❖ CHASING RUM ON PUGET SOUND ❖

Lucile McDonald (1898-1992) was an amazing journalist/historian/author on the prowl for Washington State history. Let's once more follow her trail through Puget Sound when she was beach-combing for tales of the rum-running days during the Prohibition Era.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Roy T. Lyle,
Federal prohibition chief, 1 June 1922,
with part of the shipment of "salt fish" liquor 
seized in a Seattle freight shed.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

If one waits long enough, almost any true experience becomes a collector's piece.
      National Prohibition ended in December 1933; it was the following March before Washington's first state liquor stores were in business.
      For nearly 14 years the entire United States had been dry. Washington had suffered thirst four years longer than that because of a Prohibition Law of its own, effective 1 January 1916.
      Sufficient time has elapsed so that minor actors in the drama of the Prohibition Era feel that now their part can be told. One of them volunteered the information that he was hired to work on a farm at Washington Harbor, Clallam County, and discovered its owner was a bootlegger, ostensibly raising turkeys and hay. The main purpose of the hayfield was to conceal a ditch in which liquor was stored.
      Another told how his father had moved from Samish to Sucia Island because farming was not as profitable as repackaging liquor goods. He removed bottles from boxes and repacked them in gunny sacks.
      "Yes, but some other repackaging was done, and not always on the level," another man commented. "You might be paying $120 a case for good liquor. You received it in a straw-stuffed gunny sack with a handle. You opened it and what did you have--three bottles of good liquor and the rest of the bottles filled with tea!"
      One of the men who gave stories to the State had been employed on a railroad. He related that a small-time bootlegger proposed that a train conductor let him store cases of whiskey between the walls of the caboose.
      Space was found for four cases each trip. They had cost $50 apiece in Canada and the bootlegger doubled his money in Bellingham.
      "He made $2,500 a month easily," said the trainman.
      "He paid me $10 a day just to stay in the car so that nobody would hijack his goods."
      The same narrator recalled deliveries made in Bellingham with buttermilk jugs, painted white, filled with moonshine retailing at $8 a gallon. Painted milk bottles also were delivered, customers paying $3 a quart "for that kind of milk."
      The trainman spoke of shingles which were loaded by the carload at a Canadian mill, where a bootlegger would have an arrangement to place some of his wares on board at the same time.
      Shingles would be piled densely in front of the car door and, when customs officers inspected the car at Blaine, the contents looked innocent. Hijackers, however, sometimes received a tip on the number of the car and stole the liquor before it reached its destination.

      

Coast Guard cutter Arcata, 
with a captured "rum runner" vessel.
Stamped with date of 25 August 1924.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

Speedboats carrying contraband cargo came directly to Seattle and landed cases on piers or at suburban beaches. Some commonly passed through the Government Locks and put their cases ashore on a county wharf at the foot of Stone Way. A man who worked at a boathouse nearby said that two or three trucks stopped there regularly at night to pick up liquor.

      Shipments for large-scale bootleggers left British Columbia ports on "mother" ships, ostensibly bound for Guatemala and Mexico. They hove to outside the 12-mile limit and discharged into "daughter" ships, which delivered the contraband cargo to the San Juan Islands, where they were met by speedboats. These in turn carried the goods to Seattle or nearby points.
      In 1925, the Coast Guard employed 22 vessels on Puget Sound and in nearby waters to lie in wait for the liquor craft. Frequently a thrilling chase occurred, when the sound of firing brought Whidbey Island residents out in the night to watch the pursuit from the bluffs.
      If a fleeing craft ignored a signal to halt, the Coast Guard fired a shot across the bows. If the fugitive vessel still did not stop, the Coast Guard unlimbered a Lewis machine gun.

Coast Guard with their Lewis gun on deck.
Motoring out of Anacortes, WA.
Photo dated 1931 from the archives of 
the Saltwater People Historical Society©

      Sometimes, if badly shot up, a pursued vessel made a crash landing on a beach and the crew disappeared in the bushes. Most bootleg vessels were faster than the patrol craft and could outrun them.
      Liquor commonly was packed 12 bottles to a gunny sack. Sometimes these were towed from the stern, ready to be cut adrift.
      One method of delivery was to place rock salt and cut cork with the bottles in the sacks. They sank when dropped overboard, but a few hours later, after the salt had dissolved, the sacks were floated by the cut cork and retrieved by a watch onshore.
      Liquor frequently was stowed under lumber, logs, and sawdust on barges in tow from Canada, or buried on sand scows. It might be shipped in barrels and kegs, in metal pipes that appeared to be part of engine-room fittings, or in a gasoline tank supposed to contain fuel.
      In the last years of the Prohibition Era, one former Coast Guardsman said, the heavy traffic was in canvas bags fastened underneath log rafts being towed.
      "A tugboat fellow," he related, "told me about a tow of cedar logs from Ladysmith with a queer gimmick. Several hollow logs were filled with cases of liquor and the ends were plugged with sacks of sand."
      The former officer's most unforgettable adventure had to do with a craft that always carried a cargo of scrap metal. The skipper made about three round trips every week into the San Juans ostensibly buying old iron. It always looked the same and the revenue men were suspicious.
      One night in 1925 off Point No Point, the craft went by in the kind of weather that would send most vessels to shelter. The revenue cutter went alongside and hailed the skipper.
      "One of the seamen--he was just a kid--noticed a short piece of rope trailing in the water," the former Coast Guardsman said. "He snagged it with a pike pole, gave a strong pull, and, as it came loose a case of whiskey came with it. The searchlights were turned on and we could see a secret compartment built under the keel. We had tapped that boat all over and it never gave forth an echo, the false bottom was so cleverly built. It had space for 24 cases.

Text above by Lucile McDonald for the Seattle Times 1961.

 

❖ EARLY SMUGGLING DAYS with SKIPPER❖

Overboard with the contraband.
Illustration from Calkins' HIGH TIDE.

