A Final Request for Mercy
A desperate railroad worker took his own life in a Second Street hotel, leaving behind a note confessing he was struggling to suppress a violent urge to kill.
James L. Wheatley, an intelligent-looking man who claimed to have followed railroading for a business, committed suicide yesterday afternoon by drinking nearly an ounce of carbolic acid in Room 19 of the Queen City Hotel on South Second Street. Having repented his action, he rushed into a neighboring drug store for aid, but died before the antidote took effect. He explained in a letter found in his pocket that he resorted to self-destruction to avoid committing murder. Wheatley arrived from Minneapolis last Monday. After taking the poison, he walked into Closson & Kelly's drug store, saying, 'I have taken a drink of carbolic acid to commit suicide. I have been out of work, am despondent because I could not get employment and wanted to die. Now I want to be saved, because I regret my action.' Despite receiving sweet almond oil as an antidote, he succumbed to the corrosive effects within minutes. His note read: 'I have an idea to kill some one. I do not care who it is. It has been almost impossible to keep from committing murder.'
“The reason that I want to do away with myself is because I have an idea to kill some one. I do not care who it is. It has been almost impossible to keep from committing murder.”
The intersection of Second and Washington, where the Queen City Hotel and the drug store stood, is now part of the historic heart of Pioneer Square. The story captures the extreme social isolation and mental health crisis facing itinerant laborers in the 1893 depression, an era where the city's 'boomer' promise had suddenly collapsed.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.