Polly Noble’s Great Escape
A City Jailer's pet parrot, known for her conversational skills, escaped to the rooftops after being spooked by a neighborhood dog.
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.
City Jailer D. R. Noble lives on Yesler Avenue, and people passing by may have noticed a parrot on the front porch. Polly Noble was the name given her, and if asked about it she invariably replied: 'Polly Noble is a pretty girl.' There were many other stereotyped expressions which she used on proper occasions, one being, 'Good-bye.' Yesterday afternoon about 5 o'clock Mr. Noble took her out of the cage and allowed her to sit on the piazza railing while he fixed a twisted wire. As chance had it, a bird dog came running along the street and seeing Polly, made a jump for her. Polly made a jump, too, yelled 'good bye' to the jailer and flew down the hill, over the Transfer stables, and then back again to some point between Fourth and Sixth and Washington and Yesler Avenue, where she rested in security from even the jailer.
“Polly made a jump, too, yelled 'good bye' to the jailer and flew down the hill.”
While Pioneer Square is now a hub of density and tourism, this story captures a quieter, more domestic era of the district. The 'transfer stables' mentioned were a fixture of the city's pre-automobile economy, places where horses and carriages were managed for the growing town.
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