A Death Threat Pinned to the Door of a Tide-Land Official
While Col. Will L. Visscher was in Olympia on public land business, someone beat his dog and left a note warning that his Fairhaven house would burn.
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.
Fairhaven Herald: Colonel Will L. Visscher, like Jay Gould and Russell Sage, is the object of the malicious threats of anonymous cranks. Yesterday morning the colonel arrived from Olympia, where he had been for a week on business connected with the tide land appraisement. During his absence last week some villain cruelly beat and maimed his dog Don. Yesterday morning about 2 o'clock Mrs. Visscher heard somebody step upon the front portico. She supposed that it was the colonel returning from Olympia, until she heard the intruder walk away. When the colonel arrived he found pinned to the front door a note written in a slovenly, sprawling hand, warning him that his house would be burned down over his head. The penmanship of the note indicates that it was written by some cowardly ruffian more familiar with other implements than with writing material. The regular process of the law is too slow to avenge such villains as the writer of this note.
“When the colonel arrived he found pinned to the front door a note written in a slovenly, sprawling hand, warning him that his house would be burned down over his head.”
Land appraisal and public-resource decisions have always made officials targets, and today's fights over shorelines and public lands can still turn personal. The Visscher episode is a reminder that property boundaries and tide-land claims were not abstract—they could provoke threats at the front door.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.