Cabin Raided by Boat Thieves in Kitsap County
A local veteran returns from his mail run to find his winter supplies, clothing, and bedding stolen, sparking a search for the thieves.
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.
COLBY (Kitsap County), Dec. 14. Editor Post-Intelligencer: As your paper has a wide circulation in this neighborhood, I thought I would send you the following item, which will warn our settlers to be on the lookout for thieves. On Saturday last, Mr. W. L. Keeley, a printer who has worked in Seattle, left his ranch for the post office at Colby to get his mail, as is his usual custom, and remained over night with a neighbor. On Sunday morning the neighbor and himself went out to Keeley’s place, where they made the discovery that a thief or thieves had entered his cabin during his absence, ransacked it thoroughly, and carried off about all of his bedding, clothing, shoes, the cartridges and his entire supply of provisions, some cooking utensils, postage stamps, etc. Mr. Keeley had recently been on a visit to friends in Seattle, who had advanced him the money to procure the clothing he needed for the winter, and could ill afford his loss. The thief—evidently not one—was tracked by a number of settlers to the beach, where could be seen the marks of a boat in the sand. This is the third settler who has been robbed in this neighborhood in the last few months. The thieves are well posted with the trails, and if they are caught their chances of becoming permanent land holders will be certain. Keeley says the thief that would rob an old soldier of his bed and rations is the meanest of mean thieves. - James McGrew.
“Keeley says the thief that would rob an old soldier of his bed and rations is the meanest of mean thieves.”
While Kitsap County is now a bustling suburban corridor, the isolation of homesteaders in the 1880s meant that a theft of 'bedding and rations' was a matter of survival, not just a property crime. This account captures the vulnerability of early settlers living in 'cabins' on the fringes of the rapidly urbanizing Puget Sound region.
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