The Saloon Brawl That Mistakenly Made Headlines
A tavern fight in Hamilton, Washington, turned into a minor civic ordeal when a local justice of the peace panicked and assumed a man had been murdered.
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.
A gentleman who arrived from Hamilton today gives the following story of the Addington fracas: Addington is part owner of the Mountain View saloon. Sunday night he was tending bar late, and Swan Peterson, a large Norwegian, was drunk and quarrelsome. After playing cards nearly all night, Peterson and Addington got into a quarrel and Peterson went behind the bar to whip Addington, who, to save himself, floored the big Norwegian with a beer mug. After carrying him away and working for some time to bring him to, Addington went to bed. Justice of the Peace K. O. Walders came to town and hearing of the trouble at once jumped to the conclusion that Peterson was dead and Addington had fled. He sent telegrams out intended to intercept Addington in all directions. Later Addington came down and was promptly arrested. When I left he was about to give bonds. Peterson, the doctor says, will recover. Swan Peterson is well known in Seattle, having made his home here for several years. He helped construct the Seattle stock yards and did other work for the McNaughts.
“Justice of the Peace K. O. Walders came to town and hearing of the trouble at once jumped to the conclusion that Peterson was dead and Addington had fled.”
Local news in the 1890s was often shaped by the rapid, sometimes erroneous, reactions of frontier lawmen. Much like today's digital rumors spreading faster than facts, this historical misunderstanding highlights how small-town social tensions in Seattle's satellite communities were amplified by telegraphic bureaucracy.
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