"From the day he stepped off a Northern Pacific train at King Street Station in 1909, Mr. R. H. 'Skipper' Calkins kept the public posted on some of the drama and tragedy happening on the waterfront, as a police reporter, a city hall reporter, and a courthouse reporter and later covering the maritime news.  In his words --
      "The white-winged sailing ships of the Northwestern Fisheries Co were loading for the Alaska canneries. The HUMBOLDT was at Pier 7, that famous wharf where the gold ship PORTLAND startled the world by dumping a ton of Klondyke gold. 

Gold Ship SS PORTLAND,
arriving Seattle, WA., from the North, 1907.

      As I headed for the waterfront, I set a course down Second Avenue. At the New York Block, I entered the offices of the Humboldt Steamship Co. Behind the counter were Max Kalish and Floyd Bush, who, with their lone wooden vessel, which later became famous as the Klondyke gold ship, were meeting the competition of rich and powerful companies. I introduced myself and received my first story as a marine editor––the passenger list of the HUMBOLDT. I had begun a career which served me through the shifting scenes of port development, the organization of new shipping companies and the expansion of Seattle into a world port with ship lines operating to the seven seas. 
      When a baby swallowed a button, it was first-page news. Quite often during the racing season, the entire marine report was thrown out and the space used for the Longacres results. On Sundays, the marine department was buried behind ten pages of classified advertising. The editors evidently believed the harbor was only useful as a place to hold salmon derbies. 
      When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, a shroud of censorship was placed over marine news by the Army and the Navy, and it looked as if marine editors were to be as extinct as the dodo. However, as America moved into the war with every ounce of her energy, the shipping industry became of vast importance. 
      On 25 Sept 1945, a typical wartime day, there were 84 vessels on Puget Sound, according to the daily vessel-movement report of the 13th Naval District.
      These are only a few of the storms I weathered as I kept uppermost in my mind the belief that the waterfront, with ships plying to nearly every part of the world, brings new money to Seattle, provides employment to large numbers of men and gives the city an international prestige that only the sea can bestow. Thus I, a former Ohio newspaperman, have given my best efforts to make Seattle sea-minded and to make her realize the importance of world commerce to the prosperity of her citizens."

      And here is a little more about the enhanced prosperity of a citizen who settled early to raise his family on the small island of Shaw in the San Juan Archipelago, not far from Seattle. A judge at the federal court was waiting––
      
"Bizarre attempts to smuggle opium, Chinese, and wool, into the US and how Puget Sound virtually was made narcotic proof by two government officers many years ago make up one of the most colorful stories in Pacific Northwest shipping. 
       It was on 13 May 1905 that the government carried into execution long-studied plans to break up the smuggling of wool from Canada to Puget Sound, which was assuming major proportions.
      Wool was 22 cents a pound higher in the US than in Canada and successful smugglers reaped a big profit.

Map of the San Juan Islands
from the Souvenir Year Book
published by San Juan County
Commercial Club,
Friday Harbor, WA., 1930.
Click image to view
South Pender Island, BC.
 

      Customs Inspectors Ballanger and F. C. Dean left Port Townsend in an open boat and cruised along the San Juan Islands in the guise of seal hunters. Dean had been a seal hunter before joining the customs service and knew the captains of the boats in this industry of other days. Ballanger also was valuable to the government as he was reared on a farm, knew wool, and could shear a sheep.
      The two inspectors drifted in their boat off Port Townsend until after dark and then headed for Canada.
      The boat had two pair of oars and carried a sail, and although the progress was slow, she was able to reach Sydney, Vancouver Island, BC.
      Visting all of the islands, in the vicinity of Sydney and several sheep ranches, the inspectors told the farmers they were on a vacation, seeing the country and doing a little sealing. In a short time, they had visited all of the ranches suspected of being operated by wool smugglers.
      Their pockets were full of wooden pins used in securing meat to form and while the ranchers, who were shearing sheep, were not looking, the inspectors placed them in the fleece.

Alfred Burke
Early Danish American homesteader
photographed on Shaw Island, WA.
The widowed man raised his children,
proved up for a federal patent deed, and
was appointed by the state superintendent
to the first board of directors
for the Shaw Island School, District No. 10,
established in 1887 (still operating.)
A good neighbor, Hans Christensen Lee, testified
in court that Mr. Burke was "law-abiding."
Scan of an original from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society© 


    

  Ballanger and Dean became acquainted with a man by the name of Alfred Burke. They found him loading wool at South Pender Island, BC,  and followed him.

Steamboat landing, store, post office, warehouse 
Orcas Island, WA.
Location of the sacks of smuggled wool from BC.
Click image to enlarge.
A scan of an original photo from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society©

He crossed over to Orcas Island, WA., at night. There they found a large quantity of wool in a barn [reported to be 1,000 pounds.] It contained the skewers they had placed in the fleece. The inspectors called Rear Admiral W.H. Munter, USCG, and he went to Orcas Island in the little CG cutter ARCATA. (She was decommissioned in 1936.)

On right: US Revenue Cutter
ARCATA
Scan of an original photo from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historial Society©

      The ARCATA loaded the huge sacks of wool, which measured about 7-ft in length and three feet in diameter. There was so much wool on the deck of the ARCATA that it reached almost to the smokestack. The wool was landed in Port  Townsend, where it was sold at a government auction.
      Burke was arrested and tried in Seattle on a charge of smuggling, but the judge ruled he was not really seen crossing the border with the wool and he was found not guilty because of insufficient evidence.
      There were the days of "Pig Iron" Kelly and Larry Kelly, notorious opium smugglers when it was lawful to import the drug if the duty of $12 a pound was paid.
      There was an opium plant in Victoria, known as the Ly Yuen factory and one in Vancouver, known as the Ty Yuen factory. Crude opium from India and China was cooked and made into round chunks as big as a bowling ball. The opium, the gum, and the sap of the poppy were put into a copper pan over a charcoal fire. As it cooked, it was stirred and skimmed by the Chinese.
      Big traffic in opium developed. Firemen on ships had pockets in the back of their vests in which they carried the opium. They wore large box-hanging coats to conceal the drug and carried between ten and twelve cans. The smugglers, obtaining the opium in BC, made about $5 a pound by avoiding the duty.
      Then came the embargo against opium and the drug reached the coast on ships from the Orient. The Coast Guard began trailing vessels arriving from China and India as they came up the Sound.
      Smugglers of Chinese did not stop at anything if they believed they were trapped. They threw the Chinese overboard when they saw a CG cutter approaching. Those who got through landed on a lonely beach and walked until the boat operator met a confederate.
      Smugglers usually received from $100 to $500 a head for the successful delivery of Chinese in the US.
      Retiring from the Coast Guard, Admiral Munter 'dropped anchor' here and made his home in Seattle. During his long tour of duty, Admiral Munter served 34 years in ships of the old Revenue Cutter Service and the Coast Guard. He was a lieutenant in the cutter GRANT on Puget Sound during the winter of 1902 and 1903, made cruises in the cutter MANNING to the Bering and Honolulu, and in 1925, visited Seattle as a member of a Coast Guard board. He served nearly 45 years of Coast Guard service.
      Ballanger retired in 1946, after 45 years in the US Customs Service."

