The Dark Mystery of Alfred Hoyle
A body found in Snohomish County sparks a tense inquest revealing labor unrest, anti-Chinese sentiment, and unanswered questions on the Seattle waterfront.
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.
The inquest on the body of Alfred E. Hoyle was finished yesterday evening. During the inquest, 25 witnesses were examined, and the greatest diligence was used to ascertain all the circumstances connected with the disappearance, but without eliciting any evidence of importance beyond the identification of the body. The verdict found that the deceased was a native of England, aged about 38, found on the beach about 18 miles north of Seattle within Snohomish County. He was last seen on Colman's Wharf at 11 o'clock on the night of December 21, 1875, and came to his death from causes unknown. Evidence was introduced to the effect that Hoyle had taken the contract for loading the City of Panama and had employed Chinamen to do the work, and that threats had been made against him on that account. Mr. Freeman, of the P. M. S. S. Co., gave evidence that he had been told by longshoremen that if Chinamen were employed in helping the steamers, the Chinamen would be killed.
“Mr. Freeman... gave evidence that he had been told by longshoremen that if Chinamen were employed in helping the steamers, the Chinamen would be killed.”
This 1876 inquest captures the violent intersection of early Seattle’s labor struggles and its exclusionary racial politics. Just as today’s housing and wage crises often generate scapegoating, the death of Alfred Hoyle reveals how labor competition in the 1870s was immediately channeled into lethal anti-Chinese xenophobia, a precursor to the systemic expulsion efforts seen in the city a decade later.
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