The Hatch Heirs' Victory: A Seattle Attorney Wins Half of a $400,000 Everett Tract

San Francisco, May 6.—The circuit court today decided an important case, involving land at Everett. Hester Hatch appealed from the decision of the superior court of Seattle, wherein E. C. Ferguson had carried a suit to substantiate the right of the widow of Ezra Hatch to dispose of certain claims in a pre-emption right, and which had eventually been taken to the circuit court of the United States for the district of Washington, on a plea of error, where the judgment of the lower court was affirmed. Judges Kenna, Hawley and Gilbert could find no error in the decision of the court appealed from, and returned an opinion sustaining the court below.

A. D. Warner is now in a position to substitute for the uncomplimentary name that was fastened upon him by a play upon his initials during the last campaign the more agreeable prenomen of "Croesus Dick," for he yesterday received information from San Francisco that the United States circuit court of appeals had affirmed the decision of Judge Hanford establishing the claim of the Hatch heirs to property in the heart of Everett, valued at about $400,000. Of this Mr. Warner will receive a fee of one-half.

The suit has been before the courts for more than three years, and during that time has occupied a great deal of the successful attorney's time, who has prepared a brief covering 175 printed pages. The case was decided by Judge Hanford about a year ago, and on appeal was argued before the court of appeals by Col. James Hamilton Lewis April 24.

The suit involves on the north side of Hewitt avenue, Everett, and the tract is a part of a large acreage patented to Ezra Hatch, a veteran of the Mexican war, who held a Mexican land warrant. Hatch married an Indian woman named Josephine in 1850, and when he died in July, 1890, it was found that he had willed his property to his children, five in number, all of whom were minors, except Hester, a girl of 18. The widow, however, was granted $1,000, and E. C. Ferguson was made executor of the will and guardian of the minor children. In some manner Ferguson obtained a power of attorney from the woman, and afterward secured a warranty deed from Hester, whereby all her right to the lands was conveyed to Henry Hewitt, Jr., for $100. The remainder of the property was afterwards sold by the guardian at partition sale, and was bought by Hewitt for a mere song.

From this transaction three suits sprang, on the part of the mother, the eldest daughter and the minor children, and on the hearing Hewitt defeated Mrs. Hatch and Hester, on the showing that although there might have been fraud in the original agreement, the women had acquiesced in the result by accepting money afterward. With the minor heirs the case was different, and the contention was successfully made that, by reason of their incapacity to contract, the sale of the property by the guardian could not be ratified and was void. The case was decided in favor of the heirs when before Judge Hanford, on two points: first, that in the partition sale at which Hewitt had bought the property, the superior court for Snohomish county had not acquired jurisdiction either of the heirs or of the property, in that the guardian had not filed any bond, and that his acts and admissions were not binding upon the children; and secondly, that the pretended service was void in that neither the minors nor their guardian had been properly served with summons and complaint.

The case was thrown into the United States court by the Hatches moving to Oregon, they fearing they would be defrauded out of everything they had. It is since Judge Hanford's decision that they have been on the property, as the appellants failed to furnish a $50,000 supersedeas bond.

Mr. Warner says the property is worth at least $3,000 an acre, and of the 128 acres he has already, by Hanford's decision, received 64 acres. He was called into the case at Snohomish some years ago by a relative of Mrs. Hatch hearing him argue a law point before the superior court. He has worked hard, and has fought an up-hill fight against the Everett Company, of which Hewitt was president. The costs of prosecuting the case have run up into thousands of dollars. The decision of the court of appeals is final, as the case cannot go to the supreme court of the United States.