A Father’s Deadly Act at Riverside
On the same morning his daughter was born, a man took his own life and critically injured his toddler daughter in a shocking explosion.
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.
At the same time a tiny girl saw the light of day in his home at 9 o'clock in the morning, Cromwell M. Knowlton hurled himself into eternity with black powder and tried to take his 3-year-old daughter with him. The case is one of the strangest that has ever reached the coroner's office, and were it not that circumstances point directly to suicide and attempted murder it would appear an accident. Knowlton, who for several years prior to last June worked as a chipper in the employ of the Railway Steel and Supply company, had moved to the Dr. Noble homestead at Riverside. Dr. E. E. Beckett, who had been summoned for the birth of a child, heard an explosion from a nearby cabin. Upon investigation, he found the cabin in ruins with the roof fallen on Knowlton. Underneath the father was his daughter, Nellie, suffering from severe burns. While the wife could assign no reason for the act, the presence of a fuse and a pocket knife led investigators to conclude it was a deliberate, tragic act.
“The force of the explosion had blown out the sides and the heavy roof had fallen in on top of Knowlton.”
While framed as a 'strange' mystery by the contemporary press, this story reflects the era's lack of understanding regarding mental health crises and the domestic stressors faced by working-class families. It serves as a somber reminder of the hidden tragedies that often occurred in the isolated homesteads of the Pacific Northwest.
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