Sources: R.H. "Skipper" Calkins, High Tide. Seattle: Marine Digest Publishing Co., Inc., 1952) 356./Out of print.
US Federal Court records. Alfred Burke. From the National Archives Record Administration, Seattle, WA.

❖ RUM RUNNING THROUGH THE ISLANDS ❖

Federal prohibition chief Roy T. Lyle,
with part of a shipment of "salt fish" liquor
seized in a Seattle shed.
Scan from an original photo from the S.P.H.S.©

Rum Running Through the Islands

Recalled by Harry W. Patton

"Joe Patton was not a rumrunner, or a bootlegger. For a loss of exact descriptive words, I would describe him as a 'fringe facilitator.' He never did drive a rum boat in the dark of night, nor load or off load any booze.
      Soon after WW I ended, the use of alcoholic beverages increased markedly. On payday a large number of workers would shoot their paychecks on booze before they even got home. People felt that something should be done. Backed by many church groups, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), a national amendment, the 18th Amendment was finally passed and was put into effect in 1920, prohibiting the distillation, importing or consumption of alcoholic beverages. This was the beginning of what is called the Prohibition period (1920-1933.)
      Many men were extremely put out about this situation and started to find ways around it. Some made gin in bathtubs that got to be known as 'bathtub gin.' Others brewed beer in huge vats in hidden warehouses. But those vats were often found and destroyed by the Feds. Some other source had to be determined.
      Canada was free from our Amendment 18. Many of our entrepreneurs quickly fell upon the idea of importing whiskey from Canada and soon midnight clandestine smugglers arrived with cases of whiskey at the border into the US. The border between the US and Canada is more than 3,000 miles long, most of it unpatrolled. Even so, the Feds, due to tips and payoffs, were able to intercept many of the transfers and much booze was apprehended and destroyed.
      The northwest bootleggers then decided to go to 'Plan B.' Why not bring the whiskey by boat, on black nights, down Rosario Strait and through the San Juans, drop it off on the dark shores, south of Anacortes and points south. The shore was very thinly populated during that period. The Revenuers wouldn't be able to see them in the dark or fog, and radar had not been invented yet.
      Roy Olmstead, according to Norm Blanchard, has been described as the leader, and most instrumental person setting up this seagoing rum running scheme. He recruited a group of nefarious, but opportunistic, willing, experienced boat handlers. Then he located several existing boats and put them into operations from Canada to the US. His movements south were so successful that he realized he needed more boats. And faster boats, as the slow ones were being apprehended.
      Olmstead allegedly approached Joe Patton's good friend, N. J. Blanchard Sr, and placed orders for several new high speed boats. Money wasn't flowing in the boat building business in the mid '20s, and certainly not following the Depression. It was legal for a buyer to purchase a boat, even though the government knew it probably would be used for rum running. Anyone with money could buy a boat even though it might be used later for nefarious purposes. There was no proof of that. The Feds could watch it being built, but could not attach the vessel. They had to let it be driven up to Canada, and then search for the loaded boat when it returned south, in the dark of night at high speed, into the US waters, to deliver the booze. Olmstead paid N. J. in cash; nothing illegal about any of the operation.
      Olmstead was in business. Patton and N. J. could feed their families...
      On a hot summer morning in June, c. 1928, Dad got a phone call from N. J. Dad said to me, 'Blanchard has one of his new boats out in Lake Union for a test run. It's got one of my engines in it. Test about to be finished, I'd like to see how it performs, would you like to come with me over to the east Queen Anne look-out bluff and see the demonstration?'
      I was pretty young at the time, so didn't know too much about boats. This one was painted black, narrow, c. 20-22' high-chine, enormous open runabout, with a covered foredeck. Certainly not good looking, compared to the beautiful, varnished mahogany Gar-Wood high-speed runabout loaned to my dad. But it was going like hell, and fun to watch! Full Bore! I said, 'Dad, it is sure a a funny looking boat. Why doesn't it look like a Gar-Wood?' He said, 'Well, the buyer just wants it to be this way––cheaper.'
      How many runners did N. J. build? We can find no records. Norm Jr relates, and we quote: 'During the mid 1920s Dad built four runners. I'm sure that he made good money on them. I remember the last one was just one enormous open runabout. All those places on the water were just naturals to get involved in bootlegging because you could always find a way to offload the booze at night. Every cabbie in town knew that for the right price, a customer could get a bottle of bootleg whiskey at the Seattle YC. It's funny, but I didn't find out until years later that dad provided bootleg boats all through Prohibition. I remember once that dad took the family in the car out to a new housing development, that had a lot of little colored flags flying everywhere. Dad parked at the sales office and a dapper gentleman came out and greeted him like an old friend. Well, this dapper gentleman was none other than Roy Olmstead, the biggest bootlegger in the whole PNW. Years later I asked my cousin, 'Do you think my father was a bootlegger?' 'Hell, yes,' she said, 'What do you think kept the doors open at the Blanchard Boat Company during the Depression?'

      (H.W.P.): I really don't like to hear N. J. labelled as a bootlegger. It's not an accurate description of him. Bootlegging connotes moving and delivering the booze. N. J. was, as I suggested, a facilitator, like Joe Patton, just building boats, but not operating them. Nothing illegal. I knew him very well.

