Vigilantes Burn Settler's Cabin at Hoko River
A Seattle man is left homeless after a masked party of seven enforced their claim on the Hoko River by fire.
Some three or four weeks ago H. E. Jenkins, of Seattle, took up a claim of 160 acres near the mouth of the Hoko River, built a house and proceeded to make improvements. He was warned by several settlers in the vicinity that the claim belonged to Mrs. A. Colby, the Indian wife of a settler who holds the adjoining claim. Jenkins paid no attention to the warning and proceeded to improve the place. A week ago Sunday evening he was called upon by a party of seven men, one of whom was masked, all armed with rifles or revolvers. He was told that he was regarded as a 'claim jumper' and must leave the land. He obeyed this command, packed up his belongings and left. The visiting party helped him place all of his household effects outside, and then destroyed the dwelling by setting fire to it. Jenkins has gone to seek legal redress and means of securing his right to the claim, being assured by competent authority that the land was vacant and open to settlement by any homesteader before he took it.
“He was told that he was regarded as a 'claim jumper,' and must leave the land... The visiting party helped him place all of his household effects outside, and then destroyed the dwelling by setting fire to it.”
This violent enforcement of 'squatter's rights' highlights the volatile nature of land settlement in the Pacific Northwest, where legal ownership frequently collided with established Indigenous presence and communal understandings of land rights. Such extralegal tactics serve as a sharp reminder of the erasure and dispossession that underpinned the homesteading era.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.