State Treasure - Washington

The Victor Smith Treasure
CLALLAM COUNTY – Special agent Victor Smith (1827 – 1865) of the U.S. Treasury was a man who led a double life: in death he left behind many lost fortunes.
American historian and ethnologist Hubert Howe Bancroft described Smith rather insipidly when he wrote that Smith was a “treasury spy, in short, who enjoyed the confidence of the authorities at the national capitol, but who, as it turns out, did not possess the requisite discretion for so dangerous an office.”
Agent Smith certainly was a cheerless man…but he was no bore.
One could write a book on the exploits of Victor Smith; in short he was thought by most simply to be a bastard.
He is described as having a skeletal appearance with sandy hair. Smith believed in the occult; he was quick to anger, quick to slur, humorless and highly paranoid.
His boss, Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase said of him, “He believed in spirit rapping; [he] was somewhat arrogant in manner and intolerant in speech.”
Smith served as Collector of Customs for the District of Puget Sound from July 1861 through January 1864. During one of Smith’s trips to Washington D.C., his pro-tem deputy collector Lieutenant James H. Merryman completed an audit of the Port Townsend Custom House’s treasury and discovered $15,000 missing.
In his report to Secretary Chase, Merryman stated that evidence and documents clearly revealed that an inept Smith had obviously embezzled the missing money.
Smith avoided prosecution with help from friends in Washington and remained in his position in spite of the fact that Port Townsend residents loathed the man and his plan to economically castrate their city.
Smith proposed relocating Washington’s Port of Entry from Port Townsend to the non-existing town of Port Angeles, where Smith and four partners had recently acquired title to the new townsite and founded the Port Angeles Townsite Company to develop the new City of Port Angeles.
On June 18, 1862, Congress approved Smith’s plan and the Port of Entry was moved to Port Angeles.
Smith had just completed a large structure to serve as the new Customs House as well as his private residence. The move would make Smith a wealthy man, had it lasted.
On the night of December 16, 1863, Smith was en route to Washington when Port Angeles was hit by a flash flood.
A log jam formed right above the Customs House, diverting flood waters for a few minutes, allowing Smith’s wife, Caroline, and their four children to escape.
Moments later, the Customs House was swept off its foundation and carried out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Two Customs employees were killed.
Lost in the disaster was the Custom House’s treasury strongbox with an undisclosed sum and government documents.
From Smith’s private residence, a second strongbox was washed away that reportedly contained $1,500 in bank notes and $7,500 in gold specie.
Makah Indians later found the collapsed building and are believed to have removed everything of value. Nothing was recovered.
President Lincoln removed Smith as the Customs Collector in January 1864, whereupon he resumed his duties as a Treasury agent.
Smith was frequently required to carry or transport large sums of money. Such was the case on May 2, 1865, when Smith boarded the steamship Golden Rule in New York bound for San Francisco.
Smith was transporting a large sum of gold specie. At 3:30 a.m. on May 30th, the Golden Rule struck Roneador reef near the Isthmus of Panama.
The ship floundered for 11 days, stranding 535 passengers and 100 crewmen.
During the mass confusion after striking the reef, the strongbox containing the gold mysteriously vanished
Outraged over the loss, Smith remained on the reef and enlisted the aid of a diver to help him find the missing strongbox.
The diver did salvage the strongbox, which had been looted.
Smith outright accused the captain of theft, but many believe Smith himself was the culprit. None of the gold was ever recovered.
American gunboats rescued all passenger and crew without any loss of life and transported them to Panama for secure passage on to San Francisco.
Upon Smith’s arrival in San Francisco, he took possession of $200,000, which was payroll for the troops at Fort Vancouver and other military posts in the Pacific Northwest.
Smith arranged for passage to Port Angeles on board the ship Brother Jonathan. If Smith did abscond with the gold from the wreck of the Golden Rule, it is believed he would’ve smuggled it on board the Brother Jonathan.
On July 30, 1865, the Brother Jonathan struck a rock near Point St. George off the coast from Crescent City, California, where she sank.
Of the 244 people on board, only 19 survived; Smith was not one of them.
The Brother Jonathan was carrying a substantial treasure in addition to that under Smith’s charge.
It would take another 145 years before the treasure of the Brother Jonathan would be found. But that’s another story.
Of all the treasure that was “lost” by Smith, it is the two strongboxes, which washed away in the Port Angeles flood, that are still unaccounted for.
As for the $15,000 in embezzled funds - no one knows for certain. Some claim it was cached near the original Port Townsend Customs House; others believe Smith buried it in the vicinity of his new home in Port Angeles.

