Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1895 — It Was a Fake. [ARTICLE]

It Was a Fake.

Some time ago a story went around the newspapers to the effect that Eliza Island, which lies in Puget Sound in sight of the city of Fair Haven, had been leased by a syndicate of specula-, tors, who Intended to establish a peculiar industry, and raise black cats for their fur. Eliza Island is a beautiful piece of ground In Bellingham Bay, and is covered with flr trees of everlasting green. Two or three fishermen are living there with their families and keep a number of animals. But the black-cat story was a fake, started by a man tamed James Wardener, of Fair Haven, who has an inventive genius and very little to do. He sent it to an Eastern paper as a genuine thing, to illustrate the enterprise of the citizens of Washington, and everybody believed It to be true.