Harry Tracy was a man of contradictions—a convicted robber and murderer who charmed hostages, spared children, and promised to repay those who helped him, even as he killed lawmen who tried to stop him. Standing about five foot eight with sandy hair and piercing blue-gray eyes, he was known in Seattle’s Tenderloin District in the mid-1890s as something of a ladies’ man, and it was his taste for nightlife and women that pushed him from honest work into a life of crime. After arriving in Seattle, Tracy briefly tried to go straight, working as a student fireman for the railroad and renting a modest room on First Avenue. But the red-light district south of Yesler Street was a short walk away, and his small salary could not keep up with his habits.
He began robbing people near the train depot, following victims back to their hotel rooms and fencing their valuables downtown. King County Sheriff’s Deputy Jack Williams was assigned to the case, but police lacked enough evidence for an arrest. Instead, they gave Tracy a stern warning to leave town. Defiant as ever, he said he would leave when he was good and ready.
He did eventually drift down to Utah, where he landed in far more serious trouble, but Deputy Williams would later find himself face to face with Tracy once more—and this time, only one of them would survive. Tracy’s violent escape from a Utah prison and his bloody flight through the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 1902 turned him into one of the most wanted men in America. After killing three prison guards and fellow inmate Dave Merrill during a mass breakout, Tracy and an accomplice made their way north toward Washington Territory, leaving a trail of stolen horses, forced meals, and terrified families in their wake. The shootout with Deputy Williams came after Tracy shot Deputy Raymond at a cabin near Seattle.
Wounded, Williams survived for several more years but ultimately died from complications of the wounds he received that summer. In the span of a few hours, Tracy had killed three men—and effectively a fourth, given Williams’s eventual fate. Following the shooting of the deputies, Tracy hijacked a wagon and forced its owner to drive him toward Seattle, passing through a roadblock without drawing suspicion. By nightfall, he was on the outskirts of Woodland Park, where he held a wagon driver named Lewis Johnson hostage and ate dinner at the home of a Mrs.
Van Horn. Calmly, he had Johnson write down his name and address, saying he wanted to make things right if he ever came into money again. A grocery boy alerted Sheriff Cudi, who was a mile away in Bothell. With a handful of armed volunteers, the sheriff took up positions around the Van Horn house.
When Tracy emerged, flanked by hostages, Sheriff Cudi held his fire, waiting for a clean shot. It never came. Two constables, Raley and Bree, stumbled onto the scene and confronted Tracy, unaware of who he was. When Bree spotted the rifle hidden under Tracy’s coat, he ordered him to drop it.
Tracy responded by shooting Bree in the forehead, then pumped two rounds into Raley’s belly before disappearing into the night. Both constables died quickly. By the following morning, July 4th, the citizens of Seattle were arming themselves. Hardware stores handed out rifles, and Sheriff Cudi led a posse of fifty men into the woods between Seattle and Bothell.
Tips flooded in, some credible and some not. Tensions ran so high that a Japanese man was nearly gunned down by a trigger-happy posse member who mistook him for Tracy. Tracy, meanwhile, had made his way to Green Lake, where he held a farmer and his family at gunpoint during breakfast. He described the shootings in vivid detail, adding that he did not want to hurt anyone except those who were after him.
Refusing to tie up the family because of their 18-month-old baby, he made them promise not to tell anyone he had been there for 48 hours. They agreed—and immediately notified authorities. The farmer’s wife even claimed she had tried to poison his food, but he was watching too closely. The law responded with bloodhounds, but the dogs lost the scent after about a mile.
Believing Tracy was headed for the Cascades, the posse was fooled when he went the opposite direction, back toward Puget Sound. He forced a fisherman to row him to Bainbridge Island, where he held another family hostage, demanding food and good clothes. He released the father and made his way back to the mainland with a hired hand named John Anderson as his captive. Anderson later described Tracy as tireless, always walking fast and watching both sides.
He said Tracy told him he felt stronger than at any time since leaving the penitentiary. During their march, Anderson said they met four men, one of whom Tracy greeted as “Fred. ” The group traveled together for a time, and Anderson was tied up and blindfolded before being left alone near a railroad track. By daylight, Tracy and the mystery men returned.
At one point, Tracy came across two girls and a young boy picking berries. Introducing himself as the famous fugitive, he accompanied them home, assuring them he would never hurt a woman. He gave the boy two stolen watches and told him to sell them in Seattle and buy two Colt . 45 revolvers and two boxes of cartridges.