      DOE BAY TWIN CEDARS RESORT, ORCAS ISLAND

Bill Boyer owned and managed the resort on Orcas Island, from 1920 until 1944. In those days Doe Bay was a quiet, unobtrusive little hamlet, with a County Dock, a Post Office, and small string of floats for visiting boats. The OSAGE, a small steamer, used to depart Bellingham at 6:30 A.M., headed west, stopping to drop mail and supplies at Sinclair, Doe Bay, Olga, Eastsound, Deer Harbor and Friday Harbor. Then in the afternoon, make the trip back. We lived in a log cabin. In the early days, at 8:00 AM, Mother would hand me 25 cents, 15 for milk, and 10 for bread, and send me down the trail to Doe Bay, to await the OSAGE. 

The steamer OSAGE,
Launched on Decatur Island in 1930.

      After many years of hard work and little income Dad finally finished his wooden 38-ft cruiser, BARNACLE. During the depression, N. J. didn't have much boatbuilding work, and this allowed Dad to fabricate the BARNACLE on his ways. He did most of the work himself, but occasionally out-of-work Blanchard employees, and Norm Jr, would help him, no charge, just to keep their talented hands on. The boat was launched in 1932. My mother christened it with a bottle of champagne provided by Roy Olmstead.

      Now, having the BARNACLE, my dad, Joe, every year entered the International Predicted Log Constant Speed cruiser race from Seattle to Nanaimo, BC (1933-1938.) Heading back to Seattle we always stopped and moored to the floats overnight at the Doe Bay Resort, and talk with friend Bill Boyer.

      Also, to check Dad's nearby Vista del Mar Orcas beach front property. My grandfather, Harry W. Patton, (the 'Major') was managing editor of the Bellingham daily paper (1904-1910.) Vista del Mar contained some 36 acres, and 2,000 feet of waterfront. 

Coast of Orcas Island, San Juan Archipelago. 
Photo by James McCormick, an early photographer working 
in San Juan County, and often on Orcas Island.
Low res scan of an original from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

      The jewel in this stark stone beachfront is a wonderful 90-ft long protected beach, composed of small gravel, nestled neatly between two long high bedrock fingers, that point straight out, that restrict visibility and provide privacy. Patton Cove––yes, Patton Cove. About 15-ft up is a natural spring fresh water outlet. 

      Dad took me with him from the boat, tied to the float, up to talk several times, several years (1933-1936) with Bill Boyer. He gave me a nickel for Crackerjacks. 

      Bill: 'Joe, we're talking 1920 to 1932, I can't recall, year by year, but prolly starting in the area of 1922, cause they had to get in business really soon. Rumor had it that the runners had started to sped south from BC on dark nights. Some black nights I could hear the high speed boats, prolly runners, and occasionally the Revenuers, way out in the Strait, and sometimes 'tween the Middle Pod and the south Pod, really charging, with no lights on. Couldn't see 'em. Occasional gun fire!'

      Bellingham papers continually reported runner hide-out stop points en route had been hard to find, and the Feds were becoming frustrated. Suddenly, the Revvies reported that they found the runners had occasionally, while en route south, been found hidden in narrow inlets on Patos Island, Active Cove on the west, and Toe Inlet, a perfect hideout, on the east. Several shootouts and confiscations had occurred.

      'Forced out, the runners then decided to hide in inlets on Sucia Island. Echo Bay was too large and hard to escape from, but Fossil Bay was more narrow, secluded. Also, an inlet on Matia. The Revenuers closed in and they got caught. No use, Clark and Barnes, have no inlets and also too close to Matia. So, what next safe haven could they find? 

      Bill continues: 'How about down the east coast of Orcas?

      One sunny day a friendly boat crew came up to my store from the floats, with a jug of Canadian whiskey, very friendly, and waited to talk. One look at the boat and I know what it was designed for. We both knew what was going on, and talked without beating around the bush. We could talk freely as Doe Bay is way out in the boonies, and no one to bother us.

      

Rum runner Roy Olmstead and wife Elsie.
He was brought down with wiretapping of his 
home phone & phones of his conspirators,
in 1924. He fought the charges all the way to
the US Supreme Court, but lost. He did earn 
a pardon from President Roosevelt.
He is seen here being released from prison in 1931.
Scan of an original from the archives of S.P.H.S.©

      The driver said he was working for Roy. We all knew who Roy was, as his name had been in the papers as a suspect. We all knew what the program was; getting booze from Canada down into the U.S. He pointed out that many runners had been caught and cargoes confiscated, and that wasn't making Roy any money, not satisfying the distributors down in Seattle. And, especially, the thirsty customers. He had to come up with a new, workable plan of operations. Soon.

      He sounded me out for a long time, asking me many questions. He had to be very careful. Finally, he figured he could trust me. He had a plan and hoped I would help him with it.

      He said they had located a small cove about a mile north of here. I told him that was the Joe Patton property. That Major Patton used to bring his wife, and children over for a coupla weeks in the summer time, but it has been abandoned since 1914, so you could all go down to the University. The War came and no one has been back since.

      He said his crews had started using it as a stop point and hiding place. To keep from losing booze from each apprehended boat, and cut their losses, the boss would send a big 22-footer, fully loaded, quickly to your cove, unload everything and stash it in the thick underbrush and Devil's Club, then race back north. If apprehended, the revenuers would find an empty boat and have to release them.

      On the next dark night a single runner would go to your cove, load half of the cases, and race south to the offload point. On the next dark night a second boat would pick up the remaining cases and head south. Being lighter, each boat could move faster. 

      He asked if I thought you would blow the whistle on him, and I said no, you never come up here, and wouldn't know anything about the operation anyway. We don't write letters, only Christmas cards.

      He said if I heard any rumors about his operation would I go to the cove and leave a note hidden under a big rock, next to the spring? He would make it worth my while, and he certainly did!

