The Tragedy of the Mill Worker
A Finnish laborer’s mental decline follows a fatal accident at a local mill.
Lee Johnson, a resident of the First Ward, was brought before Judge Howes on Wednesday morning, charged with insanity. It appears that since the frightful death of Peter Johnson about two weeks ago, this fellow has been noticed to act in rather a strange manner. On Tuesday night he was found by the night watchman striking matches and flinging them around Hanson's mill, where he has been employed for the last eight months. Upon being interrogated as to what he was doing, he merely answered, 'I am trying to warm up the mill.' He was promptly arrested and placed in confinement. When asked by Judge Howes to assign some cause for his actions he refused to answer, being apparently perfectly stupid. Johnson being a Norwegian Finn, the Judge employed an interpreter, but his efforts toward eliciting information from the prisoner were unsuccessful. The Judge ordered him to the Insane Asylum at Steilacoom.
“Upon being interrogated as to what he was doing, he merely answered, 'I am trying to warm up the mill.'”
This story highlights the era's lack of trauma-informed care for workers following industrial accidents. The site of Hanson’s mill is a reminder of the dangerous, often fatal, nature of early Seattle timber labor.
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