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| Introduction |
Linda Burfield Hazzard: Healer or Murderess?
Introduction: Linda Burfield Hazzard (1867-1938) is considered by some to be Washington’s first female serial killer, and by others to be a pioneering healer. Having studied with fasting pioneer Dr. Edward Hooker Dewey in Minnesota, she moved to Washington in 1907 where she became licensed to practice medicine through a loophole in licensing law that grandfathered in practitioners of alternative medicine. She titled herself “Fasting Specialist”. Hundreds of Linda Hazzard’s followers, including socially and politically prominent Washingtonians, swore by her methods and praised her as an intelligent and gifted healer. However, an exploration into her practice reveals that, from 1907 to 1913, at least 14 patients in Washington alone died from starvation under her direct care. That number does not include previous patient deaths in Minnesota. Some of these patients had turned over land, inheritance, or power of attorney to Hazzard before their death. This Collection Highlight uses archival documents from the Washington State Archives to trace Linda Hazzard’s public life, and invites you to draw your own conclusions about her. The Story: Linda Burfield was born in Carver County, Minnesota, in 1867. She married Erwin Perry at the age of 18, and had 2 children, Rollin and Flora. After deciding to open her own fasting practice, she left her husband and moved to Minneapolis in 1898. She married Samuel C. Hazzard, a West Point Graduate with a history of drinking and swindling, in 1903. Samuel was already married, and the resulting bigamy trial cost Sam two years in prison. In 1907, after Sam’s prison sentence, he and Linda moved to Washington state and opened Linda’s practice in Seattle. By 1908, two Washingtonians had died under Dr. Hazzard’s care. It caught the media’s attention, and Hazzard responded to public outcry with a full page article educating readers about her fasting cure. Denying her patients’ deaths were caused by starvation, she states: “…in each of these cases, it is my absolute conviction that their days were prolonged by the methods employed.” After stating that in her eleven years of practice, only nine patients had been lost, she continues: “‘What doctor can show a record such as that?’ … ‘When a physician administers a drug and his patient dies in twenty minutes nothing is said, but when one of my charges dies there is a great stir. The regular doctors hate me because I have a new method. They abhor anything new.’” (Hazzard, Linda Burfield. “Why I Believe in Starvation as a Cure for All Bodily Ills.” The Seattle Sunday Times, 6 October, 1907.) Sisters Claire and Dora Williamson saw Linda Hazzard’s ad in the Seattle Times while visiting Victoria B.C. in 1910. Wealthy heiresses from England in their 30s, the sisters had various health complaints and were in pursuit of a cure using natural methods. Due to the disapproval of family and friends, they kept this pursuit a secret. Claire, in particular, hoped Hazzard could help them with her fasting cure, and wrote to her asking to stay at her sanitarium in Olalla for intense treatments. Hazzard replied that her sanitarium wasn’t ready for patients, and instead recommended apartments in Seattle for the sisters, where she could give them treatments until the sanitarium was ready. The girls agreed to this, and moved into the Buena Vista apartment building in February, 1911. Their treatment consisted of drinking 2 cups of broth per day, vigorous walks, hours long enemas, and pummeling massage treatments. On April 22, 1911, Claire and Dora, too weak to walk, were moved on stretchers to an ambulance, then by boat to Olalla. There, they stayed in an attic room of Hazzard’s home. Seventeen days later, Claire Williamson died, weighing less than 50 pounds. Linda Hazzard did the autopsy, and did not find starvation to be the cause. Claire and Dora’s childhood nurse, Margaret Conway, came to Olalla from Australia to visit the girls. Shocked to find Claire dead and Dora emaciated at 50 pounds, she tried to remove Dora from Hazzard’s care, only to learn that Hazzard had gained guardianship of Dora claiming she was mentally incompetent. The Hazzards also claimed $2,000 was still owed to them in medical bills, and they wouldn’t allow Dora to leave without paying it. In Tacoma, British Vice Consul C.E. Lucien Agassiz heard about Dora’s situation and, as a fellow British citizen, took