The Tragic End of a Hotelier
A well-known Seattle ship captain and hotel proprietor dies after a fatal overdose of morphine intended to ease his suffering.
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.
Yesterday morning the people of Seattle were shocked by the announcement that the stern, relentless hand of death had descended on this community and snatched from it Captain Julius W. Smith, an old and highly respected citizen. It seems that Captain Smith for some months past has been suffering from hemorrhoids, and the medicines had been unusually painful. Late Thursday night, about 10 o'clock, the captain took an injection of morphine, and being unaccustomed to the use of the drug, administered an overdose. For a time he felt quite relieved, and at one point he felt better. During the afternoon he felt dizziness and pain and wanted to be with friends; afterwards he went to sleep and never awakened, although every effort was made to restore him to consciousness. The deceased was born in Rochester, N.Y., January 5, 1844. While yet a young man, Julius W. Smith settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he built up a large foundry and machine works. Captain Smith was a skillful navigator and a popular steamboat man. In 1880, he sold his interest to open the Arlington Hotel. During the hard times he rented the New Arlington, a new building one block from the old house, which he fitted up and furnished throughout with solid black walnut. Captain Smith worked hard to weather the storm of business depression, but it lasted too long. Last October, Captain Smith lost his wife, which was a very heavy blow to him. After leaving the hotel, he, Mrs. Farrar, and his little son Fred took up their residence on the corner of Fifth and Union streets, where he met his untimely end.
“The stern, relentless hand of death had descended on this community and snatched from it Captain Julius W. Smith.”
Captain Smith’s story captures the personal toll of 19th-century boom-and-bust cycles, which often wiped out business owners and left families vulnerable. The Arlington Hotel he managed was a landmark of early Seattle, serving as a social hub before the city's rapid transformation in the late 1880s.
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