A Barber Died Behind the Saloon. The Coroner Blamed One Soldier — Then the Other One Walked Out of the Guardhouse.
A Ballard inquest names Joseph Veno in the clubbing death of barber James Sullivan, but when Veno's companion slips out of the Fort Lawton guardhouse, the soldiers begin to wonder which man actually swung the club.
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.
BALLARD — The inquest over the remains of James Sullivan, the barber, who died Monday as a result of injuries received in a row Sunday night, back of the Log Cabin saloon in this city, was held Wednesday by Coroner Hove. The jury returned a verdict that Sullivan came to his death as a result of injuries received from a club wielded by Joseph Veno. Veno is confined in the guard house at Fort Lawton, and did not appear at the inquest.
A number of witnesses testified that Veno and Sullivan were the only men in the backyard at the time of the fight, and that the other soldiers were in the front room of the saloon. The evidence showed that the direct cause of Sullivan's death was a hemorrhage of the brain caused by a fracture of the base of the skull.
The body of Sullivan was taken to Colfax for interment according to instructions of his family. Several hundred people viewed the remains during the day, and the inquest attracted a packed house.
Pat Hatfield, who was Veno's companion the evening of the trouble, and who was arrested at Fort Lawton at the same time that Veno was, escaped from the guard house some time this morning, and has not yet been located. Some of the soldiers are using this as an argument that Hatfield is the guilty man instead of Veno.
“Some of the soldiers are using this as an argument that Hatfield is the guilty man instead of Veno.”
Ballard in 1903 was its own boomtown of saloons, shingle mills and Scandinavian immigrants, a year away from being swallowed by Seattle — and Fort Lawton's soldiers were a permanent, uneasy presence on its edge. The case turns on the same question that still dogs nightlife districts today: when a fight ends in a death outside a bar, who is responsible, and who gets to walk away before the truth is sorted out? Hatfield was never reported caught in this account.
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