The Vanishing 'Boy Preacher'
A notorious young grifter keeps up appearances as a 'star boarder' in Newcastle before skipping town.
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.
Rev. George T. Pritchard, the notorious 'boy preacher of New York,' whose doings at Port Townsend, Des Moines and Sequim Prairie have been told in the Post-Intelligencer, has just spent a month in Newcastle, but disappeared about the time his identity was discovered. He made his appearance at Mike Walsh's house, about four miles from Newcastle, and asked for food and shelter, claiming to be 'dead broke.' He was taken in and occupied the position of 'star boarder,' meanwhile helping at odd jobs around the place. He was a regular attendant at the Sunday school in the little log schoolhouse, and made good use of pen and ink by writing letters to 'Squire Pritchard, Kent, England.' In a careless, off-hand manner he let people know that he expected a remittance from the old country, but somehow it never came. Suddenly last Thursday the reverend gentleman skipped. It is thought by Mr. Walsh that Pritchard met some one in Newcastle who recognized him.
“He occupied the position of 'star boarder,' meanwhile helping at odd jobs around the place.”
Local news in the 1890s was obsessed with colorful grifters and 'eccentrics' who lived on the margins, a type of reporting that has largely shifted into modern true crime and internet subculture documentaries.
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