2/24/2024 0 Comments Baltimore world of warships wiki![]() Moreover, most such ships, like almost all other Western ships sailing from southern China in the eighteenth century, would have had at least some Chinese crewmen aboard. Due to a short-lived fad for imported sea otter furs among wealthy Chinese, more ships sailed from Macao to the Northwest Coast in the 1780s and 1790s than at any other time before or since. The tidal currents would carry the discarded immigrant's bodies to San Juan Island to the north and west of the pass and many ended up in what became known as Dead Man's Bay." ( Wikipedia, "Deception Pass")Īnd there were plenty of available ships. For transport, Ure would tie the illegal immigrants up in burlap bags so that if customs agents were to approach then he could easily toss the bags overboard. Local tradition has it that his wife would camp on the nearby Strawberry Island (which was visible from the open sea) and signal him with a fire on the island's summit to alert him to whether or not it was safe to bring his illegal cargo ashore. Ure's own operation at Deception Pass in the late 1880's consisted of Ure and his Native-American wife. Ure and his partner Lawrence "Pirate" Kelly were quite profitable at their smuggling business and played hide-and-seek with the United States Customs Department for years. The island became infamous for its activity of smuggling illegal Chinese immigrants for local labor. "In the waters of Deception Pass, just east of the present-day Deception Pass Bridge is a small island known as Ben Ure Island.
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