “Coxey’s Army” after their Ohio-based leader, Jacob Coxey. The Coxeyites in the Pacific Northwest were among the most radical followers, and dubbed themselves the Northwest Industrial Army. If you consider they used guerilla tactics and got into several skirmishes involving firearms, they really were an army.

In the spring of 1894 the Seattle and Tacoma units of the Northwestern Industrial Army met in Puyallup, using that town as their springboard for the cross-country journey. They numbered over 1000. In other states some of the government officials were sympathetic to the movement, but Washington Gov. McGraw was no friend to the Army.

Train hijacking in small groups became the main mode of transportation for the industrial soldiers. The following article in the May 11, 1894 issue of the Bellingham Bay Reveille, published out of New Whatcom, not only gives us a case study in the conflict, but also demonstrates a statewide interest in this struggle:

THE BATTLE AT SPRAGUE

The Coxeyites Attempt to Steal a Train and are Driven off by Marshals Who Pour a Volley Into Them — A Mob Starving at the Columbia and Row Probable.

ARE GETTING DISCOURAGED

“SPOKANE, Wash., May 8.–Telegrams from Sprague bring information that a collision occurred at that place between the industrials and United States marshals, arising out of an attempt on the part of the industrials to capture a cattle train. Circumstances of the affray as near as can be learned were as follows:”

“A cattle train passed through Sprague at the rate of 30 miles an hour, backing to Patterson. An industrial who was secreted on the train succeeded in manipulating the brakes and the train came to a standstill at a point about four miles out of Sprague, where some thirty industrials were lying in the grass. A posse of marshals was close at hand, watching the industrials. As the train slowed down and stopped, the industri[als] made a rush for it, when the marshals arose and fired a volley into their ranks. Some twenty shots were fired. It is not known whether any were injured. Before the train started again ten of the industrials succeeded in getting aboard and made their way to Spokane.”

“Excitement over the affair is intense in Spokane and at Sprague United States deputy marshals are holding a large body of industrials in check at the bridge across the Columbia river and will permit no man known to belong to the army to cross. Industrials are in a serious plight, for there is no town for seventy miles on that side of the river at which they can get anything to eat. Starvation is staring them in the face and they are becoming desperate. If they are not permitted to cross the river, there will likely be serious trouble, as the men will be like hungry wolves at bay.”

“At this point a deputy marshal found a man, presumably an industrial, stealing a ride on a brake under a car. He pointed a pistol at the man and ordered him out. A gang of industrials seized the deputy and beat him severely, nearly killing him. There are 300 of the industrial army who have succeeded in reaching Spokane; 200 are still at Sprague, and nearly all the others who left Seattle and Tacoma are scattered at different points along the line of the Northern Pacific in Eastern Washington.”

In Yakima and Montana some battles resulted in death or serious injury. A few soldiers in this tattered Army did reach Washington, D.C. and participated in the protest. Northwest historian Carlos A. Schwantes in his Coxey’s Army : An American Odyssey (1985) includes a nice chapter on the Northwestern Industrial Army and their vainglorious leader Frank “Jumbo” Cantwell, a boxer and bouncer who wore a special gaudy uniform while leading his troops. Cantwell had a long history of conflicts with the law before, during, and after 1894.

Much of the discontent of 1894 served as a prelude to the Populist sweep of 1896.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

The fun part about murky plots and conspiracies is that they are just that– murky, leaving a mystery for historians to argue about for decades. Even at the time the daring plan of Confederate agents in Victoria B.C. to capture a Port Townsend-based Revenue Cutter was exposed, rival newspapers could not agree on the facts of the case.

The following article was found in the March 7, 1863 Washington Statesman, a Walla Walla newspaper. John T. Jeffreys was apparently remembered in that city as “Sensation John,” from his exploits in the area serving as a lieutenant with the Oregon Volunteers during the Native American conflict of 1855-56.

The Plot to Seize the Shubrick

“John T. Jeffreys– ‘sensation John,’ and now, secession John– comes out in an article in the British Colonist, and acknowledges that the reported plot to seize the U.S. Steamer Shubrick and convert her into a privateer was an actuality. John’s article is characteristic, and were it not for the fact his statements are corroborated through other sources, we should be inclined to believe the whole thing a humbug. He pitches into the editor of the Colonist, for exposing the scheme, in this wise:”

“‘I admit freely that there was a Confederate Commodore here, and that he had a commission in his pocket. I admit that a crew was picked and that the object was to injure Federal commerce in these waters. In short, I admit everything that you have stated, except that the expedition was a piratical one, and that the design was to burn the mail steamer. That would never have been done, except in case of necessity, which, I think is safe to say, would never have arisen.'”

