Two Wives, Two Brutal Husbands, and a Fight for the Property
Mary Fisher wins her freedom — and the family's Anacortes and Whatcom lots — after years of abuse, while Daisy Logan asks the court to protect her 4-year-old from a man who threw the furniture.
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.
Judge Langley yesterday signed a default divorce decree in the case of Mary C. Fisher vs. Charles Fisher. The parties were married in this city June 26, 1888. The suit was brought by Mrs. Fisher because her husband treated her cruelly, called her vile names in the presence of Melie, her 16-year-old daughter by a former marriage, and abused her various times, particularly on Sunday, August 21, when he choked and bruised her and tore the clothing from her body. There are no children of her second marriage.
Fisher and wife are the owners of personal property valued at $900, and real estate as follows: Lots 15 and 16, block 2, Water Line addition, upon which they have an $800 house; lots 7 and 8, block 41, which Fisher deeded to her December 2, 1891; lots 3 and 4, block 31, Fidalgo Bay addition to Anacortes, also given to her December 2, 1891; and lots 1 and 5, block 1, Washington Park addition to New Whatcom. Mrs. Fisher asks for a decree dissolving the bonds of matrimony and that the title to the property rest in her. Fisher let the case go uncontested.
In the case of Daisy Logan vs. Albert L. Logan, the plaintiff asks for a divorce from a husband she married at West Salem, Illinois, February 14, 1888. She says that during all their married life her husband has treated her cruelly, and on numerous occasions brutally beat her with his fists. He is of a violent and jealous disposition, she says, and before abandoning her three years ago frequently came home in a rage, broke the household furniture to pieces and threw it at her, making life burdensome and unbearable. The issue of the marriage is Bessie May Logan, 4 years old, and the mother asks for her custody.
“He broke the household furniture to pieces and threw it at her, making life burdensome and unbearable.”
By 1894 Washington women could obtain divorces on grounds of cruelty — and, as Mary Fisher's case shows, the decree could carry real property and a home with it. The question of economic control inside an abusive marriage, and whether a court will award a victim the roof over her head, is still being litigated in Seattle courtrooms today.
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