The Street Corner Prophet's Scandalous Revelation
A Seattle street preacher who claimed a divine mandate to take a second wife is apprehended by authorities in Tacoma after fleeing his flock.
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.
Rev. P. Kelson, a street corner fanatic, was arrested yesterday by City Detective Fitzgerald of this city and Deputy Sheriff Jack Williams of Seattle. Kelson is a street preacher who has lived in Seattle for 12 years. While carrying on his usual method of street preaching in Seattle, he said that he was called upon by the Supreme Being to take another wife, and at once took unto himself the wife of some other man. Mrs. Nelson No. 1 did not take to the affair very kindly and a warrant was issued for his arrest on a charge of adultery. He disappeared from Seattle very suddenly and was thought to have gone to Everett, but was located in Tacoma last week. Last Sunday he held services at the corner of Eleventh Street and Pacific Avenue. When arrested yesterday afternoon he made no protest, but packed his grip with several hymn books, and, taking his violin, accompanied the officers to the Interurban train and went back to Seattle.
“He said that he was called upon by the Supreme Being to take another wife, and at once took unto himself the wife of some other man.”
Street preaching remains a fixture of urban life, though Kelson's particular brand of 'divine mandate' for bigamy highlights how fringe religious figures were policed in the early 20th century. While he was prosecuted under adultery laws that no longer apply in the same way, the intersection of Eleventh and Pacific remains a central node in downtown Tacoma, still echoing with the sounds of public discourse and transit.
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