The Public Elopement of Elma
A husband in Elma negotiates a bizarre separation settlement that includes the contents of the house.
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.
Elma has been having a sensation in the way of a peculiar elopement. According to the Chronicle, Mrs. C. W. Knowlton, of that place, publicly eloped with a certain Captain W. F. Hobbs, of Pierce county, after an apparently amicable arrangement of bargain and sale between the two men. Knowlton, it is said, made it a condition of the bargain that Mrs. Knowlton should take the crockery and household goods along with her.
“Knowlton, it is said, made it a condition of the bargain that Mrs. Knowlton should take the crockery and household goods along with her.”
This unusual public transaction highlights the era's legal and social view of marriage as a contract that could be settled like a business dispute. It serves as a stark reminder of the shifts in autonomy and domestic power structures over the last century in Washington State.
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