A Fight for the Right to a Shave in Pioneer Square
H. R. Cayton, editor of a Black Republican weekly, is thrown out of a barber shop after the proprietor demands an old debt, sparking a scuffle and a smashed window.
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.
The large plate window at the side of the entrance to J. F. Cragwell's barber shop in the Yesler building on Pioneer place was smashed into small pieces last evening, and thereby hangs a tale. H. R. Cayton, the colored representative of the Republican, a weekly newspaper, last evening went to Cragwell's shop, accompanied by Homer Hill, and got into the first chair and called for a shave. The barber lathered him and was removing his whiskers when Mr. Cragwell, who had been in the bath room, returned to the shop. When he saw Mr. Cayton he saw visions of a $10 bill that he claims Cayton owes him. Cragwell said strong words to Mr. Cayton and grabbed for his nose. Cragwell is doubtful about getting hold of the proboscis, but Mr. Cayton swears Mr. Cragwell gave it an awful jerk.
After Mr. Cragwell had said his speech about the 'gall' of Mr. Cayton to enter his shop when he owed him $10 for over a year, which $10 he had repeatedly tried to collect but failed, he ordered Cayton out of the shop. Mr. Cayton replied in a dignified manner, although muffled up in a big apron, that a barber shop was a public place and that he was there on business. This caused Mr. Cragwell, who is a large man, to grab Mr. Cayton by the necktie. Away went the necktie and collar. Then Mr. Cayton's hat scurried out upon the sidewalk, thrown by Cragwell. Then Cragwell grabbed Mr. Cayton around the waist and threw him out of the door. Just as they were outside, in some manner it would be hard to describe, Cragwell went up against the big plate glass window and smashed it. The glass, being loosened, came down with a crash, barely escaping Cragwell's head. This unexpected end to the encounter stopped the wrangle, but Cragwell had Cayton arrested for disorderly conduct.
Cragwell told his story to a Post-Intelligencer reporter soon after the trouble and explained Cayton's presence in the shop as a means to bring a civil suit for a refusal to shave a colored man. 'But he was shaved just the same,' he continued. In explaining how the glass was broken, he said that Cayton gave him a sudden twitch and sent him flying against the glass.
Cayton gave bonds at police headquarters and was released. In talking with a Post-Intelligencer reporter he said that he went into the shop to get shaved and that, while he was in the chair, Cragwell pulled his nose and then fired him out of the shop. He said he acted like a gentleman throughout the proceeding and felt that he had a perfect right in a public barber shop. He denied having given Cragwell a twitch that sent him into the window and explained that he was pulling backward to prevent being put into the street. The case will come up in the police court this afternoon.
“Mr. Cayton replied in a dignified manner, although muffled up in a big apron, that a barber shop was a public place and that he was there on business.”
H. R. Cayton, editor of the Seattle Republican, was a pioneering Black journalist. This incident, framed by the barber as a debt dispute but seen by Cayton as a refusal to serve a Black man, highlights early struggles for equal access to public accommodations in Seattle.
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