      About a month later a big black limousine pulled up in front of my store. Two men in black suits got out and said they were federal agents, and did I know where the Patton place was. I said I wasn't sure as I had just arrived and purchased the store in 1920, two years ago, and have never seen any Pattons. But I had heard, I think, from some of the locals, that it was back in the direction they had come from, way back toward Olga. They jumped in their car and quickly drove off––toward Olga [on Orcas Island]...

      It was almost dark. I jumped in my leaky 16-ft boat, started the old five-HP outboard, and headed north, trying to stay out of the kelp. Coming very quickly into the cove, I saw a runner boat pulled up on the beach. Surprised, two men stood up and grabbed their rifles. The driver recognized me and said, 'It's OK, that's Boyer!'

      Bill continues, I told them about the Feds in the big black car, and suggested they get the hell out! They were pretty scared! The two quickly grabbed the hidden cases of hootch, scratching their hands badly on the Devil's Club, and loaded them into the speedboat. They handed me two bottles of Canadian whiskey, said thanks, started the engine and raced out into the darkening evening, full speed!I never saw them again."

      As far as I know, Boyer never knew that Dad's friend, N. J. had built those rum running boats, and that Dad had provided the engines. And, of course, at that time, neither did I. Everything was on the Q.T." 
Kindly submitted to the Saltwater People Log by Harry W. Patton, Orcas Island, WA.
The Blanchard Boat Co is mentioned throughout this Log. Here is a chapter from Knee Deep in Shavings written by Norman C. Blanchard, the son of the founder of the yard, "Cruising in the San Juan Islands with a Shell Motor Oil Road Map." 

     

      

      

      

      

      

❖ Expedition to the Wreck of the PORTLAND ❖ Almost 100 years later.

S.S. PORTLAND (ex-HAYTIAN REPUBLIC)

Wreck site near Katalla, AK.

Remains in the mud S. S. PORTLAND

S.S. PORTLAND

Wreck of the S.S. Portland Found.

Text by Dave McMahan, State Archaeologist.

(This is a followup to the smuggling days of the PORTLAND posted here on 4 March 2016.
Text and images for this post below submitted by Michael Burwell, 5 March 2016.)

The S.S. PORTLAND is best known as one of the “Ton of Gold” ships that helped launch the Klondike gold rush in 1897. Earlier, as the HAYTIAN REPUBLIC, the trading ship was caught smuggling on more than one occasion in the West Indies and along the Pacific Northwest Coast. After 1897, the increased traffic kept the ship serving Alaska ports. On November 12, 1910, the ship hit a rock and grounded near Katalla. All passengers and crew survived.

      Last November, Gabriel Scott, a Cordova resident, reported shipwreck remains near Katalla to Mike Burwell, U.S. Minerals Management Service, who maintains a statewide shipwreck database. Because the remains are on state tidelands, Burwell contacted the Office of History and Archaeology. Dave McMahan, State Archaeologist, organized a field trip to the site that took place May 18-20. McMahan, Burwell and Scott, were accompanied by Karl Gurcke (NPS Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park archaeologist), John Jensen (marine historian/consulting nautical archaeologist), and a five-person PBS crew. The U.S. Forest Service manages the uplands adjacent to the site, and Linda Yarborough, Forest Service archaeologist, worked with the project team. Preliminary observations on cylinder size and vessel constructions, corroborated by archival records, suggest the wreck is the S.S. PORTLAND. Readers should check for the History Detectives TV segment, scheduled to air late this summer, for the verdict.

GLORIOUS WRECK REARS HER HEAD

by Joel Gay

Published by Anchorage Daily News, 8 September 2004

The well-preserved remains of a steamship that once smuggled guns, drugs and illegal workers -- but which is best known for launching the Klondike Gold Rush -- have been identified near Cordova, sticking out of the mud.
      The S.S. PORTLAND, whose historic cargo of Yukon miners and their gold earned international headlines in 1897, had been largely forgotten after it sank 13 years later. But a fortuitous combination of tectonics and television have brought the PORTLAND back into the limelight.
     That's only right, said shipwreck specialist Mike Burwell of the U.S. Mineral Management Service.

      "For Alaska, it's probably the most significant wreck you could find," Burwell said.
      The most recent chapter in the long, colorful history of the Portland began two years ago in Katalla Bay, about 50 miles southeast of Cordova, when the wreckage was spotted at low tide. It wasn't always visible, locals say, but the Good Friday earthquake of 1964 lifted the ground 12 feet, and erosion has exposed its upper half.
      Not everyone thought it was the Portland, Burwell said, but he was convinced. So after the producers of the public television show "History Detectives" heard the story, they decided to fund an expedition last May to clarify the ship's identity. The show repeats tonight at 10 p.m. on KAKM.
      But the real story of the Portland began in 1885, when the wooden-hulled 191-footer was launched in Bath, Maine, and pressed into service hauling goods in the West Indies trade. It was named the Haytian Republic, reflecting the popular spelling of its namesake country at the time, Hayti. 
      It didn't take long for the ship to get into trouble, according to a 1955 article in the Alaska Sportsman. In 1888, the government seized the vessel and charged its captain with smuggling arms to the Hippolyte rebels. The crew was sent home after one died from yellow fever. Strong winds blew the ship onto the rocks, and a Haitian ship rammed it.
      U.S. gunboats eventually escorted the ship to Cuba for repairs. While the HAYTIAN REPUBLIC never returned to Haiti, it kept the name after its owners sent it around Cape Horn to supply Alaska canneries and whaling bases.
      That work never panned out, but by 1892 the ship was making money -- suspiciously, according to historians. Customs agents suspected it of hauling contraband. Then the uninsured Haytian Republic burned and sank near Portland, allegedly with illegal opium on board.
      The ship was raised and repaired and later caught several times smuggling Chinese laborers and opium into Canada. U.S. Marshals ordered the ship sold. The new owners overhauled the vessel and renamed it. On its first voyage as the S.S. Portland, in 1894, it nearly sank in a great storm that claimed at least two other ships.
      The Portland was among about two dozen Alaska coastal steamers hauling freight and passengers when gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1896. When the first successful miners floated down the Yukon River to St. Michael, the Portland was there.
      So was the steamer Excelsior, and it reached the Lower 48 first, landing in San Francisco on July 15, 1897. But news of the Excelsior miners' fortunes -- men carrying $100,000 or more in gold nuggets and dust -- only primed the nation for Portland's arrival in Seattle two days later.

      Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporters on a chartered boat met the Portland miles out of town and, after interviewing miners, sped back to shore. The newspaper's special edition was on the streets when the ship docked, with the headline "Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!"
      Five thousand people greeted the ship. The rush was on. It enjoyed more than 15 minutes of fame, according to Burwell.
      "Especially when the Gold Rush was on, everybody wanted to be on that boat," he said.
      It hauled miners and their gear to Skagway and St. Michael, the two routes into the Klondike, near present-day Dawson City, and then to the next gold strike in Nome. But fame passed, Burwell said, and before long the Portland was just another Alaska coastal freighter.
      On Nov. 12, 1910, it was heading from Juneau to Prince William Sound when it pulled into Katalla Bay, bringing groceries and freight to Alaska's first oil field. After striking an uncharted rock that smashed a hole in the hull, the captain drove the ship onto a sand bar, where it lies today.
      The owners stripped what they could, then abandoned the Portland to the silt and mud flowing out of the Katalla River.
      Gabriel Scott of Cordova noticed the old steam engine when he visited the area in 2002 as part of his work with Cascadia Wildlands Project.

     "It's really cool looking," he said of the big ship sticking out of the mud.
      He sent photographs to Burwell, who contacted Alaska state archaeologist Dave McMahan. They thought it was the PORTLAND but the existence of two other shipwrecks in the region made them uncertain. Then a producer from "History Detectives" called to ask about a shipwrecked schooner in Southwest Alaska. McMahan didn't know anything about that one, but he mentioned the PORTLAND.
      That changed everything, he said.
      "Because the state doesn't have a lot of resources for field investigations, and really no expertise in nautical archaeology, we convinced the producers" to bankroll a trip to the site with Rhode Island expert John Jensen.
      During the extreme low tides in May, the party of 10 spent two carefully choreographed days, McMahan said.
      "We just waited for the right tide and waded out," taking measurements, inspecting the engines and other mechanical gear and taking samples from the wooden hull. "We only had a couple of hours each day," he said.
      Jensen, who grew up in Alaska and now is a freelance archaeologist, said he was thrilled to determine the vessel was the Portland.
      "It was an awe-inspiring site," he said. "When I looked at it, rather than seeing it all broken up, I saw a largely intact ship. A lot of it is buried, and it was surprising to see how well preserved it was."
      He would like to see the ship placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Little could be removed to museums, he said, but the Portland should be documented for its place in Alaska's cultural history.
      "Yeah, the gold story is great. But what it does is illuminate the role of coastal trade in the development of Alaska's economy and culture in the 20th century," Jensen said. "It's how they moved and how they communicated. Sea lanes were (coastal) Alaska's social network."
      In the meantime, the state isn't planning to remove or protect any of the PORTLAND, McMahan said.
      The goods on board when it sank nearly 90 years ago are long gone, and the gold it once carried is a memory.
      Daily News reporter Joel Gay can be reached at jgay@adn.com or at 257-4310. The U.S. Mineral Management Service Website: www.mms.gov/alaska/ref/ships/index.htm

PORTLAND CHRONOLOGY

1885 Haytian Republic launched at Bath, Maine at the yards of the New England Shipbuilding Company for owners Hayti Mail Steamship Company of Boston who hoped to establish a general freight and passenger service to the island republic. (Leighthead 1955, 14; PT Weekly Message 8/5/97, 3; NYT 10/30/88, 4)

"She was a two-deck wooden vessel, 191.5 feet long, 36.1 feet wide, with 20.2 feet depth of hold. A compound reciprocating engine with cylinders twenty-two and forty-four inches in diameter and a stroke of thirty-six inches drove a single propeller." (Leighthead 1955, 14)

1888 Oct. 27, "Captured by Haytian man-of-war Dessalines 'while attempting to force the blockade of the insurgent port of St. Marc, with rebel troops, arms, and ammunition on board. The vessel has been taken to Port Au Prince and her case referred to the Prize Court. The prisoners of war and the crew are well treated by the authorization of Port Au Prince.'" (NYT 10/28/88, 6)

Oct. 30, "Department of State [decides] to send a naval vessel to that country for the protection of American Interests...It was at first decided to send the Boston now cruising in the West Indies, to Port Au Prince; but this plan was abandoned owing to the difficulty of communicating with the vessel. It was finally decided to send the Kearsarge, now undergoing repairs at Norfolk..." (NYT 10/31/88, 3)

Oct. 31, "The Prize Court of Port-au-Prince, after trial, has condemned the American steamer Haytian Republic to confiscation for violating the blockade of the port of St. Marc..." (NYT 11/19/88, 5)

1889 Feb 11, "The steamer Haytian Republic arrived here [Boston] this evening [Mon.], but remained at the light some miles below the city." (NYT 2/11/89, 1)

Repairs made to vessel but remained idle and without a route for several months (Leighthead 1987, 85)

Kodiak Packing Company heard about the idle vessel and bought it as a supply vessel for its facilities in Alaska. Brought around the Horn but proved too large and expensive to operate as a supply ship. (Leighthead 1987, 85

Fall, sold to Getz Brothers and Company of San Francisco; they placed her on the Puget Sound to San Francisco passenger route but was not successful competing with the Pacific Coast Steamship Company on the route..." (Leighthead 1987, 85; PT Weekly Message 8/5/97, 3)

Laid up in San Francisco for almost 2 years. (Leighthead 1987, 85-86)

1890 Laid up

1891 Laid up

1891, May: Occasionally, the vessel got a reprieve from its normal work. When President Benjamin Harrison steamed into Seattle from Tacoma aboard the City of Seattle in

1891, May: the Politkofsky was part of the welcoming fleet off Alki Point along with other popular steamers of the day: the City of Kingston, the Bailey Gatzert, the T. J. Potter, the Greyhound, and the Haytian Republic (later the Portland). Jim Faber, Steamer's Wake (Seattle: Enetai Press, 1985), 120.

