Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1902 — LEAVES A TRAIL OF BLOOD. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LEAVES A TRAIL OF BLOOD.

Escaped Convict in Washington Revive* Frontier Lay*. A realistic revival of the ways of the •wild and woolly West in the picturesque days of frontier warfare and of the reign of the bandit and bad man has be'en given in the State of Washington by Harry Tracy, an- convict from Oregon, who has left behind him a trail of blood and terror. During his flight the desperado killed eight men and shot several others: and despite the hundreds of pursuers who have camped on his trail he for a month succeeded in eluding capture. No bad man of the frontier towns has ever developed greater pluck rnd endurance than this fleeing convict -’ho terrorized and murdered as he went. Tracy’s career of crime began in 1857 in Colorado. He became involved in a robbery in that State and in attempting to evade arrest shot and killed Deputy Sheriff Valentine Hay. He was arrested in Portland, Ore., In the same year for burglary. His capture was effected under sensational circumstances. Shortly after his arrest Tracy was sentenced to the Oregon penitentiary at Salem. Here he shot his jailer, uaing a weapon with which he had been

mysteriously supplied. Early in the morning of June 0 last he and David Merrill, another convict, escaped from the penitentiary after killing three guards and fatally wounding another convict, who died the next day. Posses were organized to pursue the escaped felons, but they got out of the city. The next morning, however, they returned to Salem and robbed J. W. Roberts and another man of clothing. Then they fled again. Their trail was marked by reports of stolen horses and farmers whom they held up. The Governor of Oregon ordered oqt the militia and bands of deputy sheriffs and posses were sent out in all directions. Tracy and Merrill saw one of these bands, lay in ambush for the deputies, fired at them and escaped. Later they broke through a cordon of 250 militia. who had surrounded them in dense woods. They kept on stealing horses to ride, pressing forward until the beasts were worn out. Finally the fugitives reached the Columbia river. Over this they escaped by forcing G. Sutherland at the muzzles of their revolvers to ferry them across. They landed near N ancouver barracks. On June 17 the men shot and wounded Deputy Sheriff Bert Brescher in a light at Salmon creek, stole more horses and rode away. They robbed a house near Lacetner and another near Kelso, Wash. July 1 Tracy was seen at Tennino, thirty miles from Tacoma. He was then riding alone. The next day he arrived at South Bay and held up six men. Later he forced Capt. Clark and his crew of four men to convey him in a gasoline launch over Puget Sound to Meadow Point, north of Seattle. The captain says that Tracy had told him while on his boat that he had killed Merrill. On July 3 a party of pursuing officers under the leadership of Deputy Sheriff Charles Raymond of Snohomish County, and Deputy Sheriff John Williams of King County, located the desperado at Bothell, twenty miles north of Seattle and on the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Tracy had taken a commanding position in a clump of firs and had probably seen the posse before he himself had been observed. There was no parleying on either side. The posse, strong in numbers and perhaps somewhat encouraged by a reward, aggregating $5,000, for Tracy’s capture, prepared to surround the outlaw’s hiding place. Tracy, fighting for freedom and life, was determined not to be taken and with his trusty rifle opened fire on his pursuers. He fired five shots in all and these were sufficient to insure, for the time, his escape. At one of the discharges Raymond wns shot and fell to the ground dend. Another bullet struck the rifle barrel of Williams, splintering it and burying itself in the deputy’s chest. Williams fell to the ground badly wounded. Before the other members of the posse could recover their wits the outlaw esenped. The evening of the same day saw Tracy at the home of a Mrs. Van llo' - n in Woodlawn Park, a suburb of Seattle. The outlaw’s presence was secretly made known by Mrs. Van Horn to a butcher’s boy, who spread the alarm. To surround the house was a mntter of only a brief time, and then the officers felt sure that their quarry could not escape them. Tracy opened fire on the officers, instantly killing Policeman E. E. Breeze and fatally wounding Neil Rawley, another of his would-be captors. He then coerced two men to act as shields and under their protection he made his way out of the runge of fire and disappeared in the woods and the darkness. The tragedies thoroughly aroused the authorities and Gov. Mcßride ordered out two troops of the State militia to co-op-erate with the civil power in running down the desperado. Scores of men were sworn in as deputies aud a systematic search for Tracy begun. The Secretary of the Treasury has asked the Interior Department to transfer the Jurisdiction of Blcdge Island, an Island near Nome, Alaska, front the Interior to the Trensury Department for use ns a quarantine station for smallpox patients. There is already a surgeon and marine hospital station on the island and owing to the prevalence of smallpox In Alaska it is deemed desirable that a regular quarantine stutidn be instituted up* on the island. The steamer Dolphin brought $1,000,000 in gold from the Klondike.

HARRY TRACY.