A Tragic End for Seattle’s Youngest Newsboy
The short life of Freddy Sherman, a child who helped support his family by selling papers, cut short by a trolley accident.
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.
Freddy Sherman, who was probably the youngest newsboy in the city, died on Wednesday morning from injuries received last Friday while jumping from an electric car. Freddy was a lovely child whose sweet face and brilliant black eyes made many friends. Not yet eleven years old, he helped support his widowed mother by selling papers and was generally seen in the evening on the corner of Second and Pike streets. Mrs. Sherman lost a daughter last spring and has had a hard struggle to maintain the two children left. Extremely delicate in health, she is completely prostrated by the terrible accident that killed her boy. The burial service will be held at the house, 314 Union street, this afternoon at 2:30.
“Not yet 11 years old, he helped to support his widowed mother by selling papers.”
This tragedy underscores the precarity of child labor in 1890s Seattle, where street-vending was a common but dangerous survival strategy. Today, the corner of Second and Pike sits in the heart of a bustling, modern retail district, a stark contrast to the vulnerable street life once endured by children like Freddy.
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