If the boy betrayed him, Tracy warned, he would kill the boy’s two sisters. Once the boy departed, however, Tracy assured the mother she had nothing to fear—it was a bluff. The boy, more plucky than Tracy expected, alerted the authorities. A posse surrounded the Gerald home, but Tracy noticed and devised a plan to use the women as a human shield.
Before he could carry it out, two highly intoxicated men barged into the house, asking if Tracy was there. Tracy hid in a room with the young ladies while the mother denied his presence, and the drunks stumbled out, likely saving their own lives. That night, under cover of darkness, Tracy slipped through the posse unnoticed, leaving his hostage tied up. The posse rushed in, cut Anderson free, and set the hounds on Tracy’s trail.
The dogs lost the scent at a river crossing but picked it back up, only to be thrown off by a heavy dusting of cayenne pepper Tracy had scattered. The handlers cleaned the dogs’ noses, and soon they were back on the hunt, following Tracy for eight miles—the longest track of the entire manhunt—before losing the trail at Lake Washington. Demoralized, most of the volunteer posse quit and went home. Tracy changed direction again, heading south.
Near Tacoma, he took another family hostage, demanding food, clothing, and a pair of . 45 Colts. While waiting for the man of the house to return with the guns, Tracy allegedly regaled the family with stories of riding with Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch. Whether that was true is uncertain—much of what is known about Tracy’s time on the run comes from newspaper accounts, and the manhunt had garnered national attention, with daily updates in papers across the country.
President Theodore Roosevelt himself was said to be following the chase closely. When Mr. Johnson returned, he had only been able to procure one revolver—with a longer barrel than Tracy had asked for. Tracy was annoyed but quickly cooled off, borrowed a couple of dollars, had Mrs.
Johnson pack him food, shook hands all around, and headed down the road alone. She later told reporters that Tracy had spoken fondly of his mother twice and that she had seen tears welling in his eyes. She also expressed fear that he would return and kill her husband. She did not have long to wait.
Shortly after midnight, Tracy came upon two men guarding railroad tracks and ran. They fired at him with shotguns, pelting his hip with buckshot. He hobbled about fifty yards before running into another lawman, Deputy Crow. Pretending to be a fellow posse member, Tracy got close, raised his rifle, and fired off a couple of shots before disappearing into the darkness.
Crow, unscathed apart from a powder burn, headed for the nearest telegraph station. By 8 a. m. , Sheriff Cudi arrived with bloodhounds, but the trail soon went cold.
A few hours later, Tracy was spotted on a farm five miles south of Covington. The hounds followed the trail for eight miles—the longest track of the entire manhunt—before losing the scent. The following day, July 12th, Tracy limped into the home of an elderly French couple, looking thin, drawn, and so exhausted he could barely lift his fork. He treated them kindly, and they later said it was hard to believe he had such a black record.
On July 14th, Tracy was spotted by a ten-year-old boy near Enumclaw, who said Tracy seemed very tired with dark circles under his eyes, carrying a Winchester and wearing a makeshift holster with two revolvers. The boy alerted the adults, but Tracy had already circled back and vanished. Later that afternoon, he forced his way into the Garner home, ate dinner, ordered one of the boys to give him a shave, and departed with a new pair of pants. Sheriff Cudi, following an informant’s tip that Tracy was receiving outside help, led twelve of his best men on a long, difficult hike to a remote cabin on Lake Sawyer.
They breached the doors with guns drawn, but the cabin was empty. Inside, they found remnants of an old fire and what appeared to be bloody rags. Defeated, Sheriff Cudi quit the search completely, saying he would not go out into the field again unless he had definitive news. Meanwhile, false reports and copycats added to the chaos.
One jokester walked into a logging camp demanding dinner, though he did not match Tracy’s description. Another man, William Nixon, claimed to be Tracy in a Seattle saloon, intimidating a female employee into buying him beer. She told authorities, and the next time Nixon entered that saloon, he was beaten black and blue and locked up. The real Harry Tracy had crossed the Cascades on horseback into Eastern Washington.
Near Waterville, he stopped at a fruit ranch, taking a meal and a fresh mount before pushing on to the Columbia River, where ferry operators refused to take him across until sunup. Tracy spent a nervous few hours watching his back trail before waking them at first light. On the other side, he refused to pay, saying he was broke—and even if he had money, he would not hand it over given their uncooperativeness. Tracy’s days were numbered.
Around August 2nd or 3rd, he was discovered by a 19-year-old named George Goldfinch, who had been out riding alone. Tracy invited the young man to stay for dinner, and they discussed a recent boxing match. During the conversation, Tracy introduced himself properly and informed George he was now a hostage. He promised not to hurt him, asking only to be guided to the nearest ranch.