1892, June: Chartered (with an option to buy) by the Merchants Steamship Company of Portland to operate as a passenger and freight vessel with the steel steamer Wilmington between Portland and Vancouver. Secured by Blum, Dunbar Co. and engaged in smuggling between Portland and British Columbia. (Leighthead 1987, 86; PT Weekly Message 8/5/97, 3)

1893: Financial Panic of 1893

Jan., Wilmington catches fire and sinks near Portland. It was a total loss. Found to have had opium aboard. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

Merchants Steamship Company forced to relinquish the Haytian Republic to the mortgagor, Northwest Loan, and Trust of Portland, but Merchants allowed to act as operating agent. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

U.S. Customs catches Haytian Republic smuggling Chinese "coolies" from BC into the U.S. Released on bond. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

Caught repeatedly for smuggling until finally brought to trial. Tied up in Portland during the litigation. Trial convicted syndicate heads Nat Blum and William Dunbar of smuggling opium and Chinese across the Canadian border. Vessel ordered sold by the U.S. Marshall (Leighthead 1987, 86)

1894: Bought by Sutton and Beebe of Portland for $16,000. They installed a new boiler, built additional cabins, and overhauled the entire ship. To distance the vessel from its unsavory past, they renamed her the Portland. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

Refurbished vessel sold to a group of San Francisco Businessmen who sent her to Nanaimo for coal. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

Dec. 7: Caught in the great storm of Dec. 7th. After leaving Nanaimo with a load of coal for San Francisco she ran head-on into the storm in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Capt. E.W. Holmes ordered the ship to put about and race for shelter. Portland nearly capsized before she reached Victoria. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

1895: On Central American run by charter to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

1896: On Central American run by charter to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

1897: Chartered by the North American Trading and Transportation Company of Seattle to make three voyages to Alaska hauling gold seekers. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

June 10, Leaves Seattle for St. Michael with the first group of gold seekers. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

June 27, Arrives at St. Michael. Excelsior has beat her by 4 hours. (Leighthead 1987, 86)

July 17, Returns to Seattle from St. Michael with the first wave of successful miners from Dawson and the "Ton of Gold." (Leighthead 1987, 87-88)

Portland becomes the GOLD SHIP. Passage on her is in great demand and she is booked solid for several years (Leighthead 1987, 89)

1902,  June: Trapped in the ice off St. Michael. Drifted in the ice for two months. Unable to free herself, she was taken through the Bering Strait and beyond until she was opposite Point Hope--600 miles from St. Michael. (Leighthead 1987, 89)

1903:  Trapped again in the ice but battered her way out. Damaged hull in the process. Dry-docked in Seattle for repairs. (Leighthead 1987, 89)

1905, 20 Dec: Ran hard aground on Spire Island, 9 miles north of Ketchikan. Wreckers floated her off 17 days later. Received $25,000 worth of repairs to her keel and planking in Seattle. (Leighthead 1987, 89)

1906 Bought by the Alaska Coast Company of Portland. Placed on the Southeastern Alaska run. (Leighthead 1987, 90)

1907:   Grounded near Nanaimo. Only minor damage. (Leighthead 1987, 90)

1910, Nov. 12: Struck an uncharted reef near Katalla. Water poured through a large hole in her hull and she began to settle. In an attempt to save her Captain Franz Moore ran her full speed onto the beach. She settled to the bottom in shallow water. The passengers and mail were taken ashore. Moore exonerated but the Portland was a total loss. Wreckers removed all items of value and the vessel was left to break up and disappear in the sand. The insurance company paid $41,500 to owners. (NYT 11/13/10, 1; Leighthead 1987, 90)

"She was destined to be in trouble for nearly all twenty-five years" of her life. (Leighthead 1987, 89)

1912: "In Seattle's Potlatch Festival of 1912, the re-enactment of the arrival of "The Gold Ship" had to be performed by the Bertha, a much less colorful steamer. It's too bad the Portland couldn't have been there.
Jim Faber, Steamer's Wake (Seattle: Enetai Press, 1985), 120.

❖ SMUGGLING BY STEAMER–– a Journalistic Scoop for Tacoma––Part I

Waiting for the gold ship PORTLAND to arrive in Seattle.
1897 photograph by O. T. Frasch (1882-1958)
Original from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

S.S. PORTLAND
(ex-HAYTIAN REPUBLIC)
Seattle, WA.
Inscribed as Neg. 1967-1 from the Williamson Collection, Seattle.
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

"When the steamer PORTLAND entered Puget Sound on 17 July 1897, she carried a fabulous cargo that was to bring fame to herself and prosperity to the Pacific Northwest. Her  cargo, of course, was the legendary 'ton of gold' that sparked the Klondyke stampede, the Alaska gold rush. To this day the PORTLAND has maintained her place in western shipping annals as the Alaskan treasure ship.
      Not so well known is the old ship's even earlier history; a history of smuggling, graft, and corruption that rocked the nation. Under another name, the famous PORTLAND carried on one of the greatest smuggling operations ever engineered, operating for a ring that included government customs officers, political and financial leaders and even a special agent of the US Secret Service. So powerful was the gang of smugglers that its members seemed beyond the reach of the law––until a reporter from The Tacoma Ledger stepped into the picture. His one-man crusade smashed the mighty criminal syndicate in a ruin of prison sentences and lost fortunes.
      The PORTLAND was built at Bath, ME, in 1885, serving as an Atlantic coastal liner for several years under the name HAYTIAN REPUBLIC. She retained that name when, in the early 1890s, she was transferred to the west coast, operating between San Fran, Portland, and Tacoma for a firm known as Merchants Steamship Co. The firms legitimate shipping activities were largely a front for the smuggling of opium and alien Chinese from Canada into the US. 
      Money in Chinese (click on "read more" for continuing story and a report from the wreck site.)

❖ SMUGGLERS WRECKED ON LOPEZ ISLAND, SJC. ❖

Lopez Island,
with wreck location at Davis Bay.
Click to enlarge.
By Quantity Photo Co.
Archives of S.P.H.S.

