The First Legal Hanging in Kittitas County
Richard 'Boosy' Anderson faces execution for the murder of Charles Fox following a dispute over a dice game in a Roslyn saloon.
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.
Ellensburgh is to have its first legal hanging bee on the 23d of May, when Richard Anderson, alias 'Boosy' Anderson, will pay the death penalty for the killing of Charles Fox at Roslyn last fall. Anderson, who is a big black ill-looking fellow, has always been known as a vicious and worthless character, and the crime of which he was convicted occurred in a saloon. Anderson had been shaking dice and was ugly over the loss of four dollars, and without apparent provocation he approached Fox, who was leaning over the bar with his back to the murderer, and deliberately shot him in the head. The wound was not a fatal one initially, and Fox, turning to ask the reason for the assault, was answered by the fatal shot. There are no mitigating circumstances, and the sentence will doubtless be carried out.
“Ellensburgh is to have its first legal hanging bee on the 23d of May.”
Public execution notices like this were a staple of early frontier journalism, often leaning into heavily coded racial stereotypes to justify the severity of the state's reach. The story illustrates the high-stakes, often volatile nature of social life in early coal mining camps like Roslyn.
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