Poisoned Milk Plot in Spangle
A jeweler's family in Spangle narrowly escaped death after their cow was fed poison in a malicious act of sabotage.
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.
SPANGLE, Nov. 11. — A dastardly attempt to poison a family by poisoning their family milk cow was made here yesterday. The cow was the property of W. B. Richardson, a jeweler of Spangle, and but for the fact that the cow was discovered to be sick and poison found in her feed before the milk was used, the entire family, consisting of Mr. Richardson, his wife and 2-year-old daughter, would have been poisoned, since an examination of the milk showed it to be sufficiently polluted to do the deadly work. Mr. Richardson thinks he has a clue to the perpetrators, and offers a reward for their arrest.
“The entire family... would have been poisoned, since an examination of the milk showed it to be sufficiently polluted.”
This chilling story of domestic sabotage reflects the high-stakes, often personal nature of feuds in small, isolated Washington towns of the 1890s, where an individual's livelihood and life were inextricably tied to their livestock.
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