Miner Gershall Wardpil Dies by Suicide in 1872
An itinerant worker seeking a new start in the Washington territory ends his own life, leaving behind only a watch and a pocket of cash.
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.
Yesterday morning about 11 o'clock an Indian woman, while picking berries in the woods back of the View House, discovered the body of a man hanging on a small cherry tree. She immediately notified parties who cut him down but life was extinct. At the inquest, the following facts were discovered: He came from San Francisco, where he had a family, on the last trip of the Prince Alfred, intending to work at Freeport at his trade, as he was a first-rate miner. Yesterday morning he started out for a walk and was never seen alive again. His name was Gershall Wardpil. When found, he had a fine gold watch on his person and $80 in his pocket. It is supposed that his brain was affected by neuralgia, from which he had suffered for some time.
“Yesterday morning he started out for a walk and was never seen alive again.”
This 1872 report captures the isolation often felt by itinerant workers moving through the Puget Sound region during the territory's early industrial expansion. Today, while we have better language for the mental health struggles once attributed to physical ailments like 'neuralgia,' the vulnerability of those arriving in a new city seeking work remains a haunting constant in Seattle's history.
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