“Eng See Fay Affidavit Photo,” 1899, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, Record Group 85, National Archives at Seattle, Chee Tuck, Box 891, File 7032/569.
The first document in Chee Tuck’s file is a 10 August 1899 affidavit. He was applying for a certificate of departure and return at Port Townsend, Washington for his trip to China. His witnesses, Eng See Fay, of the firm Lun Ying Co., and Clew Non, both swore that they were in debt to Chee Tuck for a total of $1,200. A photo of Eng See Fay with his name written across the photo is attached to the affidavit. According to his interview, Chee Tuck obtained a Certificate of Residence in Oregon in 1894, he lived in Port Gamble, Washington; was 31 years old, and worked as a cook. He planned on leaving from the Port of Tacoma, Washington.
“Chee Tuck Affidavit,” 1904, CEA case files, RG 85, NARA-Seattle, Chee Tuck, Box 891, File 7032/569.
The file does not show when he returned but he applied to leave again in 1904. Lung Kee still owed him $1,100 and was his witness. There was no official note for the transaction, but A. F. Richardson, the Chinese Inspector, believed it was valid. A photo of Chee Tuck was attached to the affidavit. He was then living in Port Ludlow and was a cook in the Port Ludlow Hotel, making $45 a month.
Lung Kee was interviewed in 1905. He testified that he borrowed $1,100 in gold from Chee Tuck in 1902 so he could build a house in China. (Eng) Lung Kee obtained his chak chi (Certificate of Residence) in 1894 at Portland. In 1905 another witness, Ng Gow, testified that he witnessed Chee Tuck transferring the $1,100 in gold to Lung Kee in 1902. When Chee Tuck returned from China in September 1905, he was admitted as a duly registered Chinese laborer. He testified that he was twelve years old when he landed at the Port of San Francisco in 1880. From there he went to Port Townsend.
“Chee Tuck Form 432, Application Chinese Laborer for Return Certificate,” 1911, CEA case files, RG 85, NARA-Seattle, Chee Tuck, Box 891, File 7032/569.
Chee Tuck applied to leave in 1911. He gave his married name as Ng Yee Ham. His wife was Lee She and they had a six-year-old son named Koon Dock. They were living in Gim Lung village, Sunning District, China. Chee Tuck returned in November 1912 and was admitted. In 1929 Chee Tuck, age 61, applied for a laborer’s return certificate. Another son was born after his last visit but now both sons had died. It is assumed that his debt due from Lung Kee was paid off because now he filled the debt requirement by owning a $1,000 Liberty Loan bond. Chee Tuck returned in November 1930 and was admitted. There is no more information in his file.
“Chee Tuck Form 432, Return Certificate Lawfully Domiciled Chinese Laborer,” 1929, CEA case files, RG 85, NARA-Seattle, Chee Tuck, Box 891, File 7032/569.
Chee Tuck’s file contains nothing jarring or unusual . He fulfilled all the requirements for a returning laborer. Immigration officials reviewed his paperwork and approved it. The photos stand out—one for his witness in 1899 and photos of Chee Tuck in 1904, 1911, and 1929. It had been eighteen years between Tuck’s last visits to China and by the time he went back, both of his sons had died. How sad.
“Lock Ling (Lock Loon) Affidavit,”1891, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, Record Group 85, NARA-Seattle, Box 1007, Lock Ling Seattle Box 1007, file 7032/3676.
On 18 August 1891, Rossell G. O’Brien, Brigardier General of the Washington National Guard, signed an affidavit stating that Lock Loon (Lock Ling) of the Chung-Lee Co., Olympia, Washington, wished to visit Victoria, B.C. before making a trip to China. The document certified that Lock Ling was entitled to return to Olympia, Washington. James C. Horr, Mayor of Olympia, added a note saying that he knew Lock Loon personally. Lock Loon signed his affidavit in Chinese characters. An undated form from the Treasury Department said Lock Ling was admitted.
