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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (April 10, 2019)
10A | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2019 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL Off beat Oregon: ‘Prepaid Shanghaiing’ went badly amiss when the victim unexpectedly died By Finn J.D. John for Th e Sentinel Most of the time, the shanghai- ing of sailors in old Astoria and Portland was a spur-of-the-mo- ment kind of thing. It was resort- ed to when a ship captain needed a crew for an imminent depar- ture, and the shanghaier didn’t have enough legitimate sailors staying in his boardinghouse who could be forced to ship out. But there was at least one sail- or who arrived in Portland with his shanghaiing already planned, premeditated and paid-for. And it probably would have worked just fi ne if he hadn’t foiled his would- be shanghaiers by dying on them. F rederick Kalashua was a big burly Finn, and no ordinary sailor. He was a ship’s carpenter, and apparently a pretty good one; so he was far more valuable to the captain of the ship he arrived on, the 190-foot British barque Can- didate, than the average sailor would have been. When Kalashua arrived in Portland in late June of 1886, he was angry with the captain of the Candidate, and didn’t much care who knew about it. Th e skipper, he said, had fed him very poorly and forced him to share a cabin with a black man. Al- though the captain had promised to move the roommate to other quarters and to improve the food, it seemed Kalashua was enough of a racist that having been forced to share his quarters with a black man had been an unforgivable in- sult. He arrived in Portland ready to quit, and when he checked into Jim Turk’s boardinghouse he immediately put his name down on the list of sailors seeking other berths. He also asked one of the board- inghouse runners, Pat O’Brien, to go to the Candidate and get his box of carpentry tools, which were his own personal prop- erty and valued at about $250 (about $7,000 in modern mon- ey). O’Brien tried, but the captain refused to let him take the tools. He — the captain — had no in- tention of letting his carpenter leave his employ and had made arrangements that he was confi - dent would ensure that Kalashua was safely back on board when the Candidate moved on. Th ose arrangements essen- tially amounted to a prepaid shanghaiing. Th e captain had deposited $60 with the British consulate, to be handed over to boarding master Turk aft er the Candidate cleared port with carpenter Kalashua safely on board. Turk, of course, knew this, and was making plans to earn the cash. U nfortunately for everyone in- volved, he was depending on a big dumb thug named Daniel Moran to implement those plans. On July 8, Moran went out drinking with Kalashua. As Mo- ran knew, and maybe Kalash- ua did too, the Candidate was scheduled to depart at the next high tide — 3 a.m. the following morning. Moran was working to soft en the big Scandinavian up a bit. Over the course of the day, Moran would later testify, the two of them wandered the waterfront, soaking up drinks — “thirty or forty” apiece, if we can believe that. As they were making the rounds, Jim Turk asked Moran what he was doing. “I am going to fi x this fellow off ,” Moran replied, according to Turk’s testimony, and resumed bar-hopping. Near supper time, Moran de- cided it was time to do the deed. So he chirped, “Let’s take anoth- er drink!” and led Kalashua and several others to a nearby saloon owned by James Kelly. Unbe- knownst to all, he had made arrangements with Kelly to slip Kalashua a Mickey. It was about to be night-night time for the big squarehead, who would be wak- ing up the next morning aboard the ship he so wanted to leave with the captain he so hated — or so Moran thought. B ut Kalashua was feeling sick from all the booze. He stag- gered to the edge of the sidewalk, vomited in the gutter, and then followed Moran into Kelly’s sa- loon, where he declined to take a drink, asking instead for a glass of “soda water” (meaning a bicar- bonate of soda, to soothe his up- set stomach). T his probably was the moment things went off the rails. Mo- ran and Kelly had made arrange- ments to drug Kalashua, and those arrangements almost cer- tainly involved a bottle of whisky laced with a carefully measured amount of opium. But Kalashua wasn’t drinking it. So instead, Kel- ly had to sneak and dump some opium in the bicarbonate of soda, estimating the dosage on the fl y. He then added some sugar, stirred it, handed it to Kalashua, and told him to “drink it up quick.” Kalashua did. Th en he re- turned to the boardinghouse, stretched out on the sofa, and did not move until the death throes came. He died a few hours later, and by that time there were three physicians on the scene, all of whom agreed he’d clearly died of an opium overdose. I ncidents like this weren’t as common in 1880s Portland as popular legends would have us think; but they weren’t exactly uncommon either. It’s debatable