The Poultry Thief Turns Cattle Rustler
A repeat offender leads police on a chase through the Snohomish River valley.
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.
Constable Kennedy returned this afternoon with a man named Graves, who is wanted for stealing cattle. L. P. Larson not long since missed three cows, and they were traced south, driven by Graves. One was left near Ferndale and one sold at Ferndale. The thief was traced to Fairhaven, thence to Everett, Marysville, and Snohomish. At the latter place Graves stole a boat and went down the river to Everett, where he took up his abode in a small cabin in the brush, at which place Constable Kennedy arrested him. Graves is an old offender in Blaine, having confined his operations mostly to poultry and garden truck heretofore, sometimes catching a whole flock of a neighbor's chickens with a hook and line. The saddest part of his crimes is that he has always been accompanied by a little son. Nearly all his crimes have been committed to satisfy his craving for strong drink.
“The saddest part of his crimes is that he has always been accompanied by a little son, who will likely go the same way.”
This story highlights the tragic cycle of poverty, addiction, and small-time criminality that often repeated in frontier communities. It is a stark reminder of the social costs of economic instability in the late 19th-century PNW.
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