A Debt, an Axe, and Three Deaths on San Juan Island
A wage dispute turns into a triple killing in a remote island neighborhood, and the accused are committed for trial.
THE SAN JUAN HORROR.—From various rumors which have reached us, the people of San Juan have heard the story of the murder of Cook and others of the Johnson family. The following is the history of the murders as near as we can learn: Manson, in the neighborhood of Johnson's, had hired Cook. Cook went to Manson on the day of the murder to get money. Manson told Cook that he would not pay him. They quarreled, and Cook struck him; Manson then seized an axe in the house of Cook and killed him with it. The daughter of Johnson saw the murder and fled to the house to tell her mother. The murderer followed her and killed her and her mother. Manson and his accomplice have been arrested and are now committed for trial.
“Manson then seized an axe in the house of Cook and killed him with it. ... The murderer followed her and killed her and her mother.”
In 1861 San Juan Island was a sparsely settled, disputed border island; today it is a ferry-dependent tourist destination. The item shows how a wage quarrel in an isolated place could become a triple killing, and how the frontier press reduced it to a few breathless lines.
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