The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Stealing
A young Seattle serial runaway and horse thief, described as having the face of an 'innocent Sunday School' student, leaves a trail of abandoned farms and confused sheriffs across the White and Duwamish rivers.
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.
Johnny, the protégé of Mr. John Preston of Lake Union, has already quite a criminal record and is again on the rampage. It will be remembered that about a year ago he stole one of his foster father’s horses and sat in jail for a month. Johnny is somewhat diminutive and does not appear to be more than 11 or 12 years of age. He has a very innocent-appearing face and would be taken for a prominent member of a juvenile Sunday School class. His eye is bright and restless, however, and it is the only feature about him indicating his real nature. Sheriff Cochrane took a paternal interest in the boy and when the month was up sent him out to his farm on the White River. He remained there a while and then went to another of Mr. Cochrane's farms near Renton. He had not been there long before he stole one of Sheriff Cochrane’s horses. He tried to sell the animal to Mr. Atkinson in Newcastle, but the sheriff secured the horse. Owing to his youth, Mr. Beriah Brown took the boy to his farm on White River. There, Johnny developed into a dime novel fiend, devouring yellow-backed literature. He carried a villainous-looking dirk in his hip pocket and frequently wore a navy revolver girted on with a piece of baling rope. After a series of thefts and attempted arson, Johnny is once again on the run, recently spotted stealing a horse near the Duwamish River. Sheriff Cochrane laments, 'I do not know what can be done with him. As we have no house of correction, the penitentiary seems to be the only solution of the problem, and it looks pretty hard to send him there.'
“I do not know what can be done with him. As we have no house of correction, the penitentiary seems to be the only solution of the problem, and it looks pretty hard to send him there.”
Johnny’s story reflects a recurring tension in Seattle’s history: the state’s historical reliance on incarceration for youth who lacked stable support systems. Much like today, the lack of robust, rehabilitative 'houses of correction' often led authorities to cycle vulnerable young people through a punitive system that did more to cement their criminal labels than to address their underlying needs.
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