[Lock Ling’s file contains many pages and forms and covers the years 1891 to 1944. Sometimes the information is repetitive; frequently it is confusing and raises other questions. The file and therefore this summary is not meant to be a biography. Immigration officials used a series of interviews, affidavits, witnesses, and other documents to evaluate if they should admit someone to the United States. There were numerous restrictions and they wanted to make sure they were not admitting laborers, or anyone deemed unacceptable under the Chinese Exclusion Act. It was a complicated system.]
[The names Lock Ling and Lock Loon are interchangeable in these documents. This summary of the files will use the name the way it was spelled in the actual document.]
Rev. Clark Davis and C. P. Stone of Seattle were witnesses for Lock Ling’s trip to China in July 1897 and when he returned in September 1898. Lock Ling moved from Olympia and was then working at Mark Ten Suie Company in Seattle.
In October 1902 Lock Ling wished to make another trip to China. He swore in an affidavit that he was thirty-six years old and had lived in the United States for twenty-one years. He was currently a merchant for Coaster Tea Company. They sold teas, coffees, and spices in Seattle. He wanted to visit his family in China and bring back is son, Locke Loui, who was fifteen and a student. He attached his photo and a photo of his son to his affidavit. Harold N. Smith and Clark Davis were his witnesses. His application was approved.
Section 2, S.21039 of the Chinese Exclusion Act was updated and made stricter in 1893. It was no longer enough for a witness to testify that an applicant had not engaged in manual labor for at least one year before his departure from the United States, the testimony had to show specifically the kind of work the applicant did during the entire year. This did not present a problem for Lock Ling.
On his return trip in July 1904, he was admitted at Port Townsend, Washington. The record does not show if his son, Locke Loui, was with him.
In March 1910 Lock Ling (Lock Loon) declared in an affidavit that he was forty-four years old; that he had been in the United States for twenty-eight years; had been a resident of Seattle for sixteen years; that he was a merchant for the last three years with Wing Long & Company; had recently sold his interest in the business; and became of member of Hong Chong Company. He wanted to visit his second wife, Lee See at Sing Ning City, Canton. His first wife had died, and he wanted to bring his son, Lock Kim, age thirteen and a student at Canton University, back to Seattle with him. He attached photos of himself and his son to his affidavit.
“Lock Ling (Lock Loon) and Look Kim Affidavit,”1910, CEA, RG 85, NARA-Seattle, file 7032/3676.
P. K. Smith and George O. Sanborn, both citizens of Seattle, swore in affidavits that they knew Lock Ling more than three years. They swore he was a merchant and performed no manual labor except what was necessary to conduct business as a merchant.
When Lock Ling was interviewed, he testified he was married and had three sons, Lock Loy, Lock Yen/Ying, and Lock Kim, and a daughter. His son Lock Ying was admitted in 1908 and living in Seattle; and Lock Loy was declared insane in a hospital in Steilacoom and went back to China. Lock Ling had been back to China four times, once before the Exclusion Act was passed.
The Immigration Inspector made a note on Lock Ling’s interview saying Lock Ling was well known as a salesman for Wing Long Company. His new firm, Hong Chong Company, had forty partners. He would be their treasurer; they sold drugs and general merchandise. The company was not incorporated under Washington State law but according to Chinese custom. They had a four-year lease from Mrs. W. D. Hofius for the four-story brick building, still being built for $950 per month.
Lock Ling’s application was approved, and he left for China in March 1910. He returned in October 1912 and was interrogated when he arrived. He gave his marriage name as Yin Ling and his childhood name as Lock Lung. He was returning from his fifth trip to China with his third wife, Wong Shee, his son Lock Kim and his daughter, Lock Mee. He had three sons and a daughter with his first wife who died about 1902. His sons Lock Loy, age 24, had been in the U.S. but went back to China about 1909 and Lock Yen, age 19, was in Seattle. His son and daughter, Lock Gim and Lock Mee, were in the detention house waiting for approval to enter the U.S. Lock Ling’s second wife, Lee Shee had a son, Lock Goey, who was still living in China. When Lee Shee died, her son Lock Loy carried the incense jar to the cemetery. Lock Ling then married Wong Shee according to the Chinese custom. For the ceremony, she did not wear a veil but the tassels from her coronet hung down over her face. She was brought to his house in a regular red, blue, and green sedan chair.
