From the 'Brink of the Pit' to the Pulpit
An immigrant's harrowing reflection on poverty, addiction, and spiritual rebirth in Port Manson, 1877.
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.
In a letter addressed to the editor, a young immigrant named William Bull recounts his journey from a broken, orphaned life in Norway to finding a new purpose in the Washington Territory. 'At the age of eight years, my father—who had the learning of a minister, doctor and lawyer—left me a poor orphan to be taken care of by the public alone, as all that he earned went to the dram shop,' Bull writes. He describes drifting into alcoholism at age nineteen, finding himself 'on the brink of the pit' with only the roadside for a bed. Upon arriving in the United States, Bull characterizes himself as a 'poor, miserable thing' without money, friends, or faith. However, he describes a profound internal change, stating, 'not only my heart was changed from stone to flesh, but also my very blood and body was changed from that of a thing to that of a young man.' Bull, who had sought education through self-study, spent the final six months of 1877 preaching the gospel to residents of Port Manson, despite facing the disappointment of losing his primary employment.
“At the age of nineteen I was on the brink of the pit; and it did not surprise me the least to find myself by the roadside in the morning, with my boots as my pillow and the sky as my blankets.”
Bull’s narrative of 'the dram shop' destroying his family mirrors modern struggles with generational trauma and substance abuse. His story highlights a persistent thread in Seattle history: the city as a frontier for those seeking to reinvent themselves entirely, often through the friction of extreme hardship and self-made salvation.
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