A Wharf Foreman Tied an Iron Bar to His Neck and Stepped Into the Bay
James Mobley, foreman for the Port Blakely Mill Company, left his hat on the wharf as the only clue — a private collapse in a company mill town.
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.
Port Blakely, Sept. 18.—[Special.]—James Mobley, wharf foreman for the Port Blakely Mill Company, committed suicide Monday by tying a bar of iron to his neck and throwing himself into the bay from the wharf nearly in front of the Bainbridge Hotel. His body was found about twelve feet from the wharf. Finding his hat on the wharf gave the clue as to his taking his own life. Some men dragged the bay yesterday but did not find him; today, however, they found him. It is supposed that financial troubles caused the act. He leaves a wife and two babies.
“Finding his hat on the wharf gave the clue as to his taking his own life.”
Port Blakely was one of the largest sawmill towns on Puget Sound, a company community where a foreman's finances were bound to the mill's fortunes. Mobley's death — a weight on his neck, a wife and two babies left behind — is the kind of private wreck the boom-and-bust economy produced by the hundreds and seldom recorded. The old mill site is now a Bainbridge Island park and marina.
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