The Tragedy of August Peters
A laborer, driven to despair, takes his own life in the Kent town jail after a series of failed attempts to find peace.
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.
August Peters, an employee at the Smith Company lumber mill near Kent, committed suicide early yesterday morning in a deliberate manner by hanging himself in the lock-up with a strip torn from a blanket. Peters came to Marshal Zimmer at Kent Tuesday afternoon and asked to be locked up for the night. He presented a pitiable condition, with his face cut and bleeding, and said that he had been wandering in the woods for two days without food. The day before he took off his suspenders, tied them to the limb of a tree, then around his neck, but when he dropped they broke and prevented him from ending his life. On one occasion, some time before, he drew a razor across his throat, but missed a vital spot and lived. He told the marshal that if he would let him sleep in the lock-up he would get some money coming to him from the mill company and go away. In accordance with his request he was put in one of the cells. When the marshal went to the prison yesterday morning he found his lodger hanging by his neck. The coroner decided that an inquest was unnecessary, and the body will be buried at the county's expense, as Peters' personal property amounts to but $2.50.
“He presented a pitiable condition, with his face cut and bleeding, and said that he had been wandering in the woods for two days without food.”
This account of a desperate, itinerant laborer highlights the lack of a social safety net for vulnerable workers in late 19th-century Washington. The tragedy of a man seeking safety in a jail cell only to meet his end there remains a sobering reflection on the intersection of poverty and state infrastructure, an issue that continues to challenge Seattle and its suburbs today.
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