Vigilante Justice in Shelton
A local dispute over stolen money devolves into a gunpoint standoff on the water near Shelton.
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.
Ellsworth Freeburger was today bound over in $1,000 to appear before the superior court on a charge of highway robbery. A short time ago May Williams, Shelton's lone courtesan, picked up Freeburger's purse containing a few dollars and kept it. She was arrested, but the testimony was insufficient to hold her. Yesterday, it is said, Freeburger followed May and Ben Simmons out in a boat and held them up at the point of a gun, forcing them to deliver up all that they had. May had Freeburger arrested with the above result.
“Yesterday, it is said, Freeburger followed May and Ben Simmons out in a boat and held them up at the point of a gun.”
This brief account of a violent dispute over a stolen purse captures the rough-and-tumble nature of frontier justice in the Washington Territory. It highlights the precariousness of life for those operating on the fringes of society in small logging towns, where private grievances were settled with weapons rather than courts.
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