The Dispossession of Josephine Hatch

Mrs. Josephine Hatch, the widow of Ezra Hatch, has brought a suit in the United States court against E. C. Ferguson, Henry Hewitt, Jr., and the Everett Land Company, involving the title to 324 acres of land within the townsite of Everett, valued at nearly one and three-quarter million dollars. Mrs. Hatch, a full-blooded Indian who cannot read, write, or speak English, claims she was defrauded of her property. Her late husband, Ezra Hatch, purchased the land from the United States in 1874 and lived there until his death in 1890. The land lies on a valuable peninsula between the Snohomish River and Port Gardner Bay. According to the complaint, E. C. Ferguson, acting as executor of the estate and guardian to her children, exploited her inability to speak English. Ferguson spoke to her in Chinook jargon and gained her trust. He eventually misrepresented a document as a request for settlement, which was in fact a power of attorney allowing him to sell her property. Following this, Henry Hewitt, Jr., president of the Everett Land Company, orchestrated a series of deeds and fraudulent court proceedings that stripped Mrs. Hatch and her children of their holdings for a fraction of their worth. Ferguson allegedly moved her to a small house on a nearly worthless lot, where she lived until discovering the depth of the fraud. Mrs. Hatch is now seeking to have these deeds cancelled and to be declared the rightful owner of the land.