The Tragedy of the Wandering Unitarian

It now transpires that Rev. Charles Gordon Ames, the Unitarian clergyman whose suicide by taking morphine in London on Thursday was mentioned in Friday's dispatches, was in Seattle in February and had several acquaintances here. He had been pastor of the Palmetto Street Unitarian Church in Boston and resigned his pastorate on account of troubles with his flock. He then came West and arrived in Seattle in February in company with Mr. Bray, who is now engaged in the real estate business here. He tried to secure employment on several newspapers in Seattle, and failing in this, left for La Conner, where he said his sister lived. The next thing heard of him was that he had gone to New York with the intention of going to London on business for the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. The next news that his friends in Seattle received was in the dispatch printed in the Post-Intelligencer, announcing his suicide in London. He was a man of brilliant parts, fine appearance and pleasing address, but while in Seattle, he was subject to spells of melancholia, which he would speak of ending his troubles by his own hand. He was in the habit of using morphine for the purpose, as he claimed, of securing relief from his mental anguish, and it is supposed by some that his death was caused by an overdose of the drug, taken without suicidal intent.