The Saloon Men Who Saved a Logger from a Pauper's Grave
When Frank Johnson died at the county farm, his old friend Tommy Jones called on Seattle's saloon keepers to give him a proper burial in Lake View.
Tommy Jones, who keeps the Tremont saloon at the corner of South Seventh and King streets, was a personal friend of Frank Johnson, who died recently at the county farm. In speaking of the dead man, who he says was well known in the city, he says that Johnson came here from Michigan ten years ago and found work in a logging camp. While at work his leg was pulled off by a rope. He was taken to Sisters' hospital and stayed there a long time, and then went to work for Patrick Welsh for two years. He worked at different places until last fall, when he took up some timber land and stayed there until he was taken sick and went to the county hospital, where he died.
Before dying Johnson sent for Mr. Jones and said that he did not want to be buried in a pauper's grave. This brought all his old friends to the front, and through a collection taken up by Mr. Jones among the saloon men and dealers, headed by Van Bassett and Pat Gleason, enough money was gathered to give the poor man a resting place in Lake View cemetery.
“He did not want to be buried in a pauper's grave.”
Before public funeral assistance was routine, mutual aid among coworkers and saloon regulars often decided whether a poor man got a marked grave. The story is a reminder that Seattle's working-class institutions—saloons included—could function as a rough welfare network.
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