A Seattle Pioneer’s Unusual Passing
Margaret Harmon, owner of the New England Hotel, dies leaving behind a significant real estate footprint and a bizarre medical discovery.
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.
Mrs. Margaret Harmon, widow of the late L. C. Harmon, died at the residence of her son-in-law, E. H. Fisher, corner of Lane and Wilfred streets, night before last of heart disease. It was thought that death was hastened by an operation performed last February. For about eighteen years she had suffered from pains in the stomach. This led to the operation, which brought to light a chicken's wishbone. She had not the least idea when she swallowed it. The physicians do not think that the removal of the bone had anything to do with her death. Mrs. Harmon was a wealthy woman and a good woman. Her acts of charity were many, but done quietly. Her estate consists of the New England hotel property and land back of it, property at the corner of Alder and Seventh streets, lots on the line of the projected Lake Washington canal, and a ranch of 160 acres near Whatcom.
“For about eighteen years she had suffered from pains in the stomach. This led to the operation, which brought to light a chicken's wishbone.”
The 'New England Hotel' was a landmark of early Seattle's commercial district, located near the corner of Main and Commercial (now 1st Ave S), a footprint that was drastically reshaped by the Great Seattle Fire and later regrades. Harmon's story highlights the precarious nature of pioneer life, where stomach pains could be a mystery spanning nearly two decades.
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