The Mystery of Old Doctor’s Death
A letter from a Neah Bay reservation challenges the official verdict of natural causes in the death of a tribal elder, fueling rumors of a blood feud.
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.
A letter has been received from Young Doctor, a Neah Bay Indian, whose father, Old Doctor, was found dead during the hop-picking season near Kent. The letter reads: 'Two years ago Neah Bay Indian Gilbert brought a horse from Seattle to this reservation, which he was afterward tried for at Seattle for stealing. He was acquitted. The man who accused him of stealing the horse then said he would have revenge by killing a Neah Bay Indian. This year my father, Old Doctor, went to Seattle to pick hops and was killed by these Indians.' The writer further claims that an exchange of threatening letters followed between the horse owner and the chief of the Neah Bay tribe. W. A. Jowett, former Indian agent at Neah Bay, expressed doubt regarding the chief's alleged reply, suggesting the letter's true intent was to force the return of the horse. Old Doctor was found dead last September in a hut up the Duwamish valley; while rumors of a murder-revenge plot circulated at the time, an inquest concluded he died of natural causes.
“The object of this letter is to get some revenge out of Gilbert by forcing him to give up the horse.”
The Duwamish Valley, where the elder was found, remains a site of contested history and memory for Indigenous communities. The friction between legal inquests and the personal testimony of families echoes long-standing concerns about how the state documents—or ignores—the deaths of marginalized individuals.
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