Thursday, 5 November 1903. 
"The Seattle papers published such garbled reports of the capture of fourteen Chinese on Lopez Island last week and the arrest of the two white men who smuggled them over from Victoria, that the Islander gives rather more space to the circumstances than would otherwise have been deemed necessary. Following are the facts:
      About midnight Tuesday the two smugglers, Harry Thomas, alias Summers, and Fred Anderson, left Victoria in a sloop about 28' long, with 14 Chinese laborers, destined for Seattle. They made good time across Haro Strait and were skirting the shore of Lopez Island in search of a safe and secluded anchorage for the day when a high wind sprung up quite suddenly, rendering the navigation of the heavily loaded sloop difficult and dangerous. The jib was soon carried away and the little craft was run into Davis Bay, near Richardson, and anchored. But it was very rough, even there, the wind being in the southwest, and the anchor line having parted, the sloop was driven upon the rocks and was soon a total wreck. Thomas jumped into the water and carried a line ashore; O.J. and E.J. Bruns, tenants of the Davis farm, having come to their assistance, the terrified Mongolians were landed and soon 'took to the woods.' The two smugglers, after offering Bruns brothers $100 to look after the Chinamen until they could go to Seattle and get another boat, walked to Lopez, about six miles, to take the steamer BUCKEYE for Anacortes. Bruns brothers, promptly notified Henry Towell, Justice of the Peace of the precinct, and Mr. Towell hurried to Lopez and engaged Weeks brothers to take him in their launch to Friday Harbor where he notified Deputy Customs Collector Culver. 

Steamer BUCKEYE
On smuggler duty for Sheriff McCrary.
San Juan County, WA.

The steamer BUCKEYE was then coming into the harbor, and Mr. Culver, accompanied by Towell and Sheriff McCrary, at once started after the smugglers who were expected to board the BUCKEYE at Port Stanley. They got aboard at Lopez, however, and were quickly arrested by Mr. Culver, handcuffed together and left in charge of Mr. Towell at Butler's store while the officers were taken by Ben Lichtenberg in search of the Chinese, whom the Bruns brothers had succeeded in 'rounding up' shortly before dark, on the Port Stanley road, taking them back to the Davis place, where the officers found them. From there they were taken in a wagon to Lopez, where they were lodged over Butler's store and guarded all night by the officers, the smugglers on one side of them and the Chinese on the other, the two white men having begged that they not be left in the same room with the Chinese from whom they seemed to fear violence. The nearest Chinese detention station being at Pt. Townsend, all were taken there on the steamer LYDIA THOMPSON Thursday, Bruns brothers also going, in the expectation that the preliminary hearings of the men would be held before the U.S. Court Commissioner there. Mr. Culver's responsibility in the matter ceased with the turning over of the party to Col. Fisher, inspector in charge of the Immigration Service.
      For the reason that Thomas (Summers) and Anderson had been arrested a few months ago in Seattle for the same offense, by Customs Officers Delaney and Brisker, and had been 'bound over' by Commissioner Keifer, Col. Fisher decided to take them there, after having had a very aggravating experience with Commissioner Kuhn in Port Townsend
The defense (?) of the prisoners is that they were en route with the Chinese from Victoria to Salt Spring Island, B.C. to cut wood, and were driven into the US by 'stress of weather.' Bruns brothers and Mr. Towell merit much commendation for their expeditious work and the good judgment they exercised. But for their prompt action Thomas and Anderson would have escaped."
21 January 1904: 
"Harry Thomas, alias Summers, and Fred Anderson, the two smugglers of Chinese arrested at Lopez on 28 October 1903, were convicted in the US Court in Seattle last week and each sentenced to imprisonment of one year in the federal penitentiary on McNeil's Island and also to pay a fine of $1,000."
Both articles from the pages of the San Juan Islander newspaper, Friday Harbor, WA. 
From the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society.

❖ McCONNELL ISLAND ❖

McConnell Island, San Juan Archipelago, on left.

Original photo from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

"This was the home of a family with the dubious distinction of being smugglers.
      Commander Wilkes had named the charming segment of land Brown Island in honor of 14 members of his crew with that surname. When the McConnell family took possession by squatting there in the 1880s their fame adhered to the place where they lived and it has been McConnell Island from then on.
      'You'll have to lock things up or McConnell will come,' was the saying around West Sound. McConnell had a reputation for helping himself to anything he needed, whether it was sack loads of fruit  from orchards or possessions left carelessly about.
      There were two sons and a daughter in the family. It is difficult to separate the legends and apply them to individuals, for some lived respectably.
      Kirk McLachlan remembered taking his horse to the island to help with some clearing. He entered the McConnell's boat house and saw it piled with boots and shoes. Next time he was there it was empty.
      Smuggling was done in both directions across the Canadian border, beginning about 1893. On a return trip the boats were reported to carry opium and whiskey, sugar, and wool.
      McLachlan recalled that one of the sons bought apples in the San Juans and sold them in British Columbia as produce of the Gulf Islands.
     'We had to be careful to keep our names off the boxes he bought on this account,' McLachlan said.
      More than once men of the family fell into the clutches of the law and served time. 'Old Man' McConnell apparently drowned near Oak Bay on Vancouver Island, the only trace left being his wrecked boat.
      McConnell Island in later years was acquired by Professor Thomas Thompson of the U of Washington's oceanography department."
Lucile McDonald. The Story of the San Juans.
1900, February.
Deputy Collector Culver and Lieut. Ballinger sized a sloop at West Sound, Sunday night, belonging to Victor McConnell, and with which he has long been violating both the US and Canadian custom laws. The sloop was beached at the mouth of a little creek when seized and as it could not then be floated one of the men from the launch was left in charge of it and the officers returned for it from Friday Harbor about daylight Monday morning. The sloop was taken over to Port Townsend by the revenue launch, Monday, Mr. McConnell being taken over at the same time to make his explanations, if he has any, to the collector."
The San Juan Islander newspaper. 


––An earlier post by local mariner Skip Bold, writing about the next inhabitants of McConnell Island, can be viewed here.
––Jack Thompson, son of Professor Thomas Thompson, wrote about the steamboat he and his brother Tommy operated from their summer home on McConnell Island. Click here.