The Tragedy at the Log House
A murder-suicide on Madison Street leaves a wealthy widow and her spurned partner dead, exposing a complex web of jealousy and property disputes.
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.
The little log house standing among fruit trees near the Madison street power house was the scene of a terrible tragedy yesterday morning. Mrs. Mary Jensen, aged 51 and worth approximately $100,000, was murdered by N. A. Sandborn, her partner of eight years, who then took his own life. Letters found on Sandborn addressed to the public detail his grievances, specifically naming a younger man, Frank McKinley, as the rival who supplanted him in Mrs. Jensen's affections. Mrs. Jensen was discovered on her back on a bed with a bullet wound behind the left ear, while Sandborn sat nearby with a revolver in his hand. Mrs. Jensen, an immigrant from Sweden, was a shrewd investor who owned fifty lots and several houses. Her death marks the end of a long, troubled relationship defined by disputes over her property and her recent interest in McKinley.
“I do not care for the money or Mrs. Johnson, but more for the trouble that she has made me. Ladies and gentlemen, I am not a hard-hearted fellow. I have cried like a child for her.”
This 1899 tragedy occurred in a Seattle that was rapidly urbanizing around original homesteads, mirroring the tension between old-timers and newcomers that still shapes the city's growth. The Madison Street corridor, once the site of 'log houses' and orchards, is now a dense urban hub, but the patterns of property wealth and personal conflict remain a constant in the local discourse.
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