Seattle Opens Its Purse for the Franklin Mine Widows and Orphans
A Post-Intelligencer relief fund nears $1,500 as post office clerks, university employees, railroad men and benefit audiences contribute to families of the miners killed at Franklin.
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.
The fund for the relief of the widows and orphans of the miners killed in the Franklin disaster stood at nearly $1,500. Contributions came from every class. Among the day’s gifts were $20 from John H. McGraw, $25 from employees of the Port Townsend Southern Railroad at Olympia, $64.50 from Seattle post office employees, and $70 from employees of the new state university. The miners at another camp had contributed a sum that would be turned into the fund when their subscription there was completed. The relief committee acknowledged sixteen sacks of flour from the Marble Bath barber shop. Two bereaved women wrote: “We desire to express in your paper our heartfelt thanks and sincere gratitude to the many friends who have so kindly administered to our wants in our recent bereavement.”
The Post-Intelligencer deposited $139.50 more of the fund in the First National Bank, subject to the check of the relief committee; A. Sidney Hansard, receiving teller, receipted for it. A dramatic and musical entertainment for the benefit of the Franklin sufferers was given at Gilman by the German Dramatic Club and was a financial and social success. At Madison Park, Manager Bruns’ company drew thousands to a ten-cent performance of “The Underground Railroad,” with Fukino’s Oriental Japanese troupe, the proceeds going to the widows and orphans at Franklin. A benefit baseball game at Madison Park between the Nonpareils and a team of Columbia & Puget Sound railroad employees ended 32 to 0 in favor of the Nonpareils.
““We desire to express in your paper our heartfelt thanks and sincere gratitude to the many friends who have so kindly administered to our wants in our recent bereavement.” — two of the bereaved women”
The 1894 Franklin mine explosion killed dozens of miners, and this page shows Seattle’s relief network before modern social insurance. Postal clerks, university employees and railroad crews gave what they could, while benefit performances raised more for widows and orphans. The same questions—who pays after an industrial disaster, and how quickly relief reaches families—remain with us.
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