When asked, Lock Ling described his property in China: a house and rice land worth $3,000 Chinese money, and a building in Hongkong worth about $15,000 Hongkong money. He boasted that he went to China five times and a child was born as a result of each trip. In January 1943, Lock Ling (Lock Loon), age seventy-five, applied for a Laborer’s Return Certificate to visit Vancouver, B.C. He qualified because he owed his daughter, Lock Mee Oye, born and residing in Seattle, Washington, more than $1,000. He presented Immigration authorities his Certificate of Residence #55720 which was issued in Portland, Oregon in 1894. It showed that he was born 11 May 1868 in China and entered the United States with his father about 1882 at San Francisco at the age of fifteen. He lost his original Certificate of Residence #44577 so he presented his replacement certificate. His application was approved, and his current photo was attached to the document. Lock Ling and his wife went to Vancouver and returned to Seattle four days later.
Lock’s Reference Sheet shows three files were brought forward and gives file numbers for his wife, four daughters, and two sons.
[According to Hao-Jan Chang, CEA NARA volunteer and Locke family expert, Yen Ling Lock and former Governor Gary Locke are distantly related. They have common ancestors, starting from the first generation to the third generation. Yen Ling Lock is of the19th generation. Gary Locke is of the 25th generation.]
Ng Ah Yun was born in Port Townsend, Jefferson County, Washington on 23 August 1889. He was the son of (Ng) Yee Kong and Wong Shee. Yee Kong had come to the United States from China about 1877 and married Wong Shee in San Francisco in 1882. Shortly after they married, they moved to Port Townsend, Washington and resided at the corner of Madison and Water Streets. Their first son, Ah Don Ng, was born there in 1885 or 1886.
Yee Kong operated the Yee Wah Laundry. Its original location was across the corner from the sailors’ boarding house. In December 1888, Yee Kong’s cousin, Charley Quong, who was born in California, joined them in Port Townsend. Charley’s father and Yee Kong’s father were brothers. About 1890 the laundry burned down, and the building was replaced. Eventually that building also burned and the family moved over to the King Tai Company building. About 1892, discouraged after twice losing their business, Yee Kong, his wife, and their two sons moved back to China.
In June 1907 the two brothers, (Ng) Ah Don and (Ng) Ah Yun, returned to Port Townsend on the Ex. S. S. Shawmut and applied to be admitted to the United States as U.S. citizens. Over a ten- day period they were interrogated and eventually admitted.
Ah Yun and Ah Don affidavit photos, 1907, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Ng Ah Yun case file, Seattle Box 621, file 7030/6363.
The file does not indicate where they stayed those ten days. The Port Townsend U.S. Customs House may have made some arrangements for them. Charley Quong, another Chinese man, and two Caucasian witnesses swore in affidavits about their knowledge of the brothers. They were shown photographs and asked to identify each one. Frank A. Bartlett said he had been a resident of Port Townsend for more than forty- two years. He was a member of C. C. Bartlett & Company, his father ’s general merchandise store, and sold laundry supplies to Yee Kong. C. C. Bartlett also rented a lot and a building to Yee Kong. After the building burned down, Yee Kong rented the land from Bartlett and built a two-story frame building for his laundry business. The Bartletts had a good working relationship with Yee Kong, and they both remembered seeing his young sons playing around the laundry.
Joseph Steiner also swore in an affidavit that he was acquainted with Yee Kong. Steiner owned a cigar store and had been a resident of Port Townsend since February 1888. Steiner patronized the Yee Wah Laundry, and Yee Kong brought his sons with him to the cigar store when he came to collect Steiner’s laundry fees and visit with him.
