Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1897-09-20
RY THOMAS sAMMoNs.
Tacoma, WASH, Aug. 31st, 1897


fellows afloat. ! have not been home i'll
fifteen days until last night. Then
happened to drop in here because the
sea was so rough could not tow some
boom sticks. let them go on the San
Juan islands aud dropped over here hop
ing to be Will. my wife and babies for a
few hours ran up the steps and met
my wife at the door. [ said it WAS an ill
wind that blew nobody good, and she
said. addressing Il woman had not seen
before, Mrs. -, MY husband | nearly
dropped dead. Mrs. Beecher could not
entertain both OF us, SO had to drop
back aboard leaving Mrs. - usurping
all my wife's attention"
just as We rounded Point Wilson and
Strengthened out for down the strait,
Beecher asked me i'll could see the eight"
on Doungeness spit. Dungeness is a
little village on the shores OF the strait
OF Fuca, on the American side. A spit,
consisting OF a narrow piece OF sand bank,
makes out into the sea four miles in a
selnicircle and shelters the little haven.
The eight" referred to Was the govern
ment lighthouse on this spit. 1t was
fourteen miles distant and could not
see it ''by about five miles, - as it after
ward turned out. He could see it and
then he made the only reference to his re-
.lrowned father that herd drop from his
lips during the sixteen hours was with
him.
Gather had remarkable sight in one
eye" said Captain Beecher. He could
stand at our house in Brooklyn and, by
closing one eye, could read the time on
Trinity tower in New York"
Henry Ward Beecher was a great lover
OF precious stones, and when he had
gathered, at Agate Beach, below Port
Crescent, ninety agates at one time for
his wife, tried to draw him into a con-
versation regarding the great preacher.
He did, not rise to fly, and | could not,
being his guest aboard, insist.
At Port Angles, after visiting Port
Crescent. left Captain Beecher, and at
some other time may unfold an intrest-
ing tale about my experience with him
and his gentlemanly crew. His tug. like
all other, bobbed about, when the sea
was rough, like mathc on mill pond
when the wind blows up strong. fell
d victim to se;l-sickness, of course, and
Beecher gently put me to bedl
At Port Angeles bargained with an
other tugmaster, Captain Bucklin, to go
out to FIattery early in the morning.
During the night, however, the govern
ment weather obse ryer at Tatoosa is
land, at the mouth OF the straights re-.
ported the steamer Portland, from st
Michaels, Alaska, entering. To be more
accurate, this man Hobbs, his name is
Hobbs, did not mlslead several million
people next morning. He did not say
the steamer Was the Portland. He SIM
ply made bad guess!
1t proved to be the collier Willamette,
returning from Skaguay and Dyea: after
having taken up $50 would be Klondik :
ers and large amount offreight for Daw-
son City. She is in the coal carrying trade
between Tacoma and San Francisco, and
made special trip to Skaguay and Dyea
because there was big money in the
venture. The captain decided to come
down the outside passage from the
north, that is, he came out into the Pa
cific Ocean at Sitka, and avoided the iii
side" run among the small islands, which
is the usual course for steamers going to
juneau, Dyea and Skaguay. No steamer
but the Portland was expected at that
time, and as the Willamette came down
from the north and cut in around Van
couver island, the faithful Hobbs-faith-
full to his friends-gave it out, as his judi
gment, that it was the long-looked for
Portland.
Inside of the hour after Hobb gave the
word at Tatoosh island, the stepping off
point of the United States, the news and
telegraph editors OF thecountry had been
deceived into believing the treasuresteam-
er from the klondike was coming into
Puget Sound. One news thering syndi-
cate wired that the Portland was enter
ing the Sound with miners and gold
aboard! The Syndicate wanted the
newspaper office decks cleared for it's
"stuff'' for which it receives $40 a col.
| umn i'm most instances.
AS this is the first insidenews yet given
regarding Hobbs and how he started the
| world with his 'bad guess" a Jew par.
ticulars may be permissible. Hobbs
was simply trying to be polite in keeping