Old Print Articles: Getting Shanghaied, Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1872-97)

"Mooney was placed on the ship while drunk by a vessel man."

People who didn’t get waylaid during the 19th century got shanghaied, as proven by the following articles from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

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“She Shanghaied a Sailor” (December 30, 1891): “Mrs. Amanda Hermanson, who keeps a sailors’ boarding house at 256 Van Brunt Street, was held by Justice Tighe this morning to await the action of the grand jury on the charges made by Steffano Valeno. She is the woman whom Valeno had arrested a fortnight ago for shipping him to China against his will and stealing $50 and a trunk from him while he was gone. Valeno brought witnesses to support his statements. After this hearing Mrs. Hermanson was arrested for keeping a sailors’ boarding house without a license, was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of $100.”

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“For Being Shanghaied” (December 6, 1897): “Vancouver, B.C.–News comes from Shanghai that Lawrence Mooney, an American citizen who went to Shanghai from Victoria on the lumber bark St. Catharine, has been awarded damages against the ship by a United States consul general. Mooney was placed on the ship while drunk by a vessel man who became notorious through his connection with the San Francisco smuggling ring.”

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"He was first drugged into unconsciousnes, how, he cannot say, or at what place, and then placed in the hold of the vessel."

“Return of a Missing Man” (April 5, 1872): “About six weeks since Robert Seymour, a tinman, having a small store in South Fifth, married and the father of two children, left his home and place of business to perform a job of work on board of a vessel said to be then lying at the foot of Rutgers Street, New York, and up to yesterday nothing had been heard from him, although every effort had been exerted to obtain a clue to his whereabouts.

Among his friends most earnest in hunting Mr. Seymour was Mr. E. Gateson, a plumber, who was more than surprised at seeing the missing man, whom he had given up for dead, walk into his store at Broadway, and salute him, as of yore, by the title of ‘Boss.’ To Mr. Gateson the appended account was substantially related by Seymour, concerning his extended absence, from which it will be seen that an old-time practice of seizing men and shipping them against their will still prevails to some extent in the metropolis of the State.

In other words, Seymour was shanghaied, to accomplish which he was first drugged into unconsciousnes, how, he cannot say, or at what place, and then placed in the hold of the vessel, which was probably ready to sail at a moment’s notice. The first he knew he found himself in a dark and confined space, in company with three other men, and on the succeeding day was with them taken on deck, and asked to sign a paper binding him for a whaling voyage. He and his three companions refused to accede to this proposition, and upon their promising not to make any stir about this matter, nor inform upon their captors, they were taken ashore on a small boat to the mouth of the Chesapeke Bay, from where they made their way to Baltimore. From thence they were passed to New York, where the party arrived yesterday morning, overjoyed at once more finding themselves at home and among friends. He further stated that it was not the vessel upon which he was at work in which he was carried off to sea, and is unable to give either its name or that of the captain, as he had no communication with any one on board, neither did he know a single one of the crew.

Mr. Seymour still bears traces of the hardship endured by him, and says he has not yet recovered from the effects of the drug partaken of by him.”

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Shipping to the Philippines, 1898:

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