Betrayal and Bloodshed at Chuckanut Bay
A poultry farming partnership in Bellingham ends in a horrific murder-suicide after years of mounting suspicion and personal strife.
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 terrible shooting affray, resulting in the death of two men, occurred about 2 o'clock this afternoon near the mouth of Chuckanut creek, which flows into Chuckanut bay about a mile and a half south of the business center of town. Two men, named Henry Horn and Charles Smith, were engaged in the poultry business there, for which Smith had furnished the capital, about $500, earned at hard labor. They lived together in a cabin, boarding themselves. For some time Smith has been suspicious that he was being defrauded by Horn, whose reputation was good. Neighbors say that this morning they had a bitter quarrel, shortly after which Horn left for town, as usual, to attend to the marketing, Smith ordering him not to return. Smith threw all of Horn's belongings out of doors, evidently resolved to kill him if he returned. Horn returned about 2 o'clock, not suspecting any serious trouble. The team had hardly stopped when Smith, who stood just outside the house, without saying a word, raised a double-barreled shotgun to his shoulder and fired the contents into Horn's bowels as he sat on the wagon. Horn fell forward to the ground and Smith clubbed him on the head with the butt of the gun. He then took another gun, walked away a few steps, and shot himself, as he had shot Horn, in the bowels, killing himself instantly. Horn lived several hours in great agony, but was conscious and able to talk. Both men were bachelors, without relatives here.
“Smith, who stood just outside the house, without saying a word, raised a double-barreled shotgun to his shoulder and fired the contents into Horn's bowels as he sat on the wagon.”
The area around Chuckanut Creek is now a scenic corridor famous for its natural beauty, a stark contrast to the grim reality of the 1890s when isolated homesteaders struggled with financial pressures and volatile disputes. It serves as a reminder that the early days of development in the Pacific Northwest were often fraught with desperate, small-scale violence that rarely makes the history books.
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