A Violent Escalation at the Train Station
A drunken horse trade between two men in Steilacoom turns into a public shooting, leaving a man wounded and the assailant on the run.
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.
On Saturday, Dec. 23d, F. J. Hunt and family went across the Sound to spend Christmas with relatives, leaving their store in charge of Walter O. Murray. In the afternoon, a crowd assembled at the store, including Henry Harrington, who has been working in a logging camp. Harrington purchased a box of 33-calibre cartridges for a self-cocking pocket revolver. Soon after, Geo. Dean arrived from Steilacoom on horseback, considerably intoxicated. While leading his horse onto the platform between the station and the railroad, he called young Harrington out to talk about a horse trade. Dean, drunk as he was, flourished his hands and struck Harrington, when the latter drew his revolver and fired three shots. One took effect in Dean’s right arm, another passed through John Northover’s overcoat and lodged in the floor, and the third’s location is unknown. John Northover grabbed the revolver, but Harrington promised to put it away and then escaped in the confusion. The wounded man is expected to recover, though the assailant remains at large.
“Dean, drunk as he was, flourished his hands around and in some of his movements struck Harrington, when the latter drew his revolver and commenced firing.”
Public carry and gun violence in transit hubs remains a perennial and polarizing debate in Seattle, echoing these 1883 frontier tensions where casual disputes could escalate into gunfire in public spaces.
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