The Neighborhood Soldiers
A group of young boys, inspired by the fever of impending conflict, staged a march through the streets of Seattle, ending in a dangerous improvised explosion.
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.
The small boys of Seattle are becoming very enthusiastic on the soldier question, and every day little companies of boys, with drums and flags, can be seen marching around on the side streets of the city. One group of boys, ranging from seven to ten years of age, with three drums and two flags, paraded on Third street last evening. Not content with the honors of a well-disciplined force, they decided to illustrate the power of artillery by using an animal with some old gunpowder, mixed. According to report, they took one of the family milking cows into a stable, into which they attempted to put a pound of gunpowder. The result that followed was one of the most complete panics ever witnessed by the residents of that part of the city. The cow, frantic with the smell of the powder, kicked the stable to pieces and ran down the alley, the boys fleeing in all directions. One brother led the retreat, and the father, who was nearby, ran and captured the scared animal before it could do further damage. 'The boys are almost as excited as the men,' said Mr. Hopkins, who witnessed the affair, 'and that is saying a great deal, for the situation in the East and the talk of possible war with the Mother Country seems to have turned the heads of the citizens.'
“The boys are almost as excited as the men, and that is saying a great deal, for the situation in the East and the talk of possible war with the Mother Country seems to have turned the heads of the citizens.”
This 1885 report captures a moment of colonial anxiety, where the geopolitical fears of the British Empire were mirrored in the play-acting of Seattle's youth. Just as today’s political hyper-connectivity can make local residents feel the weight of global crises, Seattleites in the 1880s were hyper-aware that their frontier city was deeply tethered to international power dynamics.
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