J
ust before 9 pm on 10 January 1889, a 30-foot British sloop, Emerald, passed Protection Island and was making its approach to Discovery Bay in Washington Territory. Although Ben Lundy, the sloop’s owner and captain, had enjoyed an easy beam reach as he crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca sailing on a southwesterly course from Victoria, British Columbia, as he approached the Washington shoreline, the wind began to back from SE to SW. He had to sheet in the sails and keep his vessel close-hauled to make headway in the light southwest breeze. A steady drizzle and 41o temperatures made for a cold, wet, miserable 35-mile passage. As Emerald approached the headlands at the entrance to the inlet, Lundy could start to relax in the knowledge that he had once again outwitted the Oliver J.Wolcott, the local Revenue-Marine cutter based out of Port Townsend, one bay over. Once past Clallam Bay Spit, at the western edge of the north-facing, mile-and-a-half-wide entrance to Discovery Bay, it would be a straight shot of only a few miles before reaching the remote logging settlement towards the southern end of the bay. There
courtesy anacortes museum
by Daniel A. Laliberte
The Emerald would have been nearly identical to this 38-foot sloop, Katy Thomas, owned by well-known smuggler Larry Kelly, and used during the same time period and region. he would land his smuggled cargo of Chinese migrants and opium and collect his fee of $20 per person and $5 per pound of opium. Lundy’s $2,240 proceeds for this one trip would nearly equal the $2,500
VancouVer Island Victoria
Strait of Juan de Fuca Protection Is. adapted from esri base map
Clallam Bay Spit
Discovery Bay
olympIc penInsula 42
Port Townsend
annual salary of the commanding officer of the revenue cutter that was on the hunt for the Emerald. The lure of huge profits that could be made by smuggling humans and opium from Canada into the United States had become irresistible to many mariners since the early-1880s. Before that time, opium and Chinese nationals were typically brought into the country aboard large commercial steamships returning to San Francisco from Hong Kong. The drug was then entirely legal in the United States, and a low one-dollar-per-pound tariff on its importation provided little incentive for smuggling. Chinese immigrants were welcomed as a source of cheap labor, especially during the period of construction of the intercontinental railroad, which was completed in 1869. This dynamic—stable for several decades—began to tilt radically out of kilter starting in 1882. Around that time, a surplus in laborers led to a backlash against the Chinese immigrants. American workers blamed them for stealing jobs and depressing wages. Additionally, the practice of smoking SEA HISTORY 178, SPRING 2022