BOY KIDNAPPED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 151, 27 May 1935, Page 7

BOY KIDNAPPED.

OF WEALTHY PARENTAGE,

CASE IN ADIERICA

WASHINGTON, Dlay 25. A message from Tacoma (Washington) states that George Weyerhaeuser, tho nine-year-old scion of a wealthy lumber family, was kidnapped yesterday, and is being held for ransom at sums variously reported between 50,000 and 200,000 dollars. The family is maintaining strict secrecy aaout any negotiations they might en:er, but meanwhile the city and State police, under the direction of Federal agents, are conducting a widespread search.

The lad left school at noon for lunch at his homo. No one lias seen him since. To-day a large white cloth was hung from a window of the Weyerhaeuser mansion, and could bo seen for miles, as the house is on an elevation overlooking Puget Sound. It is assumed that this is a signal to the kidnappers, presumably because the family, is ready to pay the ransom. It is reported that a ransom note written in a woman’s hand threatened tiro death of the child if the police were notified. The Weyerhaeuser family is immensely wealthy. Tho kidnapped child’s great grandfather, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, the son of a German immigrant, started in the lumber industry as a dollar a day sawmill worker in Minnesota in 1852. He gradually accumulated timber lands from Ohio to the Pacific Coast, and even into Alaska. His son, John Philip, died a fortnight ago, leaving the control of most of the fortune to John Philip, junr., the boy’s father. Tho family is said to control 94 corporations., lumber milling and allied industries of a value of almost a billion dollars. It owns two million acres of timber, and a vast amount of other property.