A Brutal Shooting Gallery Killing
A Seattle shooting gallery proprietor is found murdered, sparking a swift coroner’s inquest that points to a traveling companion.
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.
Yesterday the body of a man named Henry Hesse, the keeper of a shooting gallery on Columbia street, was found in bed in his room with his throat cut. He appeared to have been dead some days. It was stated that he was going to Port Moody, but as the place had not been entered since Friday nothing was suspected wrong until today, when the place was entered. The coroner's jury in the case of Henry Hesse returned a verdict of murder against one Charles Anderson, a German sailor who was seen in his company on Friday and who was to start with the deceased that night. Examination of the body showed two axe wounds on his head and his throat cut from ear to ear.
“Examination of the body showed two axe wounds on his head and his throat cut from ear to ear.”
Columbia Street in downtown Seattle is a major thoroughfare today, but in 1883 it was the site of a gruesome frontier murder. This incident reflects the transient, often dangerous nature of 1880s Seattle, where casual travel arrangements with strangers could turn fatal in the boarding houses of the time.
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