The Snohomish Cattle Scam
A local farmer gets more than he bargained for when he unknowingly buys his own stolen livestock back from a neighbor.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Last summer, a gentleman residing in Snohomish purchased a quantity of stock from a neighbor, which he left on the latter’s ranch for safekeeping. Some time after, he was accosted by the neighbor’s hired man and asked if he didn't want some nice fresh beef. A contract was thereupon entered into and he was duly furnished with choice cuts of fat beef for several weeks, paying coin for the same on delivery. At length, he smelt something stronger than beef, and made a visit to his neighbor with a view to examine the condition of his stock. His surprise can be better imagined than described when he found nothing of his stock but their hides hanging on a fence, and realized the fact that he had been eating and paying for the meat of his own cattle. A two-year-old bull, a large animal, was the only one spared the butcher's knife.
“His surprise can be better imagined than described when he found nothing of his stock but their hides hanging on a fence.”
This 1873 tale of rural fraud highlights the perennial struggle of maintaining property security in frontier economies. It echoes the modern, complex intersection of personal trust and commercial transactions in a growing region where the lines between neighborly favors and formal contracts were—and still can be—dangerously thin.
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