In Eng Yee Tung’s affidavit he testified that he was forty-four years old and was born in Pen On, Har Pang County, Sunning district, Province of Canton, China. He was the manager of the Yee Sing Wook Kee Company in Port Townsend. Around 1885 there were about one hundred Chinese in Port Townsend. Eng Yee Tung testified that he and about thirty or forty other Chinese attended a “shaving feast” to celebrate the birth of each of Yee Kong’s sons. This was a Chinese ritual in which a barber would shave off all but a small tuft of hair on the front of a male baby’s head about a month after the birth, then family and friends would gather to celebrate.[1]
Ah Don, age 21, was interviewed on 13 June 1907. Even though he was only five or six years old when he left Port Townsend for China, he was asked many of the same questions asked of the other adults. He testified that his uncle, Charley Quong, whose Chinese name was Bing Quong, lived next door to his father ’s house in China and that Charley’s father was Jet Hock, the brother of Hen Hock. In the interview Ah Don described his house—it had had two sleeping rooms, two kitchens and a worship room. He stated that his mother had a brother named Wong Sai Chuck, a farmer in China. The interviewer then gave Ah Don a genealogy lesson. He explained that Charley and Ah Don’s fathers were first cousins; therefore, Charley could not be his uncle. When asked if he had any first cousins, Ah Don responded: “Under the Chinese custom I call Bing Quong my uncle, but according to the American custom he is my cousin, but not my first cousin.” (He had learned his genealogy lesson and how to deal with interviewers.) He had no other cousins. His father had given him about $1,000 to come to the United States.
Ah Yun, age 18, was interviewed the next day; ten days after the brothers had arrived in Port Townsend. He was only three or four years old when he left the U.S. for China. He told the interviewer that the family name was Ng, although it was not always used. When Ah Yun called Charley Kong (Quong) his uncle, Mr. Monroe, the interviewer, gave him the same genealogy lecture he had given his brother. Ah Yun gave the same answers to the interview questions as his brother had. As one would expect, they both correctly identified the photographs of each other and of Charley Quong.
On 14 June 1907, the Acting Chinese Inspector in Charge interviewed Charley Quong about Ah Yun and Ah Don. An interpreter was present. Quite a bit of genealogical information was obtained in that interview. Charley Quong/ Bing Quong was by this time thirty-five years old and was working in a saloon in Port Townsend that was owned by Henry Rothschild. Quong was born in San Francisco, the son of Hen Hock and Chin Shee, the former being the son of Mon Fee. Hen Hock was born in China and his mother in San Francisco. His father died in Fresco, California about 1900, but his mother was still living there. His four sisters and three brothers were all born in the United States and were living in Fresno.
Charley Quong had married in San Francisco. Quong had made two trips to China, once in 1895 and again in 1901. He had registered each time before he left the country. The interviewer asked him why he had registered, since he was born in the United States. He replied, “Because every Chinaman was registering, and I thought I would do the same.” [It was odd that the interviewer asked Quong why he had registered, because in 1892 the Geary Act was passed, which expanded the 1882 exclusion act. It now required all Chinese to register and obtain a certificate of identity as proof of their right to be in the United States and to safely return when they left the country.]
The interviewer asked Quong many questions about his family in China. Charley Quong and his cousin Yee Kong had lived in the village of Song Cheong, sometimes called Song Clen, Song Lung or Song Leung. There were only two houses in the village and they each owned one of them. Quong lived there with his wife, his stepmother (his father ’s first wife), and his two sons.
Caucasians were considered more credible witnesses than Chinese, so it was important for returning Chinese to have white witnesses who could swear that they were respectable citizens. Even though information on Caucasians in the files is incidental and rarely indexed, there are sometimes tidbits of information about people who had working relationships with Chinese. Sometimes a witness might tell where they were living in the 1890s when no census records were available. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to find this information.[2]
Three months after Frank A. Bartlett and Joseph Steiner gave sworn statements about their knowledge of Ah Don and Ah Yun, the affiants gave witness testimony. Mr. Monroe asked Steiner how long he had lived in Port Townsend and Steiner replied that it had been a little over twenty years. Monroe came back with, “How much over twenty years?” Steiner replied that it had been twenty years in February. [Monroe was getting testy. He may have been feeling that he was wasting his time trying to disprove that the brothers were U. S. citizens.]
