A Carriage Disaster on the Yakima River
A satirical, vivid account of a carriage accident involving local power brokers, detailing a chaotic plunge into the river and the comical loss of a macintosh.
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.
Falstaff, Coolhead, and a 'Tall Storyteller' decided to ford the stream. The horses began to rear and plunge. The mob watched with excitement as the horses turned, overturning the carriage. Coolhead and the Tall Storyteller stepped into the stream, while the 'Water-Dog' plunged in head first. As the carriage overturned, Falstaff, who had dropped the reins, clung to the carriage which floated down on top of the horses. Falstaff disappeared in a tangle of horses' heels and carriage wheels. Eventually, Falstaff was rescued by boat, though P. A. O'Farrell lost his long and beautiful macintosh, which he brought from the old country, to the river. The event was memorialized by a poem lamenting the loss of the coat to the fish.
“Bad luck to the day whin my mackintosh gay was lost to my vision forever. My spirits ran low, whin I saw the thing go sailing off down the Yakima river.”
This satirical 'adventure' highlights the performative nature of local political feuds in the 1890s. The blend of real figures and literary tropes reveals how newspapers of the era used humor to puncture the self-importance of local elites.
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