The Confidence Man of White River
A San Francisco swindler finds his way to a farm near Seattle, only to be turned in by his own conscience—or perhaps his employer.
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.
About a month ago, a photograph and description of one Fred P. Graham was received by Mr. Waddell of this city from San Francisco, together with a printed hand-bill offering a reward of $500 for his arrest. He was charged with having swindled the widow of a deceased Odd Fellow in San Francisco out of all her property on the pretense of investing it in mining stocks for her. The letter and photograph were placed in Chief Thorndyke’s hands, but nothing further was heard of the affair until about two weeks ago, when a farmer from the White River area came in and reported that a man who was working for him had confessed that he was the man Graham and that there was a reward out for him. Sheriff Wyckoff went up and arrested him and immediately telegraphed to the San Francisco authorities. The photograph had unfortunately been mislaid, so there were no means of identifying him until yesterday, when Thorndyke succeeded in finding it. He and Wyckoff then went to the jail, got the prisoner, compared the face with the photograph, and identified him as the man. He will be sent to San Francisco as soon as a requisition arrives for him.
“The photograph had unfortunately been mislaid, so there were no means of identifying him until yesterday, when Thorndyke succeeded in finding it.”
The 'confidence man' remains a fixture of urban life, though today’s digital scams have replaced the hand-bill rewards of the 1870s. The story serves as a reminder of how labor, geography, and transient populations intersected in early Seattle, where a wanted criminal could hide in plain sight on a nearby farm.
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