The Tragic Finality of William Naff
A Seattle man, driven to despair by illness, orchestrated a gruesome end to his life using telephone company equipment.
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.
At noon today, William Naff, a former resident of St. Louis, employed in the Telephone Company, died in a most novel manner. Complaining of being ill, Naff went into his cabin, laid down on the floor, placed a flask of powder, with a cap and fuse attached, under his head, and while in this position lighted the fuse. The shot blew his head entirely from his body.
“Naff went into his cabin, laid down on the floor, placed a flask of powder, with a cap and fuse attached, under his head, and while in this position lighted the fuse.”
This stark report from 1885 Seattle highlights the brutal reality of mental health struggles before modern psychiatric support, using the language of 'novelty' to describe a tragedy. It serves as a reminder of how the rapid industrialization of late-19th-century Seattle often masked deep-seated human isolation and the desperation of those working the dangerous new infrastructure of the city.
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