The Tragic End of 'Tommy' Anderson
A longtime Seattle resident perished in a house fire that claimed his home and his loyal dog.
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.
"Tommy" Anderson, a noted character in early days on Puget Sound and for twenty years a resident of Seattle, was burned to death last night in a fire at the head of the bay, which also destroyed his home. The origin of the fire is unknown, but it is supposed to have caught from the sparks of Anderson's pipe as he lay in bed smoking. A large Newfoundland dog, which was chained near the house at his kennel, shared the same fate as his master. Before the fire department arrived the house was consumed. Amid a lot of feathers from a bed and several twisted, burned springs, a blackened, crisp lump of flesh was unearthed. This was all that was left of "Tommy" Anderson, and the remains were taken to the morgue. Anderson had been a resident of Seattle for about twenty years; he first came to the Sound as a sailor on a merchant vessel and, becoming attached to the country, deserted his ship. He accumulated property worth in the neighborhood of $10,000.
“Amid a lot of feathers from a bed and several twisted, burned springs, a blackened, crisp lump of flesh was unearthed.”
Stories of transient workers 'jumping ship' to build a life in Seattle were common in the city's formative years. Today, while we no longer see sailors deserting ships to homestead, the memory of these early independent figures often lingers in the names of buildings or districts that have long since been transformed by redevelopment.
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