Wing Hong Tai Company, Archaeological Preservation Site at 210 East First Street, The Dalles, Oregon The site is owned by Eric B. Gleason and Jacqueline Y. Cheung, archaeologists.Eric Gleason showing Trish Hackett Nicola the plans for preserving the Wing Hong Tai Company building.
[In the original documents the company is sometimes referred to as the Wing Hong Tai Company and sometimes the Wing Hong Hai Company.]
The Dalles Wing Hong Tai [Hai] Co OwnersBusiness owners & residents, ca. 1900-1910: Lee Yuen Hong, Lee Dick, Lee Wing, and Lei On
Exhibits by The Friends of The Dalles Chinatown and the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum, 5000 Discovery Drive, The Dalles, OR
The Dalles: A Brief HistorySanborn Map of Chinatown, The Dalles, OR
The Sanborn map showing the location of the Wing Yuen Company and Chinese lodgings. Photos of Seid family, Wong Sen and Wong Gen Chuey, Lee Ho, Wa Poi, Toui See, Lee Sam, Lee Jeon Kue, Chan Shee, and Lee Tom.
Display of Artifacts from the Marilyn Urness Collection at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum
Columbia Gorge Discovery Center & Museum’s display of artifacts from the Marilyn Urness Collection. These artifacts were collected over fifty years and loaned to the museum. For more information see Marilyn Urness’s well-written historically researched and documented book, Chinatown, The Dalles, Oregon 1860-1930
Exhibit with photos of Lei On and Fook Doo at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center & MuseumTrish Hackett Nicola at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center & Museum
“Moy family photos,” ca. 1900,” Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, (Moy) Gee Hung case file, Seattle RS Box 62, RS 2478.
Photo Exhibit D & E – “taken in Boston” ca. 1900
Exhibit D – Moy Gee Pon (Henry), Moy Sam Sing holding Gee Hung, Moy Yut Gum (Annie)
Exhibit E – Moy Yut Gum (Annie), Moy Gee Hung, Moy Gee Pon (Henry)
In 1901 when he was five years old Moy Gee Hung, his parents, Moy Sam Sing and Kong Jung Chun, and his older sister, Annie, left Boston, Massachusetts and return to his parents’ home village at San How, Sun Ning District, China. His older brother Henry stayed in the U.S. with an uncle. His father didn’t stay in China long and returned to the U.S. to Portland, Oregon. His mother died in February 1906 and in 1909 Moy Gee Hung returned to the U.S. to join his father and brother in The Dalles, Oregon.
The interviews in the file focus on his father’s life. In the 1880s Moy Sam Sing was a merchant at Quong Sang Lung Company and San Sing Company in Boston, Massachusetts. He visited China, married Kong Jung Chun, and bought her back with him to Chicago. They had two children there, Annie Moy (born 1890) and Henry Moy (born 1893). After about five years in Chicago they moved to Washington, D. C. where according to Moy Gee Hung’s birth certificate in the file, he was born on 27 July 1894. Two years later they moved to Boston, Massachusetts.
Moy Sam Sing testified that when he originally came to the U.S. around the 1870s he lived in Portland, Oregon; St. Louis, Missouri; Chicago, Illinois; Providence, Rhode Island; returned to China (one year); Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Georgia; Jacksonville, Florida; returned to China (about one year); returned with wife to Chicago (6 or 7 years), Washington, D.C. (one year), Boston, returned to China, traveled on East Coast for three months, Tacoma (3 years), Seattle (one year), Vancouver, Washington (one year); The Dalles, Oregon (3 years to 1909).
He applied for naturalization in Atlanta, Georgia (ca. 1883-84) and took out his second papers in Jacksonville, Florida. (ca. 1888). The interrogator asked if he knew at the time that naturalization of Mongolians was forbidden by law. Moy didn’t know but thought if the court was willing to issue the papers to him he would find two citizens to act as witnesses. With the help of Mr. Jones, a lawyer in Boston, Moy Sam Sing applied for and obtained his U.S. passport. He paid a $5 fee.
