The Brutal Departure from Commercial Street
After years of enduring her husband's violence and the destruction of her home, a Seattle woman seeks a divorce to save her young daughter.
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.
Papers were filed yesterday by attorney Clark Abbott in the case of Martha E. Pritt v. Joseph D. Pritt. The plaintiff, after stating in her complaint that she was married to the defendant at Portland, Oregon, in November 1880, sets forth that on July 7, 1886, in the city of Seattle, the defendant did, without cause, strike the plaintiff in the face with his fist, knocking her lip and otherwise severely injuring her so that he threatened to take her life with a bayonet, and he then led her to the street and a neighbor. When she returned to her home she found that her husband had made off with all her clothing, destroyed the furniture and domestic things to pieces. Since this occurrence the plaintiff alleges that she has not lived with the defendant, and asks the court for a divorce and that the child of her unhappy marriage, a little four-year-old girl, be in the custody and care of Mrs. Martha Baker, the mother of the plaintiff, to whom her husband is not to have the statement and care of the child. The husband and wife have resided for about two years in Seattle, and outside of the immediate neighbors no one knew of the cruelty of Pritt to his wife until the marriage documents set the complaint, which resulted completely taking up their true life together.
“The defendant did, without cause, strike the plaintiff in the face with his fist... so that he threatened to take her life with a bayonet.”
This 1886 divorce filing underscores the isolation of domestic abuse victims in a rapidly growing, frontier-era Seattle. While legal protections and societal resources have evolved, the struggle for safety and stability remains a persistent, harrowing thread in the fabric of the city's housing and domestic life.
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