On October 3, 1885, a committee of fifteen was appointed to notify the Chinese that they must leave Tacoma on or before November 1. The committee included Mayor Jacob R. Weisbach, County Judge James Wickersham, Fire Chief Jacob Ralph, and other prominent businessmen and city officials. Frightened by threats, many Chinese left Tacoma before the deadline, but more than 200 remained. On November 3, 1885, an organized mob of armed men led by Tacoma’s mayor forcibly evicted the remaining Chinese from the city. They were marched eight miles to the Lake View train station, where they waited all night in the rain without shelter. The next morning, armed guards loaded them onto trains bound for Portland. Tacoma merchant Kwok Sue later testified that those who notified the Chinese to go said that if they did not leave, they would cut their throats, kill them, and destroy their property. In an affidavit of June 1886, Lum May said the men went to Chinese houses and establishments and ordered the Chinese to leave; where doors were locked, they broke into the houses, smashing doors and windows. He recalled seeing his countrymen marched out of Tacoma on November 3 as a sad spectacle, with some losing trunks and blankets and some crying for their things while armed white men on horseback urged them on in hard rain and wind. On November 5, incendiaries burned all the Chinese houses on the wharf.