The Disappearance of Miss Nellie Holgate
A young clerk vanishes during a rowing trip on Lake Washington, leaving behind her boat, a bonnet, and a sinister trail of missing pearl buttons.
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.
Miss Nellie Holgate, a clerk in the cloak department at the MacDougall & Southwick Company, has disappeared, and it is believed she was drowned in Lake Washington Wednesday evening while out rowing in a rough sea. Her bonnet, sack, and boat were found on the shore about half a mile north of Madrona Park yesterday afternoon. Miss Holgate was a bright and lively woman who loved to row. After leaving her boarding house at the Vendome, she took a car to the lake. Wallace Barnes, who rented her the boat, noted that she was an experienced rower. When she failed to return, a search party from her store and boarding house was formed. They found her boat drifting, and further along the shore, her bonnet and her sack. The sack had been tampered with—the five large pearl buttons had been cut off, presumably for their value, and her handkerchief lay on the ground nearby. While police are investigating, friends worry that foul play may be involved.
“The soil along the shore showed no sign of a struggle, but the fact that the buttons were gone from her sack the theory of foul play was advanced.”
The mystery of Nellie Holgate reflects the dangers and uncertainties of turn-of-the-century urban life for working women. Her disappearance, which occurred near what is now Madrona Park, underscores how the landscape of Seattle—once a place of rugged, isolated recreational spots—has transformed into the densely populated, manicured neighborhood it is today.
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