A Lonely End at the Villard House
John McDonald, a 67-year-old timber cruiser from Montana, dies of exhaustion in a local saloon after a week-long drinking bout.
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.
John McDonald, an old man who came from Montana about three weeks ago, died yesterday in the Villard House, corner of Yesler and Railroad Avenues, of heart failure. For the past ten days he had been drinking very heavily, and his death is supposed to have been hastened by exposure and loss of sleep. McDonald was 67 years of age and, as far as known, unmarried. For many years he had followed timber cruising as a means of gaining a livelihood. Upon arriving in Seattle, he sought out his old friend Davidson, proprietor of the Villard House. He had $1,400 in cash, which he put in the bank, but kept $900 for a 'good time,' saying he had not been drunk for four years. For the past week he had been under the influence of liquor all the time, sleeping only in chairs in the barroom. Yesterday afternoon, the bartender went to wake him and found he was dead.
“For the past week he has been under the influence of liquor all the time and the only sleep he has had has been in chairs in the Viliard house barroom.”
The story of John McDonald captures the grim reality of the transient labor population that built the Northwest. His death, taking place in a public house while he essentially waited to die, reflects the lack of a social safety net for older, unattached laborers in 1893 Seattle.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.