A Body in the Bay
A unidentified man is found dead in the waters near Yesler's wharf, bearing marks of a violent end.
Yesterday, about 12 o'clock, some ladies on board the steamer 'Jameson' sighted a floating object in the bay between Yesler's and A. Smith's wharf. They called to Captain Banichery and another gentleman, who recovered the body and took it to the wharf, where it was landed and afterward taken to Shave's undertaking establishment. It proved to be the corpse of a middle-aged man, of medium height, and having a bushy growth of sandy whiskers. The features were much swollen, and there was a gash across the throat, and a deep bruise on the head, both of which were evidently received after the body was in the water. There were no marks by which the man could be identified, the only thing found in his pockets being a few nickels, $5.70 in money, and a piece of paper, on which the following was written: 'Mr. Kean—I have worked with James Kansen for 12 days at $30 per month, which is the only way I understand your order. Also paid him $12.85 for October. He claims that it is wrong; that you owe him $80 for the 12 days.—E. L. EVANS.' Mr. Bomar, at the railroad office, states that he knows nothing of either Evans or Kansen, so that this paper is as yet an unsatisfactory clue.
“The features were much swollen, and there was a gash across the throat, and a deep bruise on the head, both of which were evidently received after the body was in the water.”
Unsolved deaths in Seattle's waterfront were a common fixture of 19th-century reporting, often speaking to the transience and vulnerability of the labor force during the city's rapid expansion.
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