The Tailor Who Floated
A tailor discovered dead in Lake Washington defied the depths thanks to a gruesome phenomenon of physics.
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 body of Frederick Williams, a tailor, was found floating in Lake Washington, midway between Leschi Park and East Seattle, yesterday afternoon. His coat was bulging at the back in such a manner as to form an air bag, which prevented him from sinking. There is no positive evidence that he committed suicide, but judging from his financial condition, Coroner Horton believes he took his own life. Williams had been out of work for two weeks and was a hard drinker. Yesterday morning, he raised a loan of $1.50 on his shears, hired a boat at Leschi Park, and rowed into the lake. When rescuers found him, his coat was puffed up with air, keeping him afloat like a half-closed jackknife. Williams was about 55 years old and a native of Stockholm, Sweden.
“His coat was bulging at the back in such a manner as to form an air bag, which would not let him sink.”
Lake Washington remains a place of mystery and beauty, though the industrial Leschi Park of the 1890s has long since transitioned into a quiet residential neighborhood. This story captures the desperation of the city's transient labor force in the late 19th century—men who moved between tailoring shops and boarding houses, often ending up in the city's dark statistics.
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