The Conductors' Deception and the Streetcar Showdown
A bigamous electric car conductor is chased through the streets of Seattle by two women he had convinced he was their husband.
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.
Four divorces were granted by Judge Osborn yesterday, all for abandonment and failure to support. One of the cases, of Mary Mudgett against Albert W. Mudgett, has a history behind it. The story is a sensational one: Mudgett was a conductor on a North Seattle electric car. Soon after his arrival in Seattle, he became acquainted with Mrs. Debbie, a widow he had known in the East. They became engaged, but before the wedding, he met Miss Mary Groves. He induced Miss Groves to go with him to Victoria, B.C., where they were married. When Mudgett later behaved coldly, Miss Groves discovered the Victoria ceremony was a sham. She confronted him with a revolver, forcing him into a legal marriage. Later, Mudgett tried to deceive Mrs. Debbie, claiming his marriage license was for an entirely different man. Eventually, the two women met and realized the deception. They tracked his car to the corner of Temperance Street and rode back and forth until midnight, keeping Mudgett in a state of abject terror. Mudgett was heartily glad when the ordeal was over, hastily left the city, and did not return to contest the divorce.
“They tracked his car to the corner of Temperance Street and rode back and forth until midnight, keeping Mudgett in a state of abject terror.”
While this reads like a classic farce, it highlights the vulnerability of women in the 1890s regarding legal marriage and the lack of social protections. Public 'shaming' as a form of frontier justice remains a recurring, if evolving, theme in urban accountability.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.