 “‘I make this statement boldly, not because I wish to render myself notorious, but because you have meanly– with a meaness which your friends never supposed you capable of– violated a confidence reposed in you, and made an affair public which you should have kept locked within your own breast. True, the thing had fallen through. True, the Commodore had left and the scheme had been abandoned; but, sir, by what right, or by whose permission, did you feel 

warranted in exposing the enterprise, without first consulting its leaders, or the parties who furnished you the information? I do not know who your informant was, and I do not care now, (time was when I might have cared, though) but this I will say, that he has betrayed a sacred confidence reposed in him, which he 

should have rather lost his life than to have done.'”

“Pity that this betrayer of ‘sacred confidence’ did not have the power to do it in such a manner as to have had the plotters ‘left dangling at a rope’s end.'”

Identified by some as an Alabaman, John Thomas Jeffreys was actually born in Independence, Missouri April 7, 1830. John, along with his parents and siblings, went overland by wagon train to northwest Oregon in 1845. After the 1849 death of their father Thomas Jeffreys, the family moved The Dalles.

John was in the cattle trade and along with his brother Oliver found an excellent market in British Columbia. According to F.W. Laing in the Oct. 1942 British Columbia Historical Quarterly, the brothers Jeffreys first show up in BC documents as early as 1860. Benjamin F. Gilbert in the July-Oct. 1954 issue of the same periodical has a long essay on the details of Jeffreys’ involvement in the Shubrick case.

The newspaperman who Jeffreys felt betrayed him was actually with the Victoria Daily Chronicle. His name was David Williams Higgins and he later wrote a memoir suggesting the plot was really exposed by Union intelligence rather than by journalists. According to Scott McArthur in The Enemy Never Came, the American Consul Mr. Francis informed the Shubrick’s pro-Union second in command, Lt. James M. Selden, of the plot. Apparently the skipper and other sailors were in on the plan. So when the Shubrick visited Victoria “while the ship’s captain and most of the crew were ashore, Selden and six members of the crew cast off and returned to Port Townsend.”

The rival Victoria newspaper, The Daily British Colonist, was openly critical of the Chronicle for being sensationalist and a scandal sheet. The publisher was none other than that steak-juggling eccentric, Amor de Cosmos, who we met in an earlier post.   De Cosmos had been Higgins’ mentor and employer before the two had a falling out in 1862.

Shortly after the Shubrick incident Jeffreys returned to Oregon, where he was arrested. He died in The Dalles Feb. 24, 1867, aged 36.

The Shubrick continued life as a government ship until 1886, when it was sold in Astoria, Oregon and scrapped.

Maryland native Lt. James M. Selden was promoted to Captain in the U.S. Revenue Marine Service in 1867. He died March 16, 1888, aged about 57, as the result of sunstroke while on duty.

The Washington Statesman is available in online form thanks to the efforts of our Digital and Historical Collections team. It provides a window into Washington Territory’s contemporary view of the Civil War.

WSL also holds copies of the Daily British Colonist on microfilm.

David Williams Higgins (1834-1917) merged his own newspaper with the Colonist in 1866 to form The Daily British Colonist and Victoria Chronicle which he used as a springboard for political office.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

The term “yegg” really has some power to it and was used frequently by reporters in the course of telling the story of Blackie Carroll and Irish Slim. Melisa Sevall, a Public Services librarian who had worked in the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center Library before the WSL Central Library staff, pointed me to the reference work, Language of the Underworld / by David W. Maurer (1981). A “Yegg” can be a desperate sort of criminal and burglar, but more specifically (and certainly in our case study) a safecracker.

Our customers are frequently surprised to learn that in addition to having Washington newspapers on thousands of reels of microfilm, we also include a few out-of-state newspapers culturally tied to our history. We have several newspapers from Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, and Alaska. The following piece from The Morning Oregonian of Sept. 12, 1921 demonstrates how their news beat went across state lines:

  ESCAPED OUTLAWS ARE YET AT LARGE

 Carroll, ex-Convict, Once Tried to Go “Straight.”

