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The Festive Burglar of North Seattle

A bold intruder uses skeleton keys to clean out a home on West Street while the occupant is at church.

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 festive burglar reveled in clover last Sunday night at the residence of Mrs. Ella F. Cushman, 2214 West street, North Seattle. Mrs. Cushman went to church, leaving the house without occupants. The burglar took advantage of the situation, entered by the aid of skeleton keys and made himself at home. When Mrs. Cushman returned he had gone, however, and with him $40 in cash, a gold and nickel watch and a considerable amount of wearing apparel. No arrests have been reported.

“The festive burglar reveled in clover last Sunday night.”

— Printed in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893
Then · 1893133 years apartNow · 2026

While West Street (now effectively 1st or 2nd Avenue near Belltown/Denny Regrade) looks nothing like it did in 1893, the anxiety of returning home to find one's privacy violated remains a constant in Seattle's urban experience.

The original page

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-06-15. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

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About this story

From
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, JUN 15, 1893, Page 2
Rights
Public domain
Place
47.61307, -122.34566 · placed automatically
The paper in the Library of Congress catalog ↗