The Fugitive Foreman of Franklin
A man working at the Oregon Improvement Company’s stables in Franklin is revealed as a wanted fugitive for a fatal land dispute in Indian Territory.
Sheriff Woolery added another to his list of feats as a detective yesterday by the arrest of Sunny Luckey, alias Charlie Edmunds, a mulatto foreman of the Oregon Improvement Company's stables at Franklin, on the charge of murdering Dickson Scott, an Indian half-breed, at Coweta, Indian Territory, three years ago. Luckey was arrested in the afternoon and told the sheriff the story of the crime. Luckey had staked out land in the territory, but Scott claimed the same land and ordered him off. After threats and refusals, Luckey claimed that Scott approached him in a wagon and pulled a gun. Luckey shot first, killing him. Fearing for his life, Luckey fled and eventually joined a group of laborers being brought to Puget Sound to take the places of striking miners. He found work at the stables in Franklin, married, and had been living quietly under the name Charlie Edmunds until his recent arrest.
“I killed Scott, but I am willing to go back now and always have been, provided I can have a fair trial.”
This account captures the era's labor instability, where mining strikes in the Pacific Northwest frequently pulled in migrant labor from across the country, often unknowingly harboring fugitives. The detail of the 'ginger-cake' moniker and the racialized description highlights the brutal language common in 1893 crime reporting, while the story itself underscores how quickly one could vanish into anonymity in a rapidly expanding frontier city like Seattle.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.