The Great Escape at the Seattle Dock
A man adjudged to be insane mounts a desperate, final bid for freedom as he is being escorted to the state asylum.
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.
W. A. Valois, who was adjudged by a jury in the Probate Court to be insane, was taken to the Territorial Insane Asylum at Steilacoom. Bailiff Coombs was in charge of the unfortunate state man, and when he boarded the steamer with the hapless frame of Mr. Valois, Mr. Valois knew perfectly what he was doing and had Mr. Coombs been equally as well informed he would not have had nearly such a run before the boat pulled out. The bailiff walked onto the steamer without any hesitation, but just as the last line was cast off, he ran up the gangplank and onto the dock at an extremely rapid pace. 'Stop that man! Give that fellow a chance!' he shouted excitedly, and then everybody stood back to see the race. When Officer Mills grabbed Mr. Valois and held him until Bailiff Coombs came up, Valois said, 'You couldn't have caught me,' and then without another word, the man between the two officers of the law stepped back onto the boat. Mr. Valois is tolerably well-to-do, and his family and friends in this city are greatly distressed over the event.
“You couldn't have caught me.”
This vignette reflects the 19th-century practice of civil commitment where individuals, often without modern due process, were bundled onto steamships for transport to state institutions. Today, the intersection of mental health and civic control remains a contentious issue in Seattle, as the city debates the balance between state-mandated care and individual liberty.
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