The Harry Sutton Treasure
JEFFERSON COUNTY - Born the son of a wealthy Boston family, Harry L. Sutton fled Boston authorities after being a participant in a fight where two men where killed.
He arrived in Port Townsend in 1862 aboard one of his father’s clipper ships hoping to start over in a place where he was unknown.
An educated man, Sutton was hired as editor for the Port Townsend newspaper and spent years in that position, establishing himself as a reputable and respected gentleman.
Sutton later started his own newspaper, which failed in 1871 during hard times. Soon after, Sutton opened the Blue Light Saloon on Union Dock.
The Blue Light did a booming business, but quickly earned a bloody reputation for its notorious and felonious clientele. Bad blood existed with Sutton and a man named Charles W. Howard.
One evening Howard walked into the Blue Light to settle the score. Warned Howard was coming, Sutton waited.
As Howard passed through the doors of the Blue Light he also passed through the doors of eternity.
Alerted that Howard was en route to the Blue Light, officers raced to the Union Dock. On arrival officers learned Howard was dead and Sutton had fled. He was later arrested in nearby Port Angeles.
Convicted for the murder of Howard, Sutton was sent to prison where he escaped. It is believed that Sutton was later killed during a gunfight in California.
At the time of Howard’s death Port Townsend had no banks. It was common knowledge that Sutton profited handsomely in the saloon business and his long established practice was to take long walks each week into the woods back of Ben Pettyrove’s orchard to bury his money.
Years later it was claimed that Sutton would’ve recovered his wealth before fleeing.
Old timers, however, state he never had the opportunity - after killing Howard or after escaping prison.
Local research is necessary to locate the site of Ben Pettyrove’s orchard. The innkeeper’s hoard, so far as is known, remains lost.

Lost Thanksgiving
Day Treasure
PIERCE COUNTY – During the early morning hours on Thanksgiving Day 1894, tragedy struck the Tacoma waterfront. H.H. Alger and his family were fast asleep in their waterfront home.
A hard steady rain had fallen for days and had loosened the earth on the hillside overlooking Commencement Bay.
Without warning, two million cubic yards of dirt and mud broke loose and crashed into the bay carrying away everything in its path, including 1,200 feet of dock.
The Alger family managed to stay afloat upon the overturned wreckage until rescued by a steamer.
Sadly, Alger’s stepdaughter, Emma Stubbs, 15, and John Hanson, the night watchman for the Northern Pacific Railway, died in the disaster.
A 7,000-pound safe belonging to the Northern Pacific Railway was also lost in the incident.
The safe contained $2,400 in cash and $1,200 in gold coins. It is believed the safe was buried in muck near the mouth of the City Waterway. It remains lost to this day.

Sources:
Weiser, Kathy, The Infamous Victor Smith and a Tale of Three Lost Treasures, March 2006, Legends of America, http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WA-VictorSmith.html
Washington State Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation, Victor Smith forcibly moves the U.S. Customs Port of Entry…, http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=pf_output.cfm&file_id=7474
Penfield, Tom, “Questions and Answers,” December 1970, True Treasure magazine, p. 56
Eckrom, Jerry, “Lost Safe of Commencement Bay,” December 1972, True Treasure magazine.