The Unlikely Nihilist of Seattle
A Polish exile who survived the mines of Siberia and the horrors of Andersonville finds a new life in the Pacific Northwest.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mr. Ladinski, a Pole, was born in Warsaw in 1830. When six years old, he saw his mother kidnapped for refusing to tell her husband's whereabouts, and his father was captured and shot by order of the Tsar. Homeless at seven, he was adopted by a merchant in St. Petersburg. At fifteen, he killed a Russian soldier in a street brawl to defend a Jewish peddler, then fled the country. After escaping to London and later Brazil, he was kidnapped by Russian agents while attending a masquerade ball in Naples, imprisoned for six months, and sentenced to life in the Siberian mines. Five years later, he escaped with a fellow political prisoner, walking over a thousand miles to reach Austria and then England. After the American Civil War broke out, he came to the United States and enlisted as a private in the 49th New York, eventually rising to the rank of Major and surviving the notorious Andersonville prison. Now in Seattle, he claims membership in the Nihilist brotherhood, though he insists he and his companions are simply Americans looking to buy ranches in Colorado: 'We are not bloodthirsty villains.'
“We were Nihilists, but are now American citizens. America is a good enough country for us. We intend to live in Colorado. We are not bloodthirsty villains.”
This story captures a remarkable moment of international political trauma landing in 1887 Seattle. While we often think of the American frontier as isolated, this account reminds us that Seattle was a destination for global political refugees—specifically those fleeing the autocratic regimes of Europe—long before the city grew into a major global hub.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.