The Mercer Slough Fugitive
After escaping Steilacoom asylum by turning blankets into a rope, William Miller—a man once acquitted of a high-profile Lake Washington murder—is on the loose, sparking terror in the homes near Mercer Slough.
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.
An inmate of the Steilacoom asylum named Miller has escaped and is said to be a dangerous man when in a frenzy. He was committed from King County and escaped by converting his blankets into a rope ladder. William Miller has twice been in the insane asylum. After he was acquitted, with his father, sister, and brother, of the murder on February 7, 1886, on Lake Washington, of J. Manning Colman and William Pattou, he became violently insane and a terror to the people along Mercer Slough. In 1887 he was committed to the asylum at Steilacoom and has been discharged and recommitted several times since. During the latter part of 1890, after a few months' confinement in the asylum, he was considered cured and was discharged, returning to his father's farm on Mercer Slough and living quietly. Last October he again went mad and one night, about 12 o'clock, he tried to murder the family of Isaac K. McKnight, whose farm adjoins the old Miller homestead, firing several shots through the front door. He failed in injuring anyone and in gaining an entrance. The same night he shot and killed a horse and two cows belonging to another farmer and burned the house of John C. Kohler, who lived about half a mile from Knight's farm. The Kohler family barely escaped with their lives in their night clothes. When arrested, Miller swore that if he ever escaped from the asylum he would return to Mercer Slough and kill every one who lived in the neighborhood.
“When arrested, Miller swore that if he ever escaped from the asylum he would return to Mercer Slough and kill every one who lived in the neighborhood.”
This story captures a moment of intense rural anxiety in what was then the outskirts of Seattle. Today, Mercer Slough is a protected nature park and urban wetland, a starkly different setting from the frontier-era fear of a neighbor-turned-fugitive that dominated the discourse in 1892.
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