Shanghaied in San Francisco

Let me tell you about one of the strangest journeys taken by an early ancestor of mine. That was my Great Uncle Sherman, one of my father's namesakes, a  bachelor along with his brother my Great Uncle John, the namesake of my father's elder brother. Families of years ago dearly loved using names over and over through generation after generation. Back to my story. Since my paternal Grandmother lived just a few houses down the block while I was growing up, there were several occasions to meet her brothers and sisters who visited from their homes in Idaho. That was the state where their parents landed via covered-wagon, but that's another story.

As a child, I was merely introduced to the Uncles as they shook my hand in their old roughened hands and gave me a pat on my back. Hugs and kisses were not passed around the way they are today. Even my father would suffice with a pat on the back saying, "That's my girl."  Anyway, it was only when I became a teenager that Grandmother related the story of how her brother Sherman was shanghaied as he sat in a saloon in San Francisco. She said, "He was very young and being from Boise, Idaho, had no knowledge of a port city like San Francisco.

Apparently, the way her brother Sherman related the tale, he was just sitting at the bar not causing any trouble when a couple of Chinese sailors came in and sat on either side of him. He felt it was strange since there were two empty stools side by side that they passed up in order to sit by him. "Howdy fellas." Sherman had said they just smiled and shook their heads as if to agree that what he said was alright with them.

My Great Uncle claimed he was about to pick up his glass to finish his drink when the two "rough necks" grabbed  his arms and rudely directed him out of the saloon. He remembered stepping down onto the dirt road and felt something hit him hard on the back of the head. Then he blacked out.

When Sherman finally awakened he was aware of being in the hold of a rocking ship that smelled foul. He also realized he had a bump on the back of his head "big as an apple." No doubt it was true that this was "the worst hangover" he'd ever had. He sort of passed out again. The next time he awoke, he was  yanked out of his stupor by another Chinese sailor who spoke broken English. "Get up and sign paper. You must work."

For many days aboard the cargo ship, he worked on the upper deck hauling sails. There were several other men too, all shanghaied, surviving on some kind of distasteful liquid and flavorless rice, with bits of fish now and then. Sherman was not a robust man and his new diet and strenuous exercise left him with muscle, bone and sunburned flesh. He's said, "At the beginning I ate, then threw it all up over the side of the ship. After awhile my stomach settled and I became a real deckhand."

I don't remember how long Grandmother said her brother was away. Certainly his parents and siblings were worried not hearing from him. Uncle John, his older brother, had stayed in Idaho to continue working as a lumberjack, instead of going with him to San Francisco. John decided "Sherman probably found a woman and now he's a goner."

Well, one day Sherman finally did arrive back in Idaho, thinner, stronger and "brown as a bear." And much wiser I'm sure. He had learned some Chinese. As a signed-on conscript, he'd had to fulfill his contract before being returned to San Francisco's port and told he could go home. He had earned enough money for a train ticket home to Boise. Over the late 1800's and into the early 1900's this practice of forcibly conscripting badly needed sailors was somewhat legal. Many young men had similar shanghai experiences.

That's the story told to me about my Great Uncle Sherman. It seems no one has been able to prove it true or fantasy. I like to believe he was indeed Shanghaied.