The Strange Death of a Traveling Salesman
A tragic overdose or a calculated theft? The suspicious death of a Seattle canvasser sparks an inquest and accusations of poisoning.
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.
An inquest was held over the remains of Michael P. Connellan, who died in the city jail on Thursday night. Dr. E. L. Whitford was directed to hold an autopsy and analyze the contents of the stomach to determine if poison had been administered. Suspicion that Connellan had met with foul play justified the inquest. Officer T. Hopkins testified that he found Connellan dead in jail on Thursday night. According to H. Morse, proprietor of the Arlington House, Connellan had been staying at his house, though he was known to drink heavily. Connellan had been seen Wednesday with a watch and chain, which were missing when he was searched at the jail. Police Officer Phillips stated that when he and others brought Connellan to the jail, he was limp and behaved differently from a typical intoxicated individual. Officer Phillips, concerned by the man's condition, notified Captain Willard that a man had been apparently poisoned. Mrs. McCarty, proprietress of the California house, testified that Connellan was a frequent guest who had money and a watch, but that he had been on a drinking spree. Thomas Hopkins, a bedmaker at the California house, was also arrested after the incident. Connellan’s friends, H. Syron and Henry Briggs, arrived from Portland to identify the body, noting that the deceased was an energetic canvasser for P. F. Collier who had struggled with alcoholism and had recently taken, then broken, the pledge.
“Witness thought that death was caused from a long continued whisky debauch rather than from the effects of drugs.”
The death of a vulnerable, transient worker in a city jail under mysterious circumstances mirrors the ongoing scrutiny regarding how Seattle’s institutions handle the health crises of those experiencing poverty and substance use disorders. Connellan’s story captures the isolation of a 19th-century itinerant laborer in a rapidly growing, often unforgiving frontier city.
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