A Final Adjournment for Colonel Haines
Seattle’s legal community gathers to mourn one of its own, suspending court business to honor a life of service and the harsh reality of illness.
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.
The members of the King County Bar Association met at 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon at the courthouse to take action on the death of Colonel J. C. Haines. There was a large representation of the bar present. Mr. J.J. McGilvra formally announced the death of Colonel Haines, saying, ‘He was a man who, if he had a fault, it was that he was too generous; his heart was open to all who needed help.’ Mr. Barnes spoke of the tragedy of the illness that brought about this meeting: ‘I called on the Colonel at his rooms when I found him alone, he having been abandoned by those he had befriended. He was left in such loneliness, and that he was allowed to pass away in such state, with all his brilliance and talent, is a shame.’ A committee was appointed to appear in court and move for an adjournment until Wednesday. John R. Kinnear moved that a copy of the resolutions be presented to the judges in banc and spread upon the minutes of each court, which was carried.
“He was a man who, if he had a fault, it was that he was too generous; his heart was open to all who needed help.”
This 1886 scene captures a moment where the legal establishment paused for a fallen peer, a ritual of civic life that remains a bedrock of the profession. While the location of the old courthouse has long since shifted, the tension between professional public status and the isolation of terminal illness—so poignantly noted by Mr. Barnes—remains a timeless human struggle in a city that is still learning how to care for its own.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.