 RECORD HERE IS STORMY

 Jimmie Costigan, Who Convinced Victim of Wrong Identification, Is Well Educated.

 “The jailbreak at Montesano of James (‘Blackie’) Carroll, expert safecracker and ex-convict, who openly boasted a few months ago that he would have Portland overrun this winter with yeggs and highwaymen, recalls the record of the outlaw in Portland. Police posters containing his picture and offers of reward for his capture were received at police headquarters yesterday.”

“With Carroll in his escape from the Montesano jail was Jimmie Costigan, alias ‘Irish Slim,’ reputed to be one of the nerviest highwaymen now operating along the Pacific slope. Both were awaiting sentence of life imprisonment as habitual criminals.”

 Chief Accepts Defi

 “‘Blackie’ Carroll ostensibly had decided to go ‘straight.’ He opened up a soft-drink establishment in the north end about a year ago. But the only thing soft about the place was the ‘pickings,’ as his dive soon became known as one of the worst bootlegging hangouts in the north end.”

“Carroll was repeatedly arrested and convicted of bootlegging. Finally he sent word to Chief of Police Jenkins that if he were not allowed to sell liquor openly at his establishment he would see that Portland became infested with yeggs and crooks. The chief accepted the defi and compelled ‘Blackie’ to close up shop.”

“After Carroll had been released from jail the last time here he disappeared. A few weeks later he was arrested at Montesano with ‘Irish Slim’ while in the art of blowing a safe. Their conviction as habitual criminals followed.”

 Costigan Four-Time Loser.

 “Jimmie Costigan is a four-time loser, having served two terms each in the penitentiaries at Folsom and San Quentin, Cal. His last escapade locally, which was called to the attention of the police, occurred about eight months ago, when he held up and robbed a local cider manufacturer of about $30.”

“This man picked out ‘Slim’ in the north end the next day and had the police take him into custody. The identification was positive, it was said at the time of the arrest.”

“When the case came before Municipal Judge Rossman on preliminary hearing, ‘Irish Slim” put up such a good front that his victim wavered in his identification. Judge Rossman declined to hold the suspect unless the complaining witness was certain of his identity.”

 Victim Is Convinced.

 “Finally it was agreed that the complaintant and ‘Irish Slim’ would retire to a secluded room and there discuss the case. A few minutes later the cider manufacturer returned to court and asked that the prisoner be discharged.”

“It was not until several weeks later that the police learned how ‘Irish Slim’ had convinced his victim that a mistake had occurred. During the four terms he served in the California prisons time naturally hung heavy for the convict. He took up a correspondence school education and by the time he had finished his last ‘bit’ had won a few correspondence school degrees.”

Complaintant Offers Apology.

 “When he faced his hold-up victim in the ante-room off the municipal courtroom, ‘Irish Slim’ put his correspondence school education to good use. With the choicest English, he told the hold-up victim he was a college professor on his ‘uppers,’ and horrid things like highway robbery were farthest from his mind. So suave was he in his talk that he convinced the other he could not have been the highwayman, and the latter was more than eager to set him free. He even offered a public apology in police court for having caused ‘Irish Slim’ such embarrassment.”

“Although ‘Blackie’ Carroll has promised Portland a carnival of crime this winter, it is believed he will not be so bold as to return here to attempt to direct any of the work. His face is too familiar with practically every member of the police bureau for him to chance arrest by returning to Portland.”

Earlier in his life Blackie had been the leader of a crime syndicate known as the Bozee Boys, who rode the rails and went from town to town blowing up safes with nitroglycerin. Born around 1877-1878, Blackie was a career criminal who had previously served prison terms in Salem, Oregon and in San Quentin where he was released in July 1919. He was also known as Tom Carey. Carroll did indeed operate a “soft drink” place at 241 1/2 Couch St. in Portland for a few months before selling it in 1921.

James “Irish Slim” Costigan claimed he was a San Francisco based sailor originally from Plymouth, England. He was also known as James H. Ward, James Grant, James Brophy, James Dwyer, James Murray, and John Keating. A professional burglar and bold robber, Irish Slim had spent two prison terms in Folsom and two in  San Quentin, a total of 11 years.

