Fatal Shooting at a Ballard Mill
A night watchman kills an intoxicated millhand during an arrest attempt, highlighting the volatile nature of labor camp policing.
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.
This morning at 2:30 o'clock Night Watchman Thomas Henry, of Ballard, shot and killed a millhand whom he was trying to arrest and who resisted. Two men employed in one of the Ballard mills were creating a disturbance while in a drunken condition on the street. Night Watchmen Thomas Henry and Nicholas Beck arrested them. While proceeding to the lockup, the prisoner turned, struck Henry, and threw him to the ground. The officer, feeling overpowered, drew his pistol to intimidate the man. The gun fired, and the bullet perforated the prisoner's lungs. He sank with a groan and expired. Coroner Horton will arrive to hold an inquest.
“Seeing there was no alternative he fired a shot to cripple his antagonist, but unluckily the bullet sped straight on a mission of death.”
This incident reflects the raw, often lethal style of 'street justice' in the mill towns that surrounded early Seattle. Ballard's transition from a rough-and-tumble industrial village to a residential neighborhood is a quintessential Seattle story.
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