Infant Remains Discovered on Salmon Creek
A grim discovery by a U.S. Deputy Marshal sparks an investigation near a local mill.
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.
Deputy United States Marshal Spotts reports that while hunting on Saturday, he found the dead body of an infant in the brush about sixty rods above Ryan's mill on Salmon Creek. The body was found naked, save for a string of beads around its neck. As near as could be determined, the infant died of natural causes, showing no marks of violence, though it appeared to have been in the brush for a week or two. The coroner has been notified for an investigation.
“The body was stark naked with the exception of the scant costume of a string of beads around its neck.”
The reporting of this tragedy in 1883 offers a stark look at the vulnerability of the frontier and the callous brevity with which the press of the time handled the deaths of the most marginalized among them.
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