whether the death of some luck- less hobo or laid-off logger in a shanghaiing overdose would have received much if any attention in the newspapers. But the involve- ment of the British consulate, and the status of the victim as a skilled marine craft sman, combined to give this story some legs. Th e ensuing trial was covered fairly extensively in the Morning Or- egonian, although never on the front page. Authorities soon had both Mo- ran and Kelly in custody. Moran, who had a great deal of trouble keeping his hands to himself, made things easier for the cops by getting himself arrested for pick- ing a fi stfi ght with Pat O’Brien shortly aft er the doping; so he was already in the slammer when the rap came down. Th is gave him a leg up on what turned into a race with Kelly as each jockeyed to be the fi rst to fl ip, turn state’s evi- dence, and squeal on the other. By the time Kelly was in custody and off ering to do so, it was too late, and he was on the outside looking in. And so, in early November, saloonkeeper James Kelly found himself in court answering a charge that was probably going to send him straight to the gallows: First-degree murder. Although the death had been an accident, because it had happened as a re- Enter to win 4 tickets to COTTAGE THEATRE * sult of Kelly committing a felony (kidnapping) the statute called it Murder One. Th ings were looking extreme- ly bleak for Kelly as the evidence was presented. It was pretty clear that he had, at Moran’s request, spiked Kalashua’s Alka-Seltzer with a fatal overdose of opium. Moran, in the full confession he’d off ered in exchange for leniency, had already testifi ed that Kelly had leaned over to him aft er the doping and whispered, “I think I have given him too much, but never mind, the son-of-a-b-- -h can stand it.” Th en came the moment when Moran was called to the witness stand, and the bailiff went to fetch him, and found his cell empty. Th e jailer had left him in the hall while he went to look for anoth- er witness, who — although he also was supposed to have been locked up in a cell — had stepped out for a couple of cocktails before breakfast and not returned. While the jailer was out hunting for him, Moran simply strolled out the front door. Everyone was furious with the jailer aft er this, and the news- paper reporters dropped broad hints that it had been a conspira- cy and the jailer was in on it. But there was not much to be done at that point. Th e judge ruled Mo- ran’s confession inadmissible, and a few days later — Moran still be- ing on the lam — the jury ruled Kelly “not guilty.” M oran managed to stay lost for almost two whole weeks. He moved to Wallula, where he was doing a pretty good job of keeping a low profi le until DRAIN: HOPE U.M.C. 131 W “A” St. Drain, OR 541-315-1617 Pastor: Lura Kidner-Miesen Fellowship & Song: 11:30am Potluck Lunch: 12:00pm Worship: 12:30pm COTTAGE GROVE: 6th & Gibbs Church of Christ 195 N. 6th St. • 541-942-3822 10:00am Christian Education: Pre-K through 5th www.6thandgibbs.com Church of Christ 420 Monroe St • 541-942-8565 Sunday Service: 10:30am Cottage Grove Bible Church 1200 East Quincy Avenue 541-942-4771 Pastor:Bob Singer Worship 11am Sunday School:9:45am AWANA age 3-8th Grade, Wednesdays Sept-May, 6:30pm www.cgbible.org Cottage Grove Faith Center 33761 Row River Rd. 541-942-4851 Lead Pastor: Kevin Pruett www.cg4.tv Full Childrenʼs Ministry available Services: 9:00am & 10:45am Want to fi nd this week’s best shopping deals? Curious about the latest local developments? We have you covered with locally focused coverage of everything from jobs, politics and education to sports, shopping, dining, entertainment, comics and more. Expand your mind with the kid scoop page each week! Start your $38 Subscription* today, and start getting more out of every week in South Lane & North Douglas Counties! S entinel F ollowing a short but eventful trial, Moran was convicted of fi rst-degree murder. Th e Morning Oregonian was very happy about this. “Moran may now take what comfort he can out of the fact that he has succeeded in saving his accomplice’s neck at the expense of his own,” editor Harvey Scott wrote in a very crisp editorial af- ter the verdict. “Th is verdict was much needed. It will put a check upon the practice long prevalent here of ‘doping’ sailors, so as to facilitate the industry of crimping, kidnapping or otherwise decoy- ing or conveying them on ship- board, so as to get their advance wages. More men than Kelly and Moran have been in this nefari- ous business at our Northwest- ern ports for years, and it is high time that some one or more of the scoundrels hanged for it.” And hanged for it Moran cer- tainly would have been, but for one little detail: Portland Police Chief Samuel Parrish testifi ed that aft er Moran was arrested, he’d been locked away in a dark cell in solitary for three days and his repeated requests to talk to his lawyer had been ignored. Th e chief, who had been on the job less than two years and had no previous law enforcement