By poking around the Hoquiam’s newspaper, Grays Harbor Daily Washingtonian, and also the Montesano Vidette, I was able to piece together a bit more of the story.

In May, 1921, Blackie and Irish Slim formed a gang with forger Fred Morgan (aka Cecil Hill, released from prison in Salem in 1919) in Centralia, Washington. Blackie was wanted for a warehouse robbery in Astoria, Oregon at the time. The trio rode the rails to Hoquiam and decided to blow the safe in a steam laundry.

In the wee hours of May 4, 1921, the yeggs broke into the laundry, set two charges of nitro, and piled clothes over the safe to muffle the noise of the explosion. The charge was a bit too strong, blowing the safe door into the safe itself. They were quickly captured, and within two months were convicted. But as we saw, the Grays Harbor County jail could not hold Blackie and Irish Slim for too long. They broke the bars of their cell and vanished into thin air.

Did Blackie return to Portland to make good on his promise to deliver a “carnival of crime”? On the Christmas after his escape from Montesano, a night watchman identified the two yeggs who tied him up and then blew the safe of a cardroom (netting $1500) as Blackie Carroll and “Jingling” Johnson.

Although I found no record of the fate of Irish Slim, Blackie made his way to Missouri, where he was convicted of burglary in 1923 under the name James Ryan, and sentenced to the state prison. The last record I can find for him was in 1925, when he was returned to Montesano to serve out the rest of his term in the  Grays Harbor County jail.  He was 44 years old, probably making him one of the senior yeggs in the business.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

I stumbled across a legal case in Washington State history that deserves to be revisited. The following news nugget was found at random in the Morning Olympian for May 5, 1916:

  DEFAMER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON GUILTY

 JURY RETURNS WITH VERDICT AFTER 90 MINUTES

 “TACOMA, May 4.–Paul R. Haffer was found guilty of libel and defamation of character when he said that George Washington drank more liquor than was good for him and used occasional profanity. A jury in the superior court so decided last night after deliberating an hour and 30 minutes.”

“Col. A.E. Joab brought the charge against Haffer after the latter had written a letter to a newspaper on Washington’s birthday, setting forth the alleged delinquencies of the father of his country. In his own defense, Haffer said that he had read much of Washington’s life, and wrote the charges because he was opposed to hero worship, and he thought the people were making too much of Washington’s memory. He is a socialist and employed as a car repairer. The maximum penalty for the offense is a year in jail and $1,000 fine. An appeal will be taken.”

“Col. Joab thanked each juror as they filed from the box for being ‘a real American.'”

OK, probably not a good idea to be an iconoclast in a state named after George at a time when America was nervous about socialists and the possibility of entering the Great War, which was already underway in Europe. Also, Prohibition was  the law of the land in Washington State by 1916, and comments about drunkenness were not taken lightly. But the Haffer case was not one of the most shining moments in the legal history of The Evergreen State.

Haffer was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan ca. 1895. His family moved to the Tacoma area when he was about 9. He was apparently a strong socialist throughout his entire life.

The exact content of his letter to the editor of the Tacoma Tribune for the issue in question remains murky. It was published on Feb. 18, 1916, but that issue is mysteriously missing from our microfilm reel for that time slot, even though every issue around that date is intact. If anyone out there has the full contents of Mr. Haffer’s letter, I’d appreciate seeing it.

However, other newspapers quoted parts of it. The Tacoma Times: Haffer said Washington was a “slaveholder, a profane and blasphemous man and an inveterate drinker.” The first accusation was certainly true, but the next three are very open to debate and definition.

Haffer’s reply to the press was that he wrote the letter “to check the unthinking idolatry of heroes held up by demigods before the public.”

The day following publication of his letter to the editor, he was charged with criminal libel by Col. Albert E. Joab (1857-1930), a self-appointed guardian of “patriotic values” and considered as something of a “picturesque” character by the local press. It is interesting Col. Joab went after the writer rather than the newspaper that published the piece.

