A Heartbroken Search for a Stolen Boy
A Seattle man heads to Denver to rescue his adopted son, kidnapped from a Yesler Avenue home.
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.
John E. Good, whose adopted son, Frank Darreil Good, was kidnapped on August 15 by Mrs. James C. Gibbs, is currently in Denver attempting to recover the boy. His daughter, Miss Josie I. Good, says the family resides at the corner of Wilfred Street and Yesler Avenue. She explained that the boy’s mother, a widow named Mrs. Morton Darreil, passed away in the Seattle fire, leaving the child to her father’s care via a will and a solemn oath. The child was legally adopted. Mrs. Gibbs, who had lived in Seattle previously, visited the family in July and was permitted to take the boy out on occasion. On August 15, she asked to take the boy downtown for a photograph and never returned. Mr. Good promptly notified the police, who tracked Mrs. Gibbs to Denver.
“The mother of the boy, Mrs. Morton Darreil, a widow, was so badly injured in the Seattle fire that she was about to die. She made a will, giving the boy to father, and she made him take a solemn oath to care for and protect little John.”
Kidnapping cases in the 1890s often relied on public appeals through the press, as communication was slow and police tracking was rudimentary. Today, the corner of Yesler and what was then Wilfred (now approximately the intersection with 12th or 14th Ave) represents the heart of early Seattle's residential expansion, now densely built up but still holding the echoes of these domestic dramas.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.