interest. He freed Dora from guardianship and ultimately instigated a court case against Linda Hazzard for the death of Claire Williamson. The ensuing investigation and Kitsap County Superior Court Case was heavily covered by the press. Some articles defended Hazzard, but most painted a grisly picture. As a result, on February 7, 1912, Linda Hazzard was sentenced for two to twenty years in prison for manslaughter. Many letters asking for Hazzard’s release were written, including a petition signed by 121 New Zealanders stating that the signers “… look upon Dr. Hazzard’s methods of treatment as a boon to suffering humanity, and her incarceration as a terrible loss.” An appeal was made to the Supreme Court, but was rejected. December 1913, Linda Hazzard surrendered herself to the Penitentiary in Walla Walla. In 1916, after serving 2 years in prison, Linda Hazzard was pardoned by Governor Lister with the stipulation that she move to New Zealand. While there, she continued to practice as an osteopath and published another book, Diet in Disease and Systemic Cleansing. She made enough money to return to Olalla in 1920 and built a sanitarium, which she called the School of Health. Since she was no longer licensed to practice medicine, she called her patients “students”. She continued to supervise fasts until the School burned in 1935. Linda Burfield Hazzard died on June 24, 1938, while attempting a fast cure on herself. A Note about the Hazzards: There is a good deal more to know about Linda Hazzard and her husband, Samuel C. Hazzard, that is not covered in this exhibit. Continue to research if you are interested in Sam’s history as a swindler and forger, a scandalous bigamy trial, and more death! A Note about the Williamson Sisters: Dora (Evelyn Dorothea Williamson) was born September 9, 1873, in Madras, India. Claire was born in London in 1877. Their father, George Williamson, was a surgeon and officer in the British Army (Imperial Medical Service). He died in 1877, just a few months after Claire’s birth. Their mother, Rosalia d’Almeida Williamson, died in 1893 when Dora was 20 and Claire 16. An inheritance was left to them by their Scottish grandfather, Charles Williamson. An 1881 England Census shows Rosalie (33), Evelyne (7), Claire (3), and Margaret Conway (23, from Victoria Australia) living together at 107 Bagshot Road, Frimley, Surrey, England. After the Hazzard trial, Dora Williamson married an old family friend, Reverend Wyndham Allan Chaplin, May 7, 1914. The two settled in Gloucester, England. Chaplin drowned in August 1914, only a few months after their marriage. In 1930, Dora is recorded in a ship’s passage from Southampton to Java as “Evelyn Dorothea Chaplin” with the occupation of “writer”. She died January 2, 1945, at the age of 72. Patients Known to Die Under Dr. Hazzard’s Care in Washington: 1907 Lenora J. Wilcox 1908 Daisy Maud Haglund (The mother of Ivar’s Restaurants founder, Ivar Haglund. Ivar was taken to Hazzard for treatments, even after Daisy’s death.) 1909 Blanche B. Tindall 1909 Viola Heaton 1909 Eugene Stanley Wakelin (Did not die of starvation, but was found dead of a bullet wound on Hazzard’s property. Linda Hazzard had power of attorney over his estate.) 1910 Lydia Maude Whitney 1910 Earl Edward Erdman 1911 Frank Stuart Southard (Prominent attorney with the firm of Morris, Southard and Shipley. His law partner publically defended Linda Hazzard.) 1911 Edward S. Harrison (Publisher of Alaska-Yukon Magazine and Hazzard’s book, Fasting for the Cure of Disease.) 1911 John Ivan Flux 1911 Lewis Ellsworth Rader (Washington Legislator, 1895. Rader granted Wilderness Heights to Linda Hazzard.) 1911 Claire Williamson 1913 Ida Julia Anderson 1913 Mary T. Bailey 1925 Leonard Ritter |
| Citation: |
This collection includes correspondence, newspaper articles, superior court records, and penitentiary records documenting Linda Hazzard’s public life, 1907-1936. Unless otherwise stated, these records were gathered from various collections of the Washington State Archives. Full citation information can be found with each record. Preferred Citation: [Title of record], [date], [creator if known], [collection], Washington State Archives, Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov, [date accessed]. For more information, or to learn about related records, contact the Washington State Archives at (360) 586-1492, or email [email protected]. These records were digitized and indexed by the Washington State Archives. |
