Washington State Archives Building
I spent a few hours yesterday morning at the Washington State Archives in Olympia, browsing. I am looking for a few snippets of information that will round out some of the stories in my current book, “Jailhouse Stories from the Jumping Off Place.” In particular I was looking for trial transcripts from court cases during the years 1886-1919.
I didn’t expect to find much that would further my cause. The book (which will probably be published next summer) is more about life and times in Pacific County during those years – the setting and circumstances that might have led a person to spend time in the County Jail. Only a few of those arrested during that time period left much mark in the annals of County or State.
Sketch by Will Barrows for the Chinook Observer
An exception was Lum You (pronounced EYOW) who was the only person ever legally hanged in Pacific County. His case was notable, mainly because there were serious questions as to whether or not he had sufficient provocation to shoot Oscar Bloom. In fact, the jury voted eleven to one for acquittal, but that one man held out so tenaciously for the death sentence that the rest of the jury finally capitulated. Lum You was hanged in South Bend on Friday, January 31, 1902.
The newspapers of the time covered the story in great detail. Employers of Chinese workers felt strongly that an example should be made of “this Chinese who had dared to harm a white man!” At Lum You’s trial, however, witnesses testified that he had been bullied and even robbed by Oscar Bloom on more than one occasion.
The Bullet That Killed Oscar Bloom
Over the years, I’ve written several articles about Lum You, and his story was one of the most popular of our Shoalwater Storytellers’ performances. I was the one who played the part of Lum You and I feel a great empathy to him. But I wasn’t really expecting to find anything ‘new’ with regard to his trial and its outcome.
I cannot express exactly what I felt when I opened the very thick Lum You trial folder and found, right on top, carefully nestled in crushed paper and placed in a tiny box, the bullet that killed Oscar Bloom. It was labeled “Plaintiff’s Exhibit A.” All I could think of was that scene from the Shoalwater Storytellers’ performance in which Lum You says, “Me go to room. Put one bullet into gun. Follow Bloom. Shoot at him. Then go home.”
And there I was, all those years later – holding the bullet!
This rather puts the pebble in the pond theory into perspective. We do not live in a vacuum and we never know how long the ripples we make will disturb the pond. We don’t know if Lumpur You was mourned in South Bend or China. It’s nice that he’s not forgotten.
Actually, we do know that Lum (I’ve never run across the name “Lumpur”) You was mourned in South Bend. From the Spring 1971 Sou’wester: Sheriff Roney had not made arrangments for the burial, but his kindly deputy, Z .B. Brown, provided a grave site on his own property, close to the county road where friends could conveniently visit. His son, retired Post Office employee Zack B . Brown Sr., tells boyhood reminiscences of the Chinese coming regularly to purchase live chickens which his mother raised. These were taken to a secluded place in a grove where a ceremonial feast must have been prepared according to ancient custom. The Brown children were not allowed to intrude on these gatherings, but later they would find a serving of food at the grave. A stroll through the grove was a pleasant pastime, and many South Bend residents still remember the Oriental offerings respectfully placed within the wrought-iron enclosure by Lum You’s sorrowing countrymen.