The Price of Panic: Losing the Farm to the Sheriff
After a grueling economic downturn, a King County family faces the auction block as court-ordered sales sweep Seattle.
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.
By virtue of a decree and order of sale issued out of the District Court of the Third Judicial District of Washington Territory, holding terms at Seattle, in King County, for the counties of King and Kitsap, in the civil action of John T. Stewart, plaintiff, against John J. Snyder and Martha J. Snyder, his wife, and Charles W. Moore, defendants, duly attested the 20th day of February, A.D. 1878. I have levied upon the following land and premises situated in the said county of King, in said Territory of Washington, and particularly bounded and described as follows, to wit: Beginning at a post which bears north 11 chains, west 25 chains, and north 3.50 chains from the quarter section corner on the north and south line between sections 3 and 4 in township 23 north of range 4 east, and running thence west, 17.91 chains, thence south 12.00 chains to the north and right bank of the Duwamish river, thence up stream following the meanders of said river to a white fir tree 60 inches in diameter, standing at the northwest corner of Sidney McCarty’s land on the right bank of said river, thence east 18.00 chains, thence north 23 degrees west 1.50 chains, thence west 4.53 chains, thence north 2.00 chains, thence west 10.00 chains to the point of beginning, containing 45 and 90/100 acres of land, all situated in King County, Washington Territory. Now, therefore, notice is hereby given that on Monday, March 25th, A.D. 1878, at the hour of 11 o’clock A.M. at the courthouse door, in the city of Seattle, and county of King aforesaid, I will sell at public auction to the highest bidder for cash, gold coin, the above described land and premises.
“I will sell at public auction to the highest bidder for cash, gold coin, the above described land and premises.”
In 1878, Seattle was reeling from the post-Civil War panic and the localized impacts of a developing frontier economy, leading to a wave of foreclosures that stripped families of their land. Today, while the mechanism has shifted from sheriff auctions to modern real estate speculation, the anxiety of losing one's home in the shadow of Seattle’s high-cost housing market remains a hauntingly familiar civic struggle.
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