The Unpredictable Life of Seattle’s 'Odd Job Man'
William D. Southworth, a local eccentric, attempted to organize a national guard, impersonated high-society figures, and left a trail of bafflement across 1880s Seattle before his final confinement.
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 two years ago, a small, heavy-set man, aged about 35, appeared in Seattle from some place, though it is hard to know where. Having a restless disposition, he converted himself into a sort of advertising medium. For a consideration, he would stick a placard on his back and a handbill on his weather-worn plug hat, and parade the streets beating a triangle. He did odd sorts of work and was generally known as the 'Odd Job Man.' He had a penchant for becoming city conversations. In due course of time, a vacancy occurred on the staff of the Seattle Chronicle, and the position was offered to the 'Odd Job Man,' whose real name proved to be William D. Southworth. For several months he did his duties on that publication, and by his unmitigated gall, became very well known in this community. He was eccentric in the extreme and always riding some hobby. He claimed to be a lawyer, stenographer, actor, boater, soldier, and everything else. One day, without any warning, he disappeared, and the next the people knew of him he was at San Francisco trying to organize a National Guard, and had two or three communications on that subject published in the San Francisco Chronicle. It seems that his National Guard hobby drove him insane, for a dispatch was received a few days since, addressed to a lodge in this city, stating that he had been adjudged insane and sent to one of the California insane asylums. Southworth was of a very even temper, and never seemed to worry over a rebuff. On one occasion, while Henry Villard was the head of the Northern Pacific railroad system, he, in company with a distinguished party of guests, visited Seattle. They proceeded to the Arlington Hotel. The dinner was in waiting for them; no sooner had the party become seated at the table in the private dining room than Southworth rushed into the hotel and attempted to enter the dining room, which was locked. He then sat into the lobby and wrote on the back of a card, 'Will D. Southworth, representing W. G. C. Pitt, requests an interview with Mr. Villard.' This card was sent in by a waiter, who presently returned it without any message from Mr. Villard. He then wrote an address to Mr. Villard, demanding a reason why he refused to be interviewed; but Captain Hall, one of the proprietors of the hotel, refused to let Mr. Villard and his guests be annoyed by the Odd Job man, and he was forcibly fired out.
“He converted himself into a sort of advertising medium. For a consideration, he would stick a placard on his back and a handbill on his weather-worn plug hat, and parade the streets beating a triangle.”
Southworth’s story of relentless, often disruptive public performance mirrors the way modern figures—and local ‘characters’—use the public square to chase visibility. His tale serves as a reminder of how, in an era before institutional mental healthcare was refined, the eccentric ‘hustler’ was both a local amusement and a tragic figure defined by his own instability.
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