When the County Paid for Pauper Burials and Jailhouse Blankets
A look at the grim line items of Seattle's 1876 county budget reveals the mundane, often tragic, administrative costs of governing a frontier territory.
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 Commissioner's Court session of November 11th, 1876, the board authorized several expenditures on county funds. These included the payment of $120 to Hilary Butler for office rent, $67.50 to T. H. Jones for the funeral expenses of three paupers, and $17 for handcuffs from W. S. Whitworth & Co. Furthermore, the court approved payment for the 'board' of prisoners Brown and Hogan at $7 each, and various medical fees for examinations of indigent citizens, including $10 paid to Dr. G. A. Weed for examining C. Brown. The court also ordered the moving of all desks, tables, and books belonging to the old county offices into the new jail.
“Ordered that the sum of $67.50 be allowed to T. H. Jones for the funeral expenses of three paupers.”
The 1876 budget reflects a Seattle where the county government was responsible for basic social survival—renting offices, buying blankets for the poor, and handling coroner's inquests—a precursor to the complex social safety net and criminal justice debates that define modern King County governance.
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