Eye-Witness to the Assassination

Mother of a Honolulu Man Tells Story of the Buffalo Tragedy.

     The incidents and scenes attending the shooting of President McKinley on September 6 are vividly told in a letter written by a lady to her son in Honolulu. She was standing on the piazza of the Music Hall when the fatal shots were fired, and witnessed many of the exciting scenes which followed. She says:
     “I saw the President Friday morning at 8:30. I again saw him in the afternoon as he was returning from Niagara Falls. I knew he was to have a reception at 4 o’clock in the Music Hall. I started for the building, but missed my way, and it was after 4 before I reached it. I heard the two shots fired, but did not think anything about it, as I heard shots fired while in the Midway. Just as I started to go up the steps the doors were closed. I saw people talking in groups. Soon I saw some men carrying a man down the steps and put him in the hospital ambulance. In a few minutes I saw some police officers and a lot of men taking another man out and put him in a carriage.
     “Men were excited and were shouting ‘Lynch him! Lynch him!’ Still I did not know what it was about until I asked a man, who said, ‘Why, don’t you know the President has been shot twice?’
     “I never saw such an excited crowd running after the carriage containing the prisoner. If they had got hold of him he would not have been long for this world. All during the evening a big crowd stood at the doors of the Music Hall, thinking he was still inside, because everything was closed, windows and doors. I took the street car for the depot in the evening. When we reached Main street [sic] the cars could not get through the crowds.
     “I believe every man, woman and child in Buffalo was on the streets, in front of the newspaper offices, the city hall and jail. I had to get off the cars at Exchange street [sic] to get over to the New York Central depot. The station was crowded with people coming and going, all excited over the day’s events.”