The Tacoma Tribune had no comment on the case, but the rival Tacoma Times exalted in it. They quoted Col. Joab as calling Haffer a “Damnable blackguard, infamous anarchist, Red socialist!” Also these choice quotes: “I’ve been raised all my life to respect men such as Washington and I don’t propose to stand for a red anarchist to desecrate his memory. Thank God I’ve got some red blood in my system to stick up for Washington, if nobody else will. I don’t know who the man is who wrote the article, but he undoubtedly is a socialist. You can tell a rabbit by his track. He is a —- blackguard. Let this man prove in open court what he says of Washington, if he can. I can produce articles by Thomas Jefferson, whom we all learned to love through Woodrow Wilson, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and others, showing Washington was an upright man, noted for his sobriety. Why, he was even a communicant of the Episcopal church and a Master Mason. Look in any standard dictionary and you will see Washington’s picture in his Masonic apron.”

Haffer was convicted in Pierce County Superior Court and the decision was upheld, incredibly, after an appeal to the Washington State Supreme Court. Haffer was fined and sentenced to several months imprisonment, but after a month of serving his time he was pardoned by Gov. Lister.

But Haffer and the legal system still had another issue to sort out. Like many other socialists, Paul was opposed to the U.S. entry into the Great War in 1917, and according to Albert F. Gunns in Civil Liberties in Crisis : the Pacific Northwest 1917-1940 Haffer was forced into the Army after serving 10 months in jail for refusing to register for the draft. He served his time in uniform at Camp Lewis and was honorably discharged in 1919 having never been overseas.

In spite of all the contemporary publicity over his radical views, Haffer might be better remembered today as the one-time husband of the innovative and acclaimed photographer Virna Haffer (1899-1974). Paul and Virna had a son, Jean Paul, in 1924 before they divorced a few years later.

In the 1930s and 1940s Haffer remarried, started a second family, had another son and obtained work as a shipfitter. He ran for State Representative in 1934 as a member of the Socialist Party and placed 6 out of 6 in the primary with 0.99% of the vote. None of the slings and arrows hurled at him in earlier years had distracted him from his original vision.

When Haffer died on June 15, 1949 at age 54, his obituary mentioned he “gained brief notoriety when he was convicted in a Tacoma court of libeling George Washington on charges brought by the late Col. Albert Joab.”

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

Three mysteries emerge from an episode back when Spokane was known as Spokane Falls, one of them concerns a ghost, another is geographic, and the last is bibliographic. No, I’m not talking about a spirit scouring the online catalog– that is called BOOlean searching (heh-heh, get it?). This series of questions emerge from the following article in the Spokane Falls Review, March 21, 1885:

SPOOKS

Spokane Falls Enjoys the Luxury of a Haunted House.

“Among the other many attractions in and about Spokane Falls, there has recently been added that of a haunted house, wherein the cheerful disembodied spirit holds high carnival, and the spectral inhabitants of the silent and bewitching midnight meet together to join in ghostly orgies, talk politics and frighten the timid denizens of this mundane sphere out of their seven senses. Belated pedestrians, with a tendency to scare easily, shun the side of street upon which is located the trysting place of the jovial spooks, while the more courageous have marched up to the premises, but, if not really frightened, have had no hesitancy in moving off at a speed above that of ordinary promenading when having their ears saluted with uncanny sounds.”

“The building that has been taken without the formality of lease, by these airy nocturnal roysters, is the old Phoenix beer hall that was the scene of a sad chapter in the city’s history; that of the unprovoked murder of a young man last summer, and which has been unoccupied for several months. We have heard vague rumors of the presence of a ghost, but have, so far, been unable to see anyone who will admit of having seen anything of a supernatural agency. Although the belief is so strong that the unexplainable exists that it is not every one you meet who will volunteer to take his blankets and camp in the room overnight.”

“It is said that on a certain occasion, recently, a man passing had his attention attracted by a strange noise that seemed to proceed from the room, and, going carefully up the alley, he peered into a window. He didn’t remain rooted to the spot. His legs refused to allow his body to remain in the neighborhood and he don’t remember just how he soon did get to bed, but it was only a small fraction of time after taking one gaze, when he had his head buried under the blankets.”

“He touches the subject tenderly and has kept much more rational hours ever since. What he saw could not have grown out of the character of the fluid he had been drinking, as he had religiously stuck to water that evening. To a limited few, he claims that when he reached the window he saw the shadowy outlines of a man that shone out with a phosphorous light. The shadowy tenant was walking with his back to the window and was giving vent to a noise sounding as though he was in a good deal of pain or was growling over the chilliness of the night. When the apparition turned about and headed for the window, one glance was sufficient for the individual. Considering that the specter would consider it an indelicate intrusion, the witness adjourned without apology. He calculates that, with ordinary luck, he will be able to outlive the sensation he experienced in fifty or one hundred years.”

