The Shooting of Editor B. F. Kendall
A prominent local figure and former Superintendent of Indian Affairs is gunned down in his office on Main Street.
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.
Suddenly, in this place, on Wednesday, January 7th, 1863, B. F. Kendall, formerly of Bethel, Maine, aged 31 years, and late editor of the Overland Press, died. Our usually quiet town was shocked, on Wednesday, by the shooting of Mr. Kendall, in the back room of his office on Main street. The circumstances of the deplorable affair, as elicited upon the trial, will appear next week. This fatal affair must be a matter of poignant regret to every good citizen, every friend of the supremacy of law and order. It is improper in this notice to allude to the incidents of the death of Mr. Kendall, or with the manner selected to accomplish the designs of his assailants. That is left to the investigation of the proper legal tribunal, and we have no desire to add to the excitement now prevailing in the community.
“Our usually quiet town was shocked, on Wednesday, by the shooting of Mr. Kendall, in the back room of his office on Main street.”
B. F. Kendall was a polarizing figure in early Olympia politics, and his death by a pistol shot from Horace Howe, Jr. was a watershed moment in the young territory's history. Violence over editorial disputes was a recurring feature of 19th-century frontier journalism, highlighting a time when words held lethal consequences.
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