The Tragedy at Fourth Street: A Suicide in the Empire Mill Owner's Room
In a grim scene on October 2, 1876, Henry Bendel was found dead in his Seattle boarding house room, having taken his own life with a revolver. The incident highlights the precarious nature of business ownership in the young frontier town.
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.
A few minutes past one o'clock this afternoon, the inmates of House No. 121 Fourth Street heard the report of a pistol, presently in a room on the upper floor. Attention was called to the room occupied by Henry Bendel. The door was burst open and the occupants were horrified to find him lying on the floor, holding a revolver in his right hand, and in his left hand a cigar and his head bleeding from a bullet shot above the right ear, but the man was still breathing. A messenger was dispatched for a physician, but the man died a few minutes after he was found. It appears he entered the house about 10 o'clock, and immediately proceeded to his room and locked the door. It is stated that he attempted to commit suicide a few days ago by swallowing a dose of morphine, but his design was discovered in time to prevent serious consequences. The deceased was unmarried and a member of the firm of Bendel & Co., proprietors of the Empire Mill Factory, corner of Eleventh and Third streets.
This 1876 suicide note from a local mill owner underscores the intense financial pressures faced by early Seattle entrepreneurs. In an era before modern bankruptcy protections or social safety nets, business failure could lead to immediate ruin and despair, a stark contrast to today's more structured corporate insolvency laws.
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