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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1862 | 1 |
| 1864 | 1 |
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| 1876 | 4 |
| 1877 | 3 |
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| 1882 | 2 |
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122 stories matching cruel
- The Revolver in the Parlor: A Grocer's Case for Divorce
Threats to shoot him, a revolver produced in a rage, a locked door with mother and child inside — a Seattle grocer's complaint laid out what "cruel treatment" had to look like in 1895.
- The Vigilantes' Ghost: Seattle's Dark Secret in Two Maple Trees
A poem published in the *Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer* reveals the city’s foundational myth: that its current 'peaceable' order was bought with the blood of six men hanged by a secret committee when the law failed to act.
- The Ghost of the Gatherer: A Captain’s Suicide Haunted by His Own Cruelty
Decades after a horrific voyage where officers maimed and murdered sailors to escape their 'demoniac' captain, the master of the ship dies by suicide in Puget Sound, fulfilling a prophecy of vengeance.
- A School Girl Takes a Stand
A local student writes to the paper to challenge the community's hypocrisy regarding the treatment of animals.
- She Divorced Her Husband, Married Him Again, and Had to Do It Twice
A Seattle judge grants Olive Blanche Rogerson her child, Kitsap land and a canceled mortgage after a remarriage that repeated the cruelty of an earlier Minnesota divorce.
- The Brutal Spectacle at West Seattle
Protesters condemn the planned Fourth of July pigeon shoot as cruel and lacking in true sportsmanship.
- The Jealousy That Shut Down a Shop: A Seattle Woman’s Fight for Livelihood
In 1888, a Seattle lumber shop owner saw her business destroyed not by market forces, but by the petty sabotage of her customers' wives. Her story reveals the fragile economic existence of women in the frontier city.
- Walla Walla Woman Files for Divorce Amid Abuse Allegations
Emma Lewis files for divorce and a restraining order against her husband, citing a pattern of violent abuse and choking.
- The Husband Who Had Enough: A Domestic Dispute of 1877
A rare 19th-century report of a King County man seeking divorce on the grounds of domestic abuse, citing his wife's 'cruel and inhuman treatment.'
- A Divorce Suit With Dynamite in the Details
Cora Heaton accuses her husband of jealousy, vile language, and threats; he does not answer the complaint.
- The Deserted Family of Seattle
A husband is sued for divorce in 1872 on the grounds of cruel neglect and failure to provide for his family.
- The Great Exodus: Aberdeen’s Chinese Community Vanishes in the Night
A local editorial and a sympathetic 'Communicated' letter reveal the forced departure of Aberdeen’s Chinese residents, highlighting both the racial hostility that drove them out and the rare moral outcry against their mistreatment.
- The Governor’s Unacknowledged Son
A condemned prisoner in the city jail delivers a final, shattering letter to the Governor, revealing a secret connection that exposes the cruel indifference of the ruling class.
- The Tragedy of Ursula Unfag
In a sensational murder trial, defense attorneys reveal a harrowing cycle of abuse and exploitation behind the death of a local editor.
- The Fiendish 'Joke' at the Seattle Waterfront
A saloon keeper is arrested for a brutal assault on an intoxicated man, having stuffed a burning newspaper into the man's throat as a spectacle for his patrons.
- The Missing Will That Would Have Given Seattle a Library
Henry Yesler's widow and two doctors are arrested, accused of burning a will that left the pioneer's fortune—and his mansion—to the city.
- A Desperate Escape in a Boarding House
After years of alleged domestic abuse, a young woman in a Third Avenue boarding house attempts to end her life.
- A Circular Saw Opened His Skull—and He Stayed Conscious
At the Stetson Post Mill on Commercial Street, engineer Horatio Stetson crawled under a rip-saw table to fix a belt. The saw caught his head, cutting through bone and into his brain, yet he never lost consciousness.
- The Sawdust in Your Spice Cabinet
A Seattle newspaper exposé from 1888 reveals that the city's food supply was being systemically poisoned by greed, with sawdust in spices and grease in butter.
- The Mysterious Death on Mercer Island
A secret society lodge mourns the loss of a prominent member killed in an ambush on the shores of Lake Washington.
- A Child's Plea for Help
A three-year-old girl leads an officer to a locked room to rescue her mother from an abusive husband.
- The Strange Devotion of Mrs. Boyd
Fresh from an acquittal on criminal charges, Mrs. Boyd navigates her complicated reputation, legal letters, and a future dictated by newfound public scrutiny.
- The Divorce of the 'Pretty Little Cripple'
A husband’s suit for divorce against his wife, whom he accused of erratic behavior and opium use, reveals a harrowing counter-claim of domestic abuse in 1893 Seattle.
- The Poet-Waiter Who Drowned in Seattle Harbor
C. W. Chantrell came from a noble French family and carried a love poem in his pocket. He died broke, alcoholic, and alone on the steamer Idaho—and Seattle's coroner called it an accident.
- Sailors Sue the Ship Challenger Over Abuse at Sea
Eight sailors sue for wages and damages after allegedly being beaten with clubs and belaying pins during a voyage from Philadelphia to Tacoma.
Also about this, in other words
- The Mob's Cruel Gamble: A Wrongful Lynching Attempt in Rosalia
A husband and wife were dragged into a horrific ordeal by a lynch mob convinced of their guilt in a missing child case—only to discover the child had been safe all along.
- The Judge's Cruel Calculus
A Seattle widow’s quest for justice in court meets a cold, misogynistic dismissal from the bench.
- A Brutal End for a Balky Horse
A North Seattle man kills his horse after it refuses to move, drawing the attention of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
- A Brutal Case of Animal Cruelty
A Richland rancher faces local justice after beating his horse until exhaustion.
- A Father’s Cruel Abandonment
A Seattle physician leaves his children in the care of a stranger and vanishes without payment or provision, exposing the vulnerability of local families to predatory abandonment.
- The Cruelest Con: Fake Letters From the Sickroom
Police say an Englishman charmed strangers, learned their children’s addresses, then mailed desperate pleas for medical money.
- The City’s Cruel Gatekeeping of Life
A man lay injured, but the city refused to pay for his emergency care, highlighting a systemic failure in the treatment of the city's vulnerable.
- The Fight Against Classroom Brutality
After the conviction of two teachers for beating a student in Chewelah, the P-I condemns corporal punishment as a 'relic of a dolorous age.'