The Hatchet in the Room
A New Year's night assault at a Seattle boarding house leads to a suspicious man, a bloodied hat, and a neighborhood hunt.
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.
On New Year's evening, Ernst Ksoalet, chief cook at the Brunswick Restaurant, returned to his lodgings at the corner of Second and Cherry Streets. Upon unlocking his door and striking a match, he was struck by a severe blow to the back of the head. A heavy, faceless assailant attempted to press him to the floor. Ksoalet screamed, and the attacker fled. Ksoalet's head was badly gashed, and doctors noted that his hat likely saved his life from a heavy hatchet blow.
Witnesses later identified a man named Burns, who had been seen at the nearby Dew Drop Inn shortly after the incident. Burns claimed he had just arrived from Front Street, but witnesses who had been watching the area insisted he had come running from the direction of the crime. When searchers later entered Ksoalet's room, they found a blood-spattered hatchet on the table. The preliminary hearing before Justice Hill is ongoing to determine if there are grounds to hold the defendant for the Grand Jury.
“The doctor told him that but for the protection afforded by his hat, the first blow of the hatchet would have killed him.”
Boarding house life and the vulnerability of individual residents have been constant features of Seattle's history. The 1886 assault on Second and Cherry mirrors the modern tension of safety and density in downtown Seattle, where historic lodging rooms have often been converted or replaced by large-scale urban development.
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