Steiner was asked to give the names of any Chinese that he remembered. He named six Chinese. He said he had never been to Yee Kong’s laundry because Yee Kong always called for it and delivered it back to him when done.
When Yee Kong’s former landlord, Frank A. Bartlett, was interviewed, he reported his occupation as both bookkeeper and merchant. He recounted that Yee Kong had paid various rents to him for his laundry–starting out at $15 a month, then $25 and finally $100, the latter being paid during boom times in Port Townsend. The first laundry was in a one-story building that was about twenty feet wide by 30 feet long. According to Bartlett, that building burned down about 1886. Bartlett then leased the land to Yee Kong for $100 a month and Yee Kong built a new laundry. He was there about five or six years until that building also burned down. [The dates were not always consistent from one person to another, but that did not seem to matter to the interviewer.]
After considering the evidence, Henry A. Monroe decided that Ah Don and Ah Yun were born in the United States. They were admitted to the country as returning native-born Chinese persons.
“Ah Yun, photo, Form 430,” 1913, CEA case files, RG 85, NARA-Seattle, #7030/6363.
To be continued in October 2022 blog post.
[1] “Chinese Customs: Interesting Rites are Connected with Birth—Vary According to Province,” The Burlington Free Press and Times, Burlington, New Jersey, 4 March 1920, p.8; accessed Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, 22 August 2022.
[2]Waverly B. Lowell, compiler, Chinese Immigration and Chinese in the United States: Records in the Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration, NARA, Reference Information paper 99, 1996, 1.
This case study was originally published in the Seattle Genealogical Society Bulletin. The citation for the complete article is: Trish Hackett Nicola, CG, “Chinese and the Northwest,” SGS (Seattle) Bulletin, 64-1 (Winter 2014) 39-47.
“Photo of Soong May Ling, Chinese Certificate for Section 6 Student Exemption,” 1907, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Soong May Ling case file, Seattle RS Box 39, RS 1483.
Soong May Ling (sometimes spelled Soong Mai-ling) age 9, and her sister, Soong Ching Ling, age 14, (Seattle RS Box 39, RS 1479) arrived in Port Townsend, Washington on the S.S. Minnesota. They came from their home in Shanghai, China as Section 6 students and were admitted.
The 1907 Section 6 Certificate is the only document in the file. The file contains correspondence from 1943 between Earl G. Harrison, Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Raphael P. Bonham, District Director of Immigration and Naturalization in Seattle, Washington. Harrison asked Bonham to confirm that Soong May Ling was admitted into Seattle as a student in 1907. Bonham replied that “a charming little Chinese maid” had arrived with her sister “now also a lady of renown.” Bonham asked a local Chinese Consul to examine the document for its authenticity. It passed his scrutiny. Bonham concluded that Soong May Ling “was the now world-famous and accomplished Madame Chiang Kai Shek.” Bonham had the photo from the 1907 certificate copied and sent three prints and the negatives to Harrison hoping that he would forward one to Madame Chiang Kai Shek.
Bonham received this letter dated 5 May 1943 from Harrison:
“Correspondence between Harrison and Bonham,” 1943, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Soong May Ling case file, Seattle RS Box 39, RS 1483.
Information not in the file:
Soong May Ling1 and her sister graduated from Wesleyan College. Soong Ching Ling became the second wife of Sun Yat-sen, one of the leaders of the 1911 revolution that established the Republic of China.2
In 1943, Madame Chiang Kai Shek “became the first Chinese person, and only the second woman, to address a joint session of the United States Congress as she sought to have the United States repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act, which had been in effect since 1882 and prohibited new Chinese immigration.”3
