The Child-Wife Who Came Back for a Divorce
Married at 16, eloped with a 52-year-old soldier, then returned to Port Townsend to ask her husband for a divorce.
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.
FORT TOWNSEND, Aug. 12.—[Special.]—Some years ago James Crane, a local dairyman, was married to a young girl aged 16 years. The love was all on his part, her parents urging the union. Subsequently the child-wife applied to the county auditor to cancel the marriage license. She was told that a divorce was necessary as a preliminary proceeding. Divorces are somewhat expensive luxuries in Port Townsend, and she solved the problem by eloping to Fort Vancouver with a soldier who was 52 years of age. The lapse of a year's time dispelled the illusion of love for brass buttons and a blue uniform, and she wrote to Mr. Crane, praying for forgiveness, incidentally asking for enough financial assistance to return home with. The amount was remitted, and the child-wife responded in person. The greeting between husband and wife was not very affectionate. She refused to speak to Mr. Crane, or further partake of his hospitality, and took up her residence elsewhere. In response to her husband's demand for an explanation she said that she had come back to procure a divorce.
“Divorces are somewhat expensive luxuries in Port Townsend, and she solved the problem by eloping to Fort Vancouver with a soldier who was 52 years of age.”
Washington has since raised the marriage age and tightened divorce law, but this item still echoes in modern debates over child marriage, legal costs, and the limited options available to young women. The paper framed a teenager's coerced marriage as gossip; today the story reads as a warning about who gets to leave and on what terms.
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