❖ Tugboater CAPT. MARK FREEMAN and his lottery ticket ❖

1982
Washington State's First $1 million Lottery

Captain Mark H. Freeman
Freemont Tugster
b. 15 Mar. 1934, Lake Union
d. 26 Jan. 2017, Seattle, WA.
Photo date, 12 Dec. 1982
by Matt McVay
low res scan of an original photo from
the Saltwater People Historical Society©
click image to enlarge.

"Charles E. Davis, a machinist who's been unemployed since June, was hurting for the money.
      Mark Freeman, the owner of a tugboat company and lots of pricey Lake Union moorage, wasn't.
      The two illustrated the spread between the poor and the rich among the 10 finalists for the first $1 million WA. state lottery drawing next Friday.
      The 10––a mix of Washingtonians that ranged from a nurse to a smelter superintendent to a truck driver––beat out 6,190 other $100 instant-lottery winners who were competing in yesterday's semi-final draw for the Big Win.
      Saturday is Mark Freeman's day for working on his tugboats, and he was out early at Lake Union, dressed in his thick work boots, jeans, flannel shirt and the 'loggers'  suspenders sporting a 'Ballard Bridge Passport––Copenhagen Snuff' button.
      But instead of working, he spent the day posing for news photographers, enjoying good-natured barbs aimed his way by customers and friends who dropped by the Northlake Way tugboat office and gloating.
      Freeman owns moorage for 90 pleasure and commercial craft, and moorage off Fairview and Westlake for 65 houseboats, as well as five tugboats.
      Being a finalist means he has won at least $10,000. If he gets second place in the drawing it's $50,000.
      'I'm not wealthy,' he protested. His company property 'just means you've got a lot of hard work keeping all that together.'
      Besides, he says, he probably works more than just about anyone. 'We open at 6 every morning and shut down at 10 at night. I'm here for a good share of that.'
      His tugboat company office is filled with photographs and memorabilia of boats, newspaper clippings of tugboat races he has competed in.
      The $10,000 will go into fixing up the tugboats, Freeman said. If he wins the $1 million, he said, he's got his eye on a sweet little tugboat.
      'I wouldn't change my style of living or anything else. I'm having a good time––especially today,' he said. It's not every day you win $10,000. Usually, you've got to work your a__ off.'
      He'll continue to live in his Lake Union houseboat, commuting to work in his mini-tugboat 'Barf...'
      There were nine other people who had chances to be a millionaire in this draw. They were, C.P. Oefler, Jana D. Page, Christa Maiuri, Warren Harvey, Phyllis D. O'Hair, Darleen J. Garwood, Charles Davis, Robert Swanson, Clyde Overman."
Carey Quan Gelernter & William Gough. The Seattle Times. 

      The next week the drawing was made. The million dollar winner was the registered nurse, Jana D. Page, making about $15,000 per year and had just had surgery to remove half her kidney.
      The famous mariner, Capt. Mark Freeman, was in second place to take home $50,000.
For a glimpse of Capt. Freeman steaming along click HERE

❖ STEAMER MOHAI ❖

Steamer MOHAI, 1961.
L-R, Murrey Amon, Mark Freeman, "Capt." Jim Vallentyne,
A touch of the past as they chugged through the
Montlake Cut in the rebuilt steamboat MOHAI

also known as AFRICAN QUEEN.

Photo by Johnny Closs for The Seattle Times.
Original photo from the archives of the S. P. H. S.

"This little boat had been one of two sister work boats carried by the Bureau of Indian Affairs supply ship NORTH STAR to carry goods ashore in Alaska at places without docks. When they came up for bid, Dad (Doc Freeman) bought one and Lloyd Frank bought the other. Lloyd built her into a small tug and installed a 165-HP gas engine. Today she is known as TWOBITTS and I think Elwood Avery still owns her as a pleasure boat. 
      They were both open boats; ours had a 115-HP Chrysler Crown and we used her just the way she came for shifting all the big boats Dad had at Northlake Boat Sales. 
      Our friend and employee, Jim Vallentyne ran her for me as an assist boat. Jim and Dad got to talking about making her into a steamboat. Frank Prothero donated a Model K Navy engine c. 1900 and Jim rebuilt it. They found a real Scotch Marine Boiler that would burn coal or wood. They installed the engine and boiler and fitted a rebuilt 24-inch diameter propeller and had the wheel repitched to 40" and it was just the right combination. We still used her as a tug but you had to build up steam before you could shift––we all had a lot of fun with her. We even took her to opening day in 1961 disguised as the AFRICAN QUEEN with empty cases of Gilbey's gin stacked on the aft deck just like Humphrey Bogart would have done.
      Dad died in December of 1963; mother and I gave the steamboat to Jim Vallentyne and his wife Loretta. Jim and our old engineer, Edmund Anderson, built a house on her and renamed her the DAVID T. DENNY. 
      Jim drowned on the Columbia River Bar trying to deliver a 50-ft Chris Craft [NUNY II] from San Diego to Seattle when a huge Pacific storm caught him [in October 1967.]
      The steamboat was sold and ended up in our moorage at Fremont Boat; I understand it was shipped to Europe to do the canals and now is somewhere in the Eastern US."
Text written by Mark Freeman.