A Frontier Tragedy
A man is accidentally killed in the wilderness near Kent, and the news is kept from his dying brother in San Francisco.
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.
From intelligence received from San Francisco yesterday, the accidental killing of James G. Conway in his cabin in the wilderness, six miles in a straight line from Kent, becomes still more pathetic. A message was sent to David, his brother, in San Francisco, yesterday morning, containing the news of the sad accident and asking for instructions as to the disposal of the body. The reply came back from Mrs. Conway: 'David is dying and so low that we dare not break the news to him; bury the remains there.'
“David is dying and so low that we dare not break the news to him; bury the remains there.”
This story highlights the immense distance and isolation felt by settlers in the 1890s, where death in the 'wilderness' of King County was a world away from family in California. It serves as a stark reminder of how fragile the social fabric was for early rural residents in Washington.
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