Lore + London: The (Un)Definitive Story

For generations, Port Townsend has claimed a tantalizing connection to one of America’s most famous writers: that a young Jack London once spent the night in the City Hall jail.

But did he?

JCHS Executive Director Tara McCauley, who very much wants the story to be true, and Research + Collections Coordinator Reed Barry, who is the resident skeptic, will follow the evidence piece by piece. Was London actually in Port Townsend? What was he doing here? What do his own writings tell us? Could someone feasibly have spent a night in the City jail without having been arrested? And where did some of the story’s more colorful details come from?

They’ll dig into newspapers, London’s writings, photographs, police records, newly acquired 1894 City Marshal reports, and decades of local interpretation. Along the way, they’ll examine how a story repeated in books, signage, newspapers, tourism materials, and even by JCHS itself gradually became accepted as history.

Some pieces of the legend are surprisingly well documented. Others rest on much shakier ground. And gaps in the historical record mean not every question has a definitive answer. Come see the evidence and decide for yourself!