The Opium Shack on Vashon Island
A recluse on the south end of Vashon Island shot himself after years of opium use, leaving a needle, eight ounces of the drug, and a letter blaming a man named George Weston.
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.
Thomas Sweeney, a confirmed opium fiend, who had resided in a small shack on the south end of Vashon Island for the past three years, shot himself in the left breast on Sunday last. About eight ounces of opium and a hypodermic needle were found near the body. A letter was found in his coat pocket in which he claimed a man named George Weston had persecuted him so that he had to take his life. The letter is a mass of ravings such as would come from a man filled with opium and morphine.
Deputy Coroner Lilly took the remains from the island to Tacoma, and he will be buried from that place today. The people around the neighborhood say he had been crazy from the excessive use of opium for the past two years, and were surprised that he had not taken his life before. He was about 45 years of age and single.
“The letter is a mass of ravings such as would come from a man filled with opium and morphine.”
The paper’s lurid “opium fiend” language pathologized addiction, but the underlying story—an isolated man, a needle, and a note blaming another person—still echoes contemporary conversations about drug use, isolation, and mental health. Vashon Island’s rural edge in 1894 made such a death easy to miss until it was already over.
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