The Ghostly Discovery at Lake Union
A routine walk in the woods turns into a macabre mystery when a Seattle resident stumbles upon a shallow, suspicious grave.
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.
Seymour Whitmore, who lives near the Lake Union water works, made a discovery in the woods near there Wednesday that could not have been more unsettling had he been of a timid disposition. He found a man’s hat under a tree, and near it, what appeared to be a grave. After noting these points he hurried home and called his father, and they both returned to the spot to examine it more thoroughly. Upon digging out the loose earth, they discovered a rope which was marked with blood. This, with the hat, only increased their fears that some dreadful crime had been committed. A careful examination of the site developed nothing which afforded an explanation of the mystery. Mr. Whitmore reported the matter to Sheriff Cochrane, and an investigation is currently underway. One theory is that this is the place in which was buried the remains of the man who was found hanging near there some time early last month. After the body had been buried by someone—perhaps a medical student hoping to procure the body for dissection—someone else may have dug it up. The finding of the hat is, of itself, not considered of such consequence, but in connection with the bloody rope and grave, it suggests that something occurred which no one is able to explain.
“This, with the hat, only increased their fears that some dreadful crime had been committed.”
In the 1880s, the area around Lake Union was still a rugged, forested frontier where the city's growth collided with the macabre. While modern day Lake Union is a hub of tech offices and houseboats, stories of 'medical students' and illicit grave-robbing were surprisingly common at the time, reflecting a city struggling to regulate the reach of its own institutions.
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