Showdown in the Bonaparte Country
A reported cabin robbery near the Canadian border spiraled into an armed standoff involving fugitives wanted for a cross-border heist.
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.
Reports come in this week of a little war in the Bonaparte neighborhood. The trouble, which grew out of a cabin in that neighborhood getting robbed, developed into a display of firearms the first of the week. A cabin owned by Jas. Freeman was ransacked last week and everything of value taken. Freeman suspected certain persons and secured a search warrant, but nothing was found. Wm. Newman and Ben Hart were, it is said, the suspected persons, and the first of the week these two gentlemen went over to have a settlement with Freeman and his father. Starting with a rough-and-tumble fight, the scrap ended in a display of guns, first on the part of Hart and Newman, and later by the Freemans. The former finally went their way and a warrant was secured for their arrest by the Freemans. At last accounts, the men had not been apprehended, though a telegram from Molson took the deputy sheriff to that place yesterday morning. The Canadian officers have wired to officers on this side to be on the lookout for Newman and Hart, as the two are wanted over there for implication in the recent holdup at the station at Myncaster. Just as we go to press word comes that the two men have been arrested at Molson by Deputy Sheriff Mills.
“Starting with a rough-and-tumble fight, the scrap ended in a display of guns.”
The Bonaparte Creek area, once a remote frontier prone to cross-border volatility, is now better known for its proximity to quiet recreational spaces. This incident reflects how transient laborers and outlaws once exploited the permeable boundary between Washington and British Columbia.
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