COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL FEBRUARY 13, 2019
7A
Off beat Oregon: Stubborn saloonkeeper refused to play nice
By Finn J.D. John
for The Sentinel
Quality Local Care...
This column is Part Two in a
four-part series on the Port-
land temperance riots of 1874.
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s March of 1874 drew to a
close, there was a certain
uneasiness among the
businessmen of the liquor indus-
try in Portland. A large squadron
of the ladies of the city — includ-
ing the wives of some of their
customers — were daily making
the rounds of saloons, appearing
there unannounced and in force
and launching into prayer ser-
vices unabashedly aimed at con-
vincing their customers to quit
them.
At fi rst, they’d been pleased;
most of their customers had
seemed to look on the prayer-
and-hymn services as some-
thing like having live music in
the pub. But within a week the
money-making magic was fad-
ing fast. Th e crowd of idle, thirsty
spectators that had once followed
the ladies around from tavern to
tavern dwindled away until it in-
cluded only the idlest and thirst-
iest. Aft er a week or so, the cru-
saders’ arrival at a saloon stopped
being an attractant. At the same
time, the number of ladies par-
ticipating in the “raids” swelled.
Soon their arrival meant not a
lucrative aft ernoon of pouring
drinks and collecting coin, but
the eff ective shutting-down of
the bar for as long as the ladies
chose to stay.
More and more saloonkeepers
began refusing to let the ladies
come in. At fi rst, when this hap-
pened, they’d move on, but soon
— inspired by the actions of Wal-
ter Moff ett (about whom more in
a bit), they changed their tactics.
When refused admission to a sa-
loon, they’d stand in front of it on
the sidewalk and hold a prayer-
and-song service right there.
Th is was actually worse than
letting them in, because it was
like a picket line that customers
would have to cross publicly if
they wanted to enter the saloon.
It also made a public spectacle of
the barkeeper’s lack of hospitality.
Tensions were on the rise as
the month of April wore on. On
April 14, at a saloon in the North
End, a proprietress slammed
the door in the crusaders’ fac-
es, and when the wind blew it
back open again, “she rushed
to the door and poured a volley
of abuse upon us,” according to
the hand-written account of one
anonymous temperance worker.
alter Moff ett was one of
Portland’s most respect-
ed men, and by most accounts
a decent guy. A Brit by birth, he
went to sea as a young man and
did well for himself; by the time
he arrived in Portland, he was a
ship captain. He settled down in
Portland and married well — his
wife was a daughter of the Ter-
williger family. By the time he’d
settled down with her, he was a
man of property, owning several
shipping interests as well as two
saloons: the Tom Th umb and the
Webfoot. It was the Webfoot Sa-
loon that was to be Ground Zero
in Portland’s temperance riots.
Th e Webfoot was located on
the northwest corner of First and
Morrison — just off the water-
front at its more “respectable”
southern end.
How the hostilities between
Moff ett and the temperance cru-
saders got started is unclear; there
are two very diff erent accounts of
the action — one from the Port-
land Bulletin, and one from au-
thor and journalist Frances Fuller
Victor’s little book, Crusading
in Portland, published later that
same year.
Both accounts agree that Mof-
fett fi rst met two of the temper-
ance workers on that fi rst day
in mid-March when they were
fanning out across the city two
by two. But that’s all they agree
on. Th e Bulletin’s story the next
morning says Mr. Moff ett greeted
them courteously but declined to
let them enter his bar. Fuller Vic-
tor, however, describes the action
somewhat diff erently:
“Th e two ladies, trembling, but
full of holy zeal, paused at the en-
trance on Morrison Street, and
stepped into the saloon whose
proprietor was as unknown to
them as the proprietors of oth-
er saloons. As they entered, Mr.
Moff ett, on the alert, … entered
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You can’t get BS from a buffalo.
by the Front Street door, which
brought him face to face with
his visitors. Without giving them
time to announce their errand,
he seized each rudely by an arm,
and thrust them out into the
street, exclaiming, “Get out of
this! I keep a respectable house
and don’t want any damn whores
here.’”
She goes on to describe the
ladies’ shocked reaction to this
reception, and the horror with
which one of them recognizes
him as a family friend:
“‘Walter Moff ett!’ she ex-
claimed. ‘Can this be Walter Mof-
fett? Why, Walter Moff ett, I used
to know you; and I prayed with
your wife for your safety when
you were at sea years ago!’
“‘I don’t want any of your
damn prayers; I want you to get
out of this and stay out; that’s all I
want of you. I don’t keep a whore-
house!’”
