The Deadly Cost of a Family Feud
A brutal skirmish near Snohomish between the Scott and Miller families ends in a standoff and death.
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.
Official returns from the Snohomish area indicate that the recent tensions between the Scott and Miller families have turned lethal. On November 8th, a man named Miller was killed by John Scott near Snohomish. Scott, who was generally known as 'Hatch,' was reportedly in the region after returning from Oregon and Arizona. A prior bad blood had existed between him and a deputy sheriff. During a recent confrontation, Scott reportedly reached for his gun to avoid trouble, but was shot by Miller. Scott was wounded in the hip, then retaliated, firing his own weapon. The exchange of gunfire resulted in the death of Miller. Scott is now in a precarious condition, and a coroner's jury has returned a verdict of justifiable homicide in Miller's death.
“The exchange of gunfire resulted in the death of Miller. Scott is now in a precarious condition.”
This 1886 report of a fatal shootout between feuding families in Snohomish highlights the volatility of frontier justice in early Washington. It serves as a reminder that the rapid development of the Pacific Northwest was frequently punctuated by personal violence that often operated outside the reach of the nascent legal system.
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