An Anonymous Threat in Everett
A local bank janitor receives a typed, skull-and-crossbones threat to leave town or face accusations from his past.
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.
Mark Cowen, a resident of Everett for seven years and current janitor of the First National Bank, found a misspelled and distorted warning under his door ordering him to leave town and the state of Washington by August 20. The letter threatened him with ten years' imprisonment for a crime he is vaguely accused of committing in Missouri in 1878 or 1879 while traveling with a circus. The letter was written on a typewriter and signed 'Poison,' with a skull and crossbones cut from a druggist's label attached. Cowen is further advised that if taken back to Missouri, his fate will be 'poison.' Cowen admits being with a circus in Missouri in 1878, but denies the accusations and is ready to furnish a record of his activities during that period. His friends believe the letter is a practical joke, but Cowen refuses to take that view. He is a Black man and is well and favorably known in Everett.
“Attached to the letter, which was written on a typewriter, and evidently purposely mis-spelled to conceal the writer's identity, was the signature 'Poison,' with a skull and crossbones from a druggist's label.”
This 1903 account of an anonymous, racially-charged intimidation tactic against a Black citizen in a growing Washington mill town reflects the precariousness of life for people of color in the early 20th-century Pacific Northwest, where 'sundown' mentalities often manifested as personal harassment.
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