The Tragedy of a Lonely Laborer
A Norwegian laborer, recently arrived in Port Townsend with a large sum of money, commits a desperate act of self-strangulation while in city jail.
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.
T. Knudsen, a Norwegian laborer, committed suicide in the Port Townsend city jail this afternoon. He had been locked up pending a hearing for insanity. After his arrest by Chief of Police Hickman, it was discovered he had been flashing a large sum of money around local saloons. During his brief time in custody, Knudsen rigged a loop using a piece of his trousers, which he swung through the bars of his cell to lasso a gas jet. Finding that ineffective, he tied the loop to a cell bar and kicked a chair away to strangle himself. He was found by the jailer within fifteen minutes.
“He... deliberately strangled himself to death. He had not been alone fifteen minutes when the jailer found his corpse.”
The reporting of mental health crises in 1894 was often dehumanizing, yet the story captures the profound loneliness and sudden ends that often befell itinerant workers during the economic instability of the 1890s in the Pacific Northwest.
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