The Dentist and the Stolen Mare
A frontier community falls for a charming drifter who performed medical miracles before making off with the local postmaster's horse.
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.
I noticed in your issue of the 11th an article in relation to one Dr. Sloan, wherein it is gently inferred that we, the residents of this isolated community, have been made the ready dupes of a scoundrel. Admitting that some of us, and myself in particular, have been swindled, you will permit me to offer some extenuating circumstances. This Dr. Sloan was a man about six feet high, weighed about 175 pounds, has light sandy whiskers, hair brown, and not much of it, eyes grey, quiet, canny manner when not under the influence of liquor. He represented wherever he went that he was in search of a dairy farm. He had a complete set of dentist's tools for extracting teeth, and at my house, did some very efficient work for one of my family, extracting several teeth without pain or inconvenience. He in no manner showed the cloven hoof to be perceived. After examining the country along the Snoqualmie and Tolt rivers, he was fascinated with the beautiful valley of the Tolt river, and there he determined to camp. After deliberating on his plans he concluded he would go to Seattle. He carried his forceps, and I could not do otherwise than to render him the use of my horse. He has since vanished, and that miserable, ungrateful wretch has taken my black horse with him. The horse is black, with the letters J S [unclear] on his left shoulder, 15 or 16 hands high. If anyone will intercept the horse and return him to me, he will be liberally rewarded.
“He in no manner showed the cloven hoof to be perceived.”
This 1876 account of a traveling 'dentist' swindling rural settlers captures the enduring tension between pioneer hospitality and the harsh realities of frontier confidence men. It echoes today’s concerns about transient bad actors and the vulnerability of isolated communities in a rapidly shifting economy.
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