expe- rience, testifi ed that no one had actually told him to deny the re- quest for a lawyer, but he’d heard district attorneys grumble about suspects getting to talk to lawyers and thought this was what was expected of him. All in all, late 1886 was not the Portland law enforcement com- munity’s most shining moment. Not too surprisingly, the case was overturned the minute an appeals judge learned about this. Moran was eventually convicted of manslaughter and sent back to the pen to start a 15-year stretch for the job. Jim Turk, the owner of the shanghaiing shop, on whose be- half all this dirty work was being done and who would have reaped the $60 reward if it had been done properly, was never charged, or even seriously questioned — de- spite having essentially confessed to having known about Moran’s plan to shanghai Kalashua for him. Apparently, everybody knew it wouldn’t do any good. In the Portland waterfront of 1886, the fi x was always in. Sources: Th e Oregon Shang- haiers, a book by Barney Blalock, published in 2014 by Th e History Press; Portland Morning Orego- nian archives, July–December 1886) Worship Directory Calvary Baptist Church 77873 S 6th St • 541-942-4290 Pastor: Riley Hendricks Sunday School: 9:45am Worship: 11:00am The Journey: Sunday 5:00pm Praying Thru Life: Wednesday 6:00pm Looking for something to do with the kids? the temptation to get into another knock-down-drag-out bar fi ght became too strong for his feeble intellect to resist; at which point he was forced to leave town ahead of an angry mob. Th e sheriff ’s de- tective who was out looking for Moran soon heard about it, and picked up his trail there, fi nally catching him in Spokane Falls. And a week or two later, Moran found himself in court, facing the same charge Kelly had just been acquitted of: Murder One. Delight Valley Church of Christ 33087 Saginaw Rd. East 541-942-7711 • Pastor: Bob Friend Two Services: 9am - Classic in the Chapel 10:30am - Contemporary in the Auditorium First Baptist Church 301 S. 6th st • 541-942-8242 Pastor: David Chhangte Sunday School 9:30am Worship Service 11:00am Youth Wednesday 6:30pm cgfi rstbaptist.com First Presbyterian Church 3rd and Adams St 541-942-4479 Rev.: Karen Hill Worship: 10:00am Sunday School: 10:00am fpcgrove.com Seventh-day Adventist Church 820 South 10th Street 541-942-5213 Pastor: Kevin Miller Bible Study: Saturday, 9:15 am Worship Service: Saturday, 10:40 Mid-week Service: Wednesday, 1:00 Hope Fellowship United Pentecostal Church 100 S. Gateway Blvd. 541-942-2061 Pastor: Dave Bragg Worship: 11:00am Sunday Bible Study: 7:00pm Wednesday www.hopefellowshipupc.com “FINDING HOPE IN YOUR LIFE” Trinity Lutheran Church 6th & Quincy • 541-942-2373 Pastor: James L. Markus Sunday School & Adult Education 9:15am Sunday Worship 10:30 am Comm. Kitchen Free Meal Tue & Thur 5:00pm TLC Groups tlccg.com Living Faith Assembly 467 S. 10th St. • 541-942-2612 Worship Services Sundays: 9a & 11a Youth Worship Sundays: 11a (all ages welcome) Mondays: 5:30p (6th-12th grades) United Methodist Church 334 Washington • 541-942-3033 Pastor:Lura Kidner-Miesen Worship: 10:30am umcgrove.org Non-Denominational Church of Christ 1041 Pennoyer Ave 541-942-8928 Preacher: Tony Martin Sunday Bible Study:10:00am Sunday Worship:10:50am & 5:30pm www.pennoyeravecoc.com Old Time Gospel Fellowship 103 S. 5th St. • 541-942-4999 Pastor: Jim Edwards Sunday Service: 10:00am Join in Traditional Christian Worship Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St. Philip Benizi Catholic Churches 1025. N. 19th St. 541-942-3420 Father John J. Boyle Holy Mass: Saturday Vigil – 5:30 PM Sunday – 10:30 PM For weekday and Holy Day of Obligation schedule see website OLPHCG.net Confession: 4 PM to 5 PM Saturdays or by appointment St. Philip Benizi, Creswell 552 Holbrook Lane Sunday 8:30 AM “VICTORY” Country Church 913 S. 6th Street • 541-942-5913 Pastor: Barbara Dockery Worship Service: 10:00am Message: “WE BELIEVE IN MIRACLES” CRESWELL: Creswell Presbyterian Church 75 S 4th S • 541-895-3419 Rev. Seth Wheeler Adult Sunday School 9:15am Sunday Worship Service 10:30 am website www.creswellpres.org Worship With Us! St. Andrews Episcopal Church 1301 W. Main • 541-767-9050 Rev. Lawrence Crumb “Church with the fl ags.” Worship: Sunday 10:30am All Welcome C ottage G rove 541-942-3325 www.cgsentinel.com Use Code AprNew19 * New subscribers available through 04.26.19. *Offer good to new subscribers through 4.27.18. Mention this ad. This offer is not transferable and the offer is available those who have not subscribed in the last 31 days. Special introductory offers are limited to no more than two special subscriptions in a twelve month period and must be paid in advance to qualify for special rate. Once the above discounted period ends, you will be billed at the regular subscription rates. Our Worship Directory is a weekly feature in this newspaper. If your congregation would like to be a part of this directory, contact us today! S entinel C ottage G rove 541-942-3325 116 N. 6th Street Cottage Grove, OR
