The Watch Thief of Front Street
A desperate thief snatched a gold watch from a construction site, triggering a neighborhood chase that ended in a vacant lot.
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.
About 9 o'clock yesterday morning a sneak thief stole a vest, gold watch and chain from John J. Hettell, foreman of a gang of carpenters working on a building on Front street, near Cedar. Hettell had left his vest hanging on a post, and the thief was seen taking it by a passing teamster. He started after the thief and was joined in the chase by all the carpenters. After a chase of two blocks toward Lake Union the thief was captured in a vacant lot, but he had taken the precaution in his flight to throw his booty over a high board fence, where it was afterwards found. One of his captors placed him on an electric car and brought him to police headquarters, where he gave his name as John Anderson. He will be given a preliminary hearing on a charge of grand larceny before justice Miller at 10 o'clock this morning.
“After a chase of two blocks toward Lake Union the thief was captured in a vacant lot.”
Front Street is known today as First Avenue, Seattle's historic waterfront corridor. The sight of a construction crew dropping their tools to chase a thief remains a familiar, if chaotic, piece of Seattle street life, even as the scale of development and the nature of the crime have evolved since 1888.
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