The Vanishing Contractor of Mount Vernon
A local builder leaves behind unpaid debts and a trail of questions after vanishing from Mount Vernon on a midnight train.
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.
William Gilmer, of the firm Gilmer & Brereton, has not been seen since Wednesday, and his partner, James Brereton, believes he has absconded. Gilmer leaves several accounts behind him, and among those who mourn his sudden departure are United States Commissioner James Burnham, whose house on the west side Gilmer & Brereton had just completed. Burnham is out about $100 and Brereton is out in all several hundred dollars. Wednesday, Gilmer secured cash on two notes against Dr. H. S. Downs, aggregating $500, and the same night, telling his partner he was going to Belfast to see about lumber for a house they were to put up for Mrs. Rob Campbell, he took the midnight train going north and has not since been seen. Gilmer came to Mount Vernon about two years ago, and, among the buildings he has aided in putting up in the city, is the Great Northern hotel. It is said he came to Washington from Kansas. Little else is known of him. He is about 40 years old and has heretofore borne a good reputation.
“Gilmer leaves several accounts behind him and among those who mourn his sudden departure are United States Commissioner James Burnham.”
Contractors and builders vanishing with unpaid invoices or incomplete projects remains a persistent anxiety in construction-heavy cities like Seattle today. While the scale of the theft has shifted from local lumber accounts to massive development escrows, the sting of being left holding the bill by a trusted partner echoes clearly across the century.
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