Three Years Under a Fallen Tree: The Skeleton at Quartermaster Harbor
A Seattle man went to Vashon Island for shingle bolts and vanished. Boys found his bones this week, pinned beneath a trunk — and the coroner may never know whether the tree killed him or simply held him there.
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.
Tacoma, Aug. 15. — [Special.] — The skeleton of a man, supposed to be a Seattleite named Scott, who left there about three years ago to get out shingle bolts on Vashon Island, was found today at Burton, near Quartermaster Harbor, by boys.
Scott disappeared suddenly and was supposed to have been murdered. Part of the skeleton was under the trunk of a tree, which it is now supposed fell on Scott and killed him. He remained about Quartermaster Harbor a few days after arriving there from Seattle and then went into the timber and disappeared, no trace ever being found. He left property at Des Moines and Seattle.
A theory is also advanced that, owing to the position of the bones, Scott was only pinioned by the tree and starved to death. Deputy Coroner Lilley of Seattle has been notified.
“A theory is also advanced that, owing to the position of the bones, Scott was only pinioned by the tree and starved to death.”
Vashon Island's timber was a short boat ride and a world away from Seattle, and men went over for a season's work and sometimes never came back down the trail. For three years the working theory was murder; the tree was the real killer, or worse, the jailer. It is a reminder that in the 1890s a disappearance could stay a mystery simply because nobody with authority ever walked that stretch of woods.
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