Goldfinch took him to the Edie spread, run by brothers Lou and Jean Edie. Tracy enjoyed dinner there and, uncharacteristically, let Goldfinch go home. Goldfinch did not immediately report what he had seen. But secrets are hard to keep, especially when a large reward hangs over them.
After he began talking, word spread to the nearby towns of Davenport and Creston. There, a group of amateur vigilantes formed—Joseph Morrison, Maurice Smith, a lawyer who had served in the Spanish-American War, and E. C. Lanter, a 23-year-old fresh out of medical school.
They tried to recruit Goldfinch as a guide, but he refused, fearing Tracy might not take kindly to the betrayal. Instead, they enlisted Frank Lingren and part-time Constable C. A. Stob.
On August 6th, 1902, the group made their way to the Edie Ranch, finishing the last leg of the journey on foot. They managed to sneak to within fifty yards of the barn where Tracy was helping the Edie brothers build. Nervous, they urged Smith to take the shot, but he decided to give Tracy a chance to surrender. “Throw your hands up,” Smith barked.
It was a fatal mistake. Tracy immediately dove toward the barn, grabbing his Winchester. Unsure how many men he faced, he made his way from the back of the barn to a hayfield, with Lanter and Morrison firing at him. As he ran, he tripped, losing control of the rifle and knocking loose its front sight.
When he retrieved it and began firing, his bullets fell short—the damaged rifle was practically ineffective at range. The five men rushed at him, splitting up to flank Tracy as he dashed for a basin in the distance. Smith began walking his rounds in on Tracy, firing whenever the fugitive appeared in a break in the tall grass. After several adjustments, Smith thought he got a hit.
He unloaded his gun in that general area, and a deafening silence fell. Lanter raised his rifle and fired at a movement—but it turned out to be a large hog, which squealed and ran off. The tension broke, and the men began laughing uncontrollably, even as a confirmed killer remained hidden somewhere in the field. Then they heard a muffled pistol shot from the tall grass.
With the sun going down, none of the men felt strongly about advancing in the dark, so they waited until daybreak. Around midnight, Sheriff Gardner of Lincoln County arrived and decided the same. At first light, Lanter and Smith advanced cautiously, rifles at the ready. Not twenty yards from where Smith had thought he got his lucky shot, they found Harry Tracy—covered in dirt and blood, dead.
One of Smith’s rounds had shattered Tracy’s right leg and severed a large artery. Tracy had applied his belt as a tourniquet, but realizing he was losing his battle, he had placed his own revolver against his right eye and pulled the trigger. He was 33 years old. Tracy’s body was hauled to Davenport, where a mob of souvenir hunters awaited.
They lined the streets and began pulling off buttons, then pieces of clothing, then skin and hair. Inside the coroner’s office, the crowd broke in and stripped the body completely naked, hacking away chunks of flesh. Sheriff Cudi, who had arrived minutes earlier, was so overcome by the scene that he began sobbing. A dispute arose over who could claim the body and the reward.
Sheriff Gardner claimed jurisdiction since Tracy had died in his area, but the young posse men who did the work refused to hand over the body. The governor ordered Constable Stob to take possession and transport the body back to the Oregon State Penitentiary. Before loading Tracy onto the train, authorities poured acid over his face to discourage future trophy hunters. Constable Stob had to sit on the coffin for the entire ride, clutching a rifle, to prevent souvenir hunters from cutting pieces off.
A mob still managed to smash the casket during a transfer in Salem, making off with the splinters and strips of skin. What remained of Harry Tracy was laid to rest in an unmarked grave at the Oregon State Penitentiary, covered in lime, right alongside Dave Merrill—the man he had murdered during the prison break. Merrill’s body had been found on July 15th with three bullet holes in his back, just as Tracy had described. The reward money, originally reported to have reached over $4,000, was paid out at $2,500.
Sheriff Gardner, who arrived after the fact and did not even enter the tall grass, attempted to claim it, as did George Goldfinch. A lawsuit followed, and the reward was ultimately divided among the five amateur posse men—Smith, Lanter, Morrison, Lingren, and Stob. The furor that Harry Tracy created slowly died down. Today, few markers trace his trail of mayhem through the Pacific Northwest—no placards where he shot it out with deputies or held families hostage.
The man who boldly marched across hundreds of miles of underbrush and dense forest has left only the impression of a memory. Perhaps it is fitting that this outlaw, no matter how bold and daring, has left little trace on the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. He was, in the end, a convicted criminal, a thief, and a cold-blooded murderer—who was also, by many accounts, polite and courteous to women, and a firm believer in his own crude code of frontier justice.
