Aberdeen 1899: The embattled Benicia

Nothing New — By Roy Vataja

In November 1899, the newly-christened bark Benicia was making her first port call in Aberdeen to load lumber bound for Australia. As it was setting to sail, a kerfuffle occurred between union and non-union sailors. Here is that story as told by the Aberdeen Herald, and a response from John Gronow, who preceded the infamous Billy Gohl as the Aberdeen agent for the Sailor’s Union of the Pacific.

BATTLE OF THE WISHKAH — A Hot Time on the Barkentine Benicia Sunday Morning – The ill feeling existing for some time between the union and non-union sailors coming to the port of Aberdeen culminated in a shooting scrape on board the barkentine Benicia about one o’clock Sunday morning. The Benicia, loaded and ready to sail, was manned by a non-union crew, that is they did not belong to the union, but were receiving the union scale of wages. Since the shipping of the non-union crew on the Benicia, the union sailors in port have appeared to have a hard feeling toward them, and on Friday night one of the crew of the Benicia was waylaid on his way to the vessel by two men, whom he said were union men, and quite severely beaten.

In view of this trouble, and being ready to sail on the early morning tide, Capt. Bowes of the Benicia feared that drastic measures might be resorted to that night to prevent him from sailing with his non-union crew, and requested Marshal Graham to give him a deputy marshal to guard the ship that night. The marshal deputized Chas. Y. Fenwick who went on board in the evening. Everything passed off quietly until shortly after midnight, when the captain called Fenwick down into the cabin to have a lunch that had been prepared for him by the steward.

After eating lunch Fenwick and the captain, who was only partially dressed, heard a noise on deck and ran for the companionway, Fenwick being ahead. As he started up the steps Fenwick was dazed by the flash and report of a discharging pistol almost in his face, and hear the command to go back delivered with an oath. Feeling a sharp sting in the eye as the pistol was discharged, he thought his eye was shot out. Later a piece of lead was extracted from the eye and it was found to be a spat from the bullet as it hit an iron rod near him. As they were standing in the lighted cabin, making excellent targets for the shooter at the head of the stairs, the captain stepped back and put out the light, and taking his pistol from Fenwick, fired a shot up the companionway and both men rushed up onto the deck, where Fenwick had left the captain’s shotgun when he had gone below for lunch. As they came up to the deck two shots were fired at them, passing over their heads.

Reaching the deck they found it swarming with men, as well as was the wharf, which, at that stage of tide, was about on a level with the deck. They also found that, while they had been held at bay below, the marauders had rushed into the forecastle and forced the crew out at the point of pistols, and there they were on deck partially clothed and with what few of their effects they could grab as they ran. The captain shouted to them to go back below, that he would settle with the mob — which they did. Then the mob began to scatter from the ship, and commenced shooting from the dock. Fenwick and the captain secured the shotgun and returned the fire, using the gun alternately. One man was seen to fall as if shot, and his comrades picked him up and scattered, and the battle of the Wishkah was over.

The wounded man was taken to the Sailor’s Union headquarters on F Street, where he was discovered to be Charles Larsen, one of the crew of the schooner A.J. West, which lay alongside the Benicia. Medical aid was summoned, and it was found that he had two gunshot wounds in the abdomen. The injured man was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where one buckshot was removed and where he now lies with a possible prospect of recovery.

The Benicia sailed Sunday morning with the original crew, but has not yet gone to sea, she being detained in the lower harbor by the storm.

John Gronow, the Aberdeen agent of the Coast Seamen’s Union, who was called from his home to the bedside of the wounded man at 1:30 a.m., disclaims all knowledge of the affair, on behalf of the union, and is inclined to regard it as a personal quarrel between the crews of the barkentine Benicia and the schooner A.J. West. This is hardly supported by the heavy gun fight made upon the captain and the deputy marshal, who happened to be the agent of the Ship-owners Association at this port, and the attempt to forcibly drive the crew from the vessel just as she was ready to sail.

As a rule, the sympathy of the people of Aberdeen is with organized labor in the endeavor to secure for labor an equitable share of the wealth it produces, but when any body of men, organized or unorganized, ignorant or educated, drunk or sober, undertakes in the city of Aberdeen to deprive a free American citizen the right guaranteed him by the fundamental laws of the land — to labor when and where he pleases, or to make him labor where he does not please — that sympathy goes out to the side sought to be coerced. And the Herald believes that if it is going to be a matter of gun plays the citizens of Aberdeen – rather the city disgraced by the reputation that it permitted the laborer to be cowed within its gate – will take such a hand in that game as will put an everlasting quietus on it. — Aberdeen Herald, November 30, 1899

A week later, under the title “Quibbles”, Sailor’s Union Agent John Gronow responded to the article thusly:

Editor Aberdeen Herald:

Of yellow journalism, particularly since the breaking out of the Spanish, Philippine and Transvaal war, because of its sensationalism, if not always accurate reports, has come into prominence.

Aberdeen, it is true, cannot boast of a yellow journal, but it can boast of at least one writer who, to judge him by the article, “Battle of the Wishkah,” which appeared in your paper last week, aspires to be as sensational as any writer for a yellow journal ever attempted to be.

All this writer needed to bring him out was the theme, that that was supplied to him by Chas. Fenwick, ship-owners agent, a man who was for cause expelled from a local society, and who, of course, is reliable authority, who happened to be deputy marshal on the night that the horrible gun fight came off in which Fenwick and Capt. Bowes, against overwhelming odds – just like in a dime novel – came out victorious, and in which one man was hit twice by buckshot, the gun being in the hands of one of the victors.

How sensational this writer really was we can see when we notice that he failed to mention – not wishing to spoil the effect of the write-up, I presume – the fact that Chas. Larsen, the man hit, was in the act of peaceably going on board of his own vessel, the A.J. West. This man had to pass the Benicia in order to reach his own vessel.

The writer is, to say the least, inaccurate when he claims that I regarded the whole affair as a quarrel between the crew of the A.J. West and the Benicia. However, I did and still regard it as a quarrel, between some of the men on shore and the crew of the Benicia, because the latter, I am informed, boasted around town about what they would do to union sailors, if any would even dare speak to them.

Perhaps they were coaxed to do this, so that Fenwick and Capt. Bowes could give an exhibition of their courage (?) and skill in shooting.

In conclusion, Mr. Editor, permit me to add that the writer of “Battle of the Wishkah” had a swelled head when he assumed to speak for the citizens of this city, by saying that they will take part in any gun play, even before the authorities have called upon them to assist in preserving law and order. He seems to forget that he advocates the very thing that condemns the men who caused the shooting affair on last Sunday morning for doing.

John Gronow,

Ag’t Sailors’ Union.

Dec. 5, 1899

— Aberdeen Herald, December 7, 1899

Roy Vataja is the son of Finnish immigrants and, while detesting Yellow Journalism, continues to search for interesting tales from the wild days of Aberdeen’s early history.

Aberdeen 1899: The embattled Benicia