The Rooster Who Refused to be Dinner
A captive bird makes a dramatic, fatal leap into Puget Sound to escape the Thanksgiving table.
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.
Strange as it may seem, a chicken actually committed suicide at the Ocean Dock yesterday morning. The facts are as follows: The steamer Welcome brought down among her freight a number of chickens, which were being taken into the Ocean Dock warehouse, when one old rooster made up his mind to be nobody's Thanksgiving dinner. He made a bold dash, broke from the man who held him, ran to the stern of the boat and, looking longingly up at the dock, crowded with his pursuers, gave one defiant crow and plunged into the bay. For a time the old fellow swam well and kept above water, but he was finally swept under the dock and sank, thus adding another to the long list who have preferred death to captivity.
“He made a bold dash, broke from the man who held him, ran to the stern of the boat and, looking longingly up at the dock... gave one defiant crow and plunged into the bay.”
While this account is clearly a piece of 19th-century 'human interest' whimsy—personifying a farm animal to soften the reality of the food supply—the location remains a vital part of Seattle's evolving waterfront. The Ocean Dock, once a hub for steamers arriving with provisions, is long gone, replaced by the industrialized and eventually redeveloped shoreline near today's Seattle Ferry Terminal.
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