A Scandal in Fairhaven's Coffers
How one official's massive theft transformed city tax enforcement forever.
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 city council has established the tax levy for 1893 at 11 mills, 7 mills for general purposes and 4 mills to provide for interest on general municipal purpose bonds. The assessed valuation this year is much lower than in any previous year since the incorporation of the city. The council has also enacted an ordinance providing for the collection of all delinquent taxes, assessments, and licenses by the treasurer, instead of by the marshal and attorney, as heretofore. Had this same ordinance been in force two years ago, ex-Marshal W. G. Parker might still be doing police duty and smuggling opium here, as he would not have had an opportunity to feloniously appropriate $12,000 of public money and go into voluntary exile. Not a cent of the money has been recovered from his bondsmen and it is not at all likely that any of it ever will be.
“Had this same ordinance been in force two years ago, ex-Marshal W. G. Parker might still be doing police duty and smuggling opium here.”
Fairhaven, now the historic district of Fairhaven in Bellingham, was once a booming city that rivaled Seattle. This story captures the era's Wild West-style municipal corruption, where a town marshal could vanish with the entire public treasury—a reminder of how thin the line was between civic governance and organized graft in the 1890s.
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