The Tragedy of a Boy on Mercer Island
A young runaway’s desperate flight leads to a dramatic intervention by the county sheriff.
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.
Isaac William Miller, a young boy held for the murder of I. Manning Gaines and Wilbur Patten, has again become so unruly that it has been found necessary to send him to the county jail. He was previously held at the residence of his parents on Mercer Island, under the watch of his parents and the women and children of their household. They came to Seattle and made complaint to Sheriff McGraw, who at once detailed a man to secure the lad and bring him to town. He was found in a cabin on a piece of land his father is building on, two miles from his parents' residence, where the boy had driven his parents off the land to Snohomish.
“They came to Seattle and made complaint to Sheriff McGraw, who at once detailed a man to secure the lad and bring him to town.”
This 1888 account of a youth in crisis highlights the stark, often harsh methods of turn-of-the-century juvenile justice. While the modern system emphasizes rehabilitation, the underlying struggle of families managing severe youth behavioral health crises remains a painful, recurring theme in King County.
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