The Fugitive Physician of Eatonville
After vanishing in January with a trail of forged warrants, a former Eatonville doctor is apprehended working as a cook in Texas.
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.
Dr. Otto A. Martiny, the former Eatonville physician, who suddenly disappeared last January after, it is alleged, he had forged several checks and school warrants, and for whom a reward of $200 was immediately offered by the sheriff of Pierce county, has been captured at Eagle Pass, Texas. Martiny, who is a well-educated man, is said to have served a term in a California prison, but he was well liked at Eatonville and was made clerk of the school district there. Among his alleged offenses is the raising of a number of school warrants. He is also alleged to have forged two checks, one for $55 which he passed on D. Den Bleyker of Tacoma, and another for $80, which he cashed at an Eatonville hotel. It is understood that Martiny was employed as a cook in a hotel when he was arrested.
“It is understood from the scant information received here that Martiny was employed as a cook in a hotel when he was arrested.”
The story of Dr. Martiny—a pillar of a small-town community revealed as a fugitive with a criminal past—is a classic case study of frontier anonymity. It highlights how, before integrated records, individuals could reinvent themselves until an inevitable collision with the law.
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