Forced into Marriage in Tacoma
A young woman is reportedly coerced by her father to marry a miner against her prior engagement.
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.
In Tacoma, a young woman identified as Schaffer, aged 15 or 17, was married to William Miller, a 23-year-old miner. Friends of the bride claim her father forced the marriage, objecting to her engagement to a man named John McClannon, who had gone to the mines to earn money for their wedding expenses. After the ceremony, the couple left for Seattle.
“Her bosom friends say her father made her marry Miller because he objected to John McClannon, to whom she was engaged.”
This incident reflects the grim reality of patriarchal control over young women's lives in the 1890s, where marriage was often a family-negotiated transaction rather than an individual choice.
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