“Making all due allowance for a vivid imagination and a bristly fright, there is still left a margin for the belief that the visitor from the other world is not a party that the average man would choose for a boon companion.”

“Since then, and perhaps before (although we have no data for going behind the returns) attention has been attracted to the spot by divers unpleasant sounds, as if a whole colony of the defunct were occasionally congregated for a jubilee. No thorough investigation has, so far, been made, as the initiated have perhaps felt a slight delicacy in forcing their presence in company where they were not invited. We suppose that in time, when the thing becomes shorn of the glamour of freshness, some one will want to deprive the public of the benefit of such an important tributary to the popularity of the Falls, and try to clear up the mystery.”

“We cannot say when the boss spook holds his receptions, but if any one is curious he can hang around o’ nights and find out for himself. We are not paid for keeping a reporter on the spot.”

Mystery # 1: What the heck is it? In all my perusing through territorial newspapers, this is the most detailed and open account I have found describing public “ghostly” happenings.

Mystery # 2: The exact location of the Phoenix Beer Hall, which was designated as the HQ for these ghosts, is not easy to find. Apparently closed by 1885, it doesn’t show up on directories or Sanborn maps of the era. I’d be curious to know if that location has experienced other “supernatural” events in the 20th-21st centuries. But where was/is it?

Mystery # 3: In an attempt to find an account of the “sad chapter in the city’s history,” it was discovered the incident was the September 27, 1884 shooting of a quiet carpenter named Henry R. Roblin by John “Jack” Connerry, “a notorious rustler.” Apparently Roblin accidentally bumped into Connerry on a Saturday near midnight at the Phoenix Beer Hall, and that alone sparked the shooting. Connerry was captured the next morning but was moved from Spokane Falls city jail to Cheney as he was in very real danger of being lynched by an angry mob. It seems Connerry escaped jail in Cheney a short time later.

But here’s the mystery. In an effort to find a local article about this shooting, every single newspaper run we have in the Spokane area is missing the issue that would have covered this news. It’s like we have a nice complete set– except for this one period. Every one of them! What’s the deal here? I had to go to newspapers in California and Montana to get the details. Was the episode so shameful no one wanted to preserve the newspapers, or instead did they keep it as a souvenir? In any case, it is quite odd.

The Spokane Falls Review is one the historical newspapers digitized by the Washington State Library. The above article, and many other lively stories about Spokane can be viewed online on the WSL website.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

When the Washington Irrigation Company attempted to perform a little social engineering in the community of Zillah in an effort to close the saloon, the cause of alcohol found an unlikely champion. The story is told in the Feb. 20, 1903 issue of the Yakima Republic:

IS A DEFENDER OF BOOZE

 A Zillah Minister Who Stands Up For Good Whisky, But Not For Bad

“A minister at Zillah last Sunday night created something of a sensation in his pulpit, according to a resident of that little town who was here this week, when he declared that he occasionally took a drink himself, and that inasmuch as men would get whisky anyway if they wanted it, there wasn’t much harm in giving them facilities for getting good whisky.”

“The Washington Irrigation company has offered to set apart $1400 worth of its justly celebrated Sunnyside land for the endowment of a library at Zillah if the people of that place will cut out the saloon which has been in operation there and which has been a bone of contention among the inhabitants each year.”

“Commenting upon this proposition, the minister referred to is said to have taken a stand in favor of the saloon as against the library; and to have asserted that if he wanted to he took a drink of whisky, and preferred good whisky.”

“This unexpected deliverance by a minister of the gospel has furnished a valuable topic of conversation at Zillah this week.”

“The Zillah man who mentioned the matter to the Republic stated that it is as yet undetermined whether the people down there will favor licensing the saloon for another year. Recently the proprietor, Correll, hurt himself quite severely, and his bad luck has created some sympathy for him.”

The Washington Irrigation Company’s place in the history of the area can be found in The Victory of National Irrigation in the Yakima Valley, 1902-1906.

It appears Zillah did not get a library until Prohibition took effect. Meanwhile, in recent history another church in the town has made the news. In order to  publicize the name, the Church of God – Zillah constructed a wire sculpture of the famous Japanese movie monster outside the building.