Much of the nine-page interview of Moy Sam Sing refers to events in his life which did not pertain to his son, Gee Hung. The interrogator was bringing up in great detail old, serious wrongs that Moy Sam Sing had allegedly committed but had not been proven. Moy offered to produce two consuls of China, Moy Back Hin of Portland and Goon Dip of Seattle as sponsors of his credibility.
When Moy Gee Hung arrived in Seattle In September 1909 he was joining his father and brother in The Dalles, Oregon. They were his witnesses. Neither had seen Moy Gee Hung in over ten years when he was five years old. His father, Moy Sam Sing, did not have a good reputation. He was well-known to Immigration Service for suspected perjury, smuggling and other unlawful schemes involving prostitution.
Moy Sam Sing didn’t really know his son very well but he had the proper paper work—a birth certificate, family photos, and the potential backing of two prominent Chinese citizens of Portland. According to the Portland Inspector J. H. Barbour, “I have minutely scrutinized with a magnifying glass exhibits D and E, [the photos] and have compared the alleged presentments thereon with the photograph affixed to Gee Hung’s present papers. I find a considerable resemblance between the two….”
Seid Back Jr., a well-known attorney from Portland, Oregon wrote to Immigration Service in Seattle to let them know that he was representing Moy Gee Hung upon his arrival in the U.S. in 1909.
After considering oral and documentary evidence, Moy Gee Hung was approved for admission to the United States as a native born citizen.
In 1919 Moy Gee Hung was applying to leave the United States for a visit to Canada and had no problem getting his application approved.
“Seid Juck Family Portrait,” ca. 1917, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Seid Quay Fong (Foon) and Fung Shee case file, Portland, Box 31, 4242. [This undated, unidentified family portrait was included in the file. The people in the photograph are almost identical to other photos in the file: Fung Shee (mother), Seid Quay Foon (daughter), Sher Lun (adopted son), Seid Juck (father), and baby (probably born in 1916-17; not mentioned in the file). The photo was taken about 1917.]
Fung Shee and her daughter, Seid Quay Fong (or Foon), arrived at the port of Seattle, Washington on 3 June 1915 and were admitted four days later. Fung Shee’s husband, Seid Juck, was a merchant and manager of the Wing Yuen Company at 208 First Street in The Dalles, Oregon.
The file tells a complicated story. Seid Juck and his first wife adopted a son, Sher Lun. After Seid Juck’s wife died, his first cousin, Seid Dai, who was visiting in China from The Dalles, arranged for Fung Shee, a widow without children, to live in Seid Juck’s home and take care of Sher Lun. Seid Dai (sometimes referred to as Seid Ah Dai) was a fruit rancher and contractor for laborers for the Seufert Cannery in The Dalles, Oregon.
Fung Shee was thirty-one years old in 1915 and had bound feet. W. F. Watkins, Chinese and Immigrant Inspector in Portland, Oregon, explained the marriage situation in his report to J. H. Barbour, Inspector in Charge. Watkins said that Seid Juck and Fung Shee’s marriage was arranged by Seid Ah Dai and was “consummated by the bride coming to Seid Juck’s home to live.” “… according to Chinese custom, nothing additional in the way of ceremony is necessary when the bride is a widow.” Seid Juck arrived in China in October 1912 about a year after the marriage to Fung Shee took place. He returned to The Dalles in May 1913 with his son Sher Lun. His daughter, Quay Foon, was born four month later in China. Seid Sher Lun, age 11 in 1915, was attending school in The Dalles in Grade 2A in Miss Sebring’s class.
Seid Juck’s marriage name was Seid Sing Gee. He was 52 years old in 1915. Other members of the Wing Yuen Company were Seid Wah My, salesman and buyer; Seid Lup, silent partner; Seid Wah Yim, bookkeeper and salesman; Seid Sui, silent partner; and Seid Sing, silent partner. The company’s annual sales were $5,000.
F. A. Seufert, Jr. was a witness for Seid Juck’s 1912 trip to China. Seufert had known Seid Juck for about 12 or 14 years. He swore that Seid Juck was a bonafide merchant and performed no manual labor except that was necessary in the conduct of his business at the Wing Yuen Company.
