The Odd Fellows' Missing $144.15: A Treasurer's Fall From Grace
Henry A. Swift, a Fremont mill worker and lodge treasurer, is charged with embezzling $144.15 after a shutdown left his family in need.
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.
A warrant was issued yesterday afternoon from Justice Caldwell's court for the arrest of Henry A. Swift, ex-treasurer of Seattle Encampment, No. 11, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, charging him with converting to his own use $144.15 of the order's money. Swift is employed at Port Blakely, and an officer left the city yesterday afternoon to arrest him.
At the semi-annual election of officers last January the members of the encampment honored Swift for being a regular attendant and zealous worker by electing him treasurer. He was then foreman of the Fremont Milling Company's lumber yards and lived with his wife at the corner of Aurora and Kilbourne avenues, Fremont. He had been in the employ of the mill for five years and always drew a good salary. The mill closed down and Swift was out of work for several weeks. After this he obtained work at Port Blakely and is still employed there.
His term of office as treasurer of the encampment expired at the last meeting in June, and at that time he made a statement showing that $144.15 was due the order. After some time a letter was sent to him, but called forth no answer. Then a meeting was called and a committee of one was appointed to go to Port Blakely and give him an opportunity to settle the deficiency. According to the story the committeeman told Swift that he had a chance to turn over the money, and that the encampment was anxious to have him do so at once. Swift, it is claimed, replied that he did not have the money. His family had been in need and he had used it. He agreed, however, to give a note, secured by a mortgage on two lots at Ross for security. This proposition was received favorably at a meeting of the order, and subsequently the mortgage was made out and sent over from Blakely. It was placed before the encampment and appeared to be irregular, some of the members thinking it would not hold water. Another mortgage, acceptable to the order, was sent to Swift for his signature. It is said that he refused to sign it, and at the time of his refusal realized that prosecution would follow.
The matter came to a climax yesterday afternoon, when Callus Michel, chief patriarch of the encampment, laid the matter before Prosecuting Attorney Miller and secured a complaint for larceny by embezzlement. The warrant was placed in the hands of Sheriff McCowan, and he went to Blakely yesterday afternoon.
“His family had been in need and he had used it.”
A trusted lodge treasurer, a mill shutdown, and $144.15 taken to keep a family afloat: the story shows how thin the line between respectability and prosecution could be in a boom-and-bust economy. Fraternal orders were a working man's safety net, but when the job disappeared, the ledger became a debt to the community—and a criminal charge.
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