A Daughter's Testimony Sends Her Father to Jail
Paul R. Nelson, a Swedish M.E. church janitor, was convicted of incest after his 14-year-old daughter told a neighbor she was pregnant and named him as responsible.
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.
Paul R. Nelson, janitor of the Swedish M.E. church at 1833 Fifth Street, was arrested yesterday on a complaint before Judge Humes, charged with incest with his fourteen-year-old daughter, Rosa L. Nelson. According to the girl's testimony, her father had criminal relations with her and had continued them since the girl—whose mother had been dead several years—told Mrs. Graham, a neighbor, that she was pregnant and named her father as responsible. The girl was immediately taken before Prosecuting Attorney Miller, and the arrest of her father followed as a matter of course.
Nelson is a middle-aged, white-whiskered man and appeared unconcerned as to his fate in court yesterday. When the verdict was read he merely grinned and exhibited no other sign of feeling. His attorney made a motion for a new trial and he was returned to jail. In the criminal department, State v. Paul K. Nelson resulted in a verdict of guilty of incest.
“The girl was immediately taken before Prosecuting Attorney Miller, and the arrest of her father followed as a matter of course.”
The case shows how child sexual abuse surfaced in 1894: a neighbor's report, a child's testimony, and a courtroom that treated the father's composure as noteworthy. Seattle's modern child-advocacy and survivor-services systems exist because such private violence eventually became a public responsibility—though the era's court coverage often denied victims dignity.
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