On December 22, 1901, the parents of Henry Short file a missing persons report for their son with the Seattle Police Department. The previous day Henry had left his residence at 308 Union Street for work and never returned. His parents suspect the boy has been shanghaied from one of the saloons south of Yesler Way. (The verb "to shanghai," after the city Shanghai, China, means to kidnap a person for compulsory shipboard service after rendering him unconscious. Supposedly, many of the ships on which shanghaied sailors were enslaved were bound for China.)
Henry's disappearance was suspicious. His parents claimed that the 15-year-old boy gave no hint that he was about to leave: All his clothes and belongings remained at their residence. M. Kilpatrick, of unknown relation to Henry Short, searched the city for him and reported on January 3, 1902, that he had found no trace of Henry.
His parents suspected that their son was shanghaied onto a foreign-bound vessel. Crews for ocean-bound ships were sometimes difficult to obtain and it was alleged that some saloons south of Yesler Way (called in 1901 the tenderloin district) shanghaied sailors for these ships. The Seattle Star claimed that shanghaiing was practiced in the city to an “alarming extent.”
It is not known whether or not Henry was ever found.