Arthur Seufert, age 37, was born in San Francisco and lived in The Dalles, Oregon for 35 years. He was a member of his family’s salmon cannery, Seufert Brothers Company, and swore he knew Seid Juck and his partner, Seid Wah Yim, for several years. The brothers both gave favorable and positive statements for Seid Juck.
There is no information about Fung Shee in the file after 1915. In 1926, a letter in the file states that their daughter, Seid Quay Foon, age 14, applied for and received a Certificate of Identity.
“Affidavit photos of Wong Ling, Wong Gwan Jing and Chun Shee” 1915, Chinese Exclusion Act case files, RG 85, National Archives-Seattle, Chun Shee and Wong Gwan Jing case file, Portland, Box 31, Case 4263.
In November 1915, Wong Ling, alias Chew Kee, age 55, a merchant and member of the Chew [Chu] Kee Co., 214 Front Street (formerly 130 Front Street), The Dalles, Oregon, submitted papers seeking admission into the United States for his wife and son. Three white witnesses swore that Wong Ling was a merchant and met the mercantile status required by law by not engaging in prohibited manual labor. R. P. Bonham, Chinese Inspector, stated, “the case is either genuine or else has been concocted with greater cleverness and recited with far more guile than is usual with a case arising in a country town.”
During questioning, Mr. Bonham found that Wong Ling had been issued certificate of residence #43730 (issued in 1894 in Portland, Oregon) and certificate of identity #2562 (issued in Seattle in 1911). Since it was not Immigration’s policy to have two identification documents for one person, the certificate of identity was sent to Seattle for cancellation.
Wong Ling’s white witnesses were Edward H. French, a banker, president of French & Company and long-time resident of The Dalles; L. A. Schanne, a hardware and grocery merchant who had lived in The Dalles for 40 years; and Edward Kurtz, Chief of Police, a resident of The Dalles since 1894. They all had known Wong Ling for 15 to 20 years.
Wong Ling testified that his marriage name was Hong Gwoon (or spelled Hong Quin). He was born in Ging Bui Village, Sun Wui district, China and had made two trips to China. In K.S. 15 (1889) he left and returned the next year via San Francisco. In K.S. 32* (1906) he left from Sumas, Washington and returned at Seattle. He had been living in the United States about 32 years. He and his brother, Wong Cheong, were partners in Chew Kee Company.
Wong Ling’s first wife died in K.S. 32 (1906) when she was about 36 years old. They had two children. His son and his family were living “on the small door side” of Wong Ling’s house in China. His brother’s family lived in their father’s house “on the big door side.”
Wong Ling married his second wife, Chun Shee, about four months after his first wife died. A woman named Ngan Ho arranged the marriage. They were married on a market day, either the 18th or 22nd, 9th month, K.S. 32* (1906) and the feast lasted one day. Their son, Gwan Jing, was born one month after Wong Ling returned to the U.S. In 1915 his son was five years old and was about to meet his father for the first time.
Wong Ling’s Chinese witness was Liu Chung, marriage name Shung Nguen, who lived in San Francisco but visited The Dalles occasionally. He recognized Wong Ling’s wife, Chun Shee, from a photo. He had only seen her briefly when his visit to China coincided with Wong Ling’s visit. Even though he had a meal at their home in their village he said “…according to our custom, just as soon as a lady sees a man she withdraws and keeps away.”
Chun Shee was interviewed twice, on 22 October 1915 and on 5 November. She and her son Wong Gwan Jing, age 5, arrived in Seattle on the 22nd. She was 28 years old and had married at age 19. Her maiden name was Ah Gon. The interviewer asked about a servant girl, Chun Moy, who lived in the household for about four years. She was security for a debt and when her father paid off the loan, she left and was married. Chun Shee was asked the same questions her husband was asked. There were only minor discrepancies in their answers. After two weeks [most likely in detention] she and her son were admitted to the United States.
[The file gives a lot of information about the family, house and land holdings of Wong Ling in his village in China.]
[Usually each person would have a separate file. The information for Chun Shee and her son, Wong Gwan Jing, is all together in one file.]
*K.S. 32 is during the reign of Kang Shi, or about 1906.
Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files 