Well then. Th ese are words that
even today would earn a man a
lusty punch on the mazzard from
pretty much anyone in a position
to deliver one, male or female. Th e
fact that Moff ett didn’t get one on
the spot can probably be chalked
up to the utter improbability of
his behavior, which was so far out
of line with Victorian-era norms
of how respectable women were
supposed to be treated that the
ladies were too fl abbergasted to
do anything but make their way
back to the Taylor Street church
and tell their comrades-in-arms
what had happened.
Th eir story galvanized the con-
gregation there. Outraged and
furious, they immediately moved
his name to the top of their target
list.
For the next week-and-a-half,
they tried to wear down his de-
fenses by putting in daily appear-
ances at his saloon — requesting
entry, being denied and moving
on.
Finally, on the last day of
March, they changed tactics. Af-
ter being denied entry as usual,
they lined up on the sidewalk
and launched their prayer service
right there, outside the door.
Moff ett’s response was almost
as tone-deaf as his previous one
had been: He emerged from his
saloon wearing spectacles and
holding himself with prim dig-
nity, a copy of the Holy Bible in
one hand. From this he proceed-
ed to read a selection of passag-
es which, taken out of context,
sounded wildly off ensive. (Th e
only one of these specifi cally
mentioned by the crusaders is
Deuteronomy 23:1, which reads,
“He that is wounded in the
stones, or hath his privy member
cut off , shall not enter into the
congregation of the Lord.”)
Th e ladies sang louder to
drown him out. Moff ett in-
creased his own volume until he
was actually shouting. Th is went
on for some time, attracting —
as you can imagine — a healthy
crowd of spectators.
Finally, the ladies moved on.
But before they left , one of them
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(Sources: Th e Women’s War with
Whisky; or, Crusading in Port-
land, a book by Frances Fuller Vic-
tor, published in 1874 by Himes
the Printer of Portland; “Th e War
on the Webfoot Saloon,” an article
by Malcolm Clark Jr. published
in the March 1957 issue of Ore-
gon Historical Quarterly; Edward
Chambreau: His Autobiography,
a Ph.D. dissertation by Timothy
Wehrkamp, published in 1976 by
the University of Oregon; OHS Ar-
chive document folders MSS 1535
and 550; archives of Th e New
Northwest and Portland Daily
Bulletin, March–July 1874.)
Finn J.D. John teaches at Oregon
State University and writes about
odd tidbits of Oregon history.
For details, see http://fi nnjohn.
com. To contact him or suggest
a topic: fi nn2@offb eatoregon.
com or 541-357-2222.
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hat evening, the ladies dis-
cussed Moff ett at great
length. Was he simply incorrigi-
ble, a waste of their time? Should
they simply leave him on his road
to hell and focus their attention
on more salvageable souls? Or
— or was his bizarre, erratic and
off ensive behavior a subtle call
for help?
Strange as it sounds, the “call
for help” theory is the one that
prevailed. Some of the ladies ar-
gued that his strange behavior
must stem from an uneasy con-
science, and that meant he was
not beyond the reach of salva-
tion. What Brother Moff ett need-
ed right now was not to be aban-
doned to his depravities and the
blandishments of Satan, but rath-
er to feel the tough, brave love
of his true friends, who would
be there to support his struggle
for righteousness no matter how
viciously he tried in his self-de-
structive, demonic madness to
drive them away.
Looked at that way, leaving
Walter Moff ett alone would be
a seriously sinful and selfi sh act,
and one the ladies fi gured they’d
be called to account for on Judg-
ment Day. No, poor Brother Mof-
fett would continue to receive his
special treatment, along with
earnest and loving prayers for
his salvation, whether he wanted
them or not.
In other words, Moff ett’s be-
havior had not only failed to
persuade the ladies to leave him
alone, it had put the full force of
divine authority behind a man-
date to continue pestering him.
And the poor dolt clearly had no
idea.
We’ll talk about what this con-
tinuing attention would lead to in
next week’s column.
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tearfully asked Moff ett why he
was behaving like this. His belli-
cose response was that he mind-
ed his own business and expect-
ed others to mind theirs, and he
called the crusaders hypocrites.
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But there were some successes
too. Th at same hand-written ac-
count goes on: “Evening Call sa-
loon closed — proprietor signed
the Pledge.” You’ll remember the
Evening Call as the rum shop
visited on the fi rst day of the cru-
sade.
By the middle of April, the
warring parties had settled down
into an uneasy sort of relation-
ship in which the saloon keepers
tried to keep as low a profi le as
possible — trying, if you’ll par-
don the anachronism of using
a metaphor 100 years before its
time, to stay off the ladies’ radar.
Well, most of them did. Th ere
was … one exception. And it’s
time to talk about him now.
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