The Sheriff’s Auction Block in Territorial Seattle
A look at the brutal cycle of debt and displacement in 1878 Seattle, where land holdings were sold off on the courthouse steps to satisfy unpaid loans.
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 an execution issued out of the District Court of the Third Judicial District of Washington Territory, holding terms at Seattle, in King County, on the 21st day of April, A.D. 1878, in the case wherein Elisha Nichols is the plaintiff, and William Fossey is the defendant, I have levied upon the following described land and premises, situated in the County of King in said Territory, to wit: The west half of lot 2 and 3, block 31, in A. A. Denny's addition to the town, now city of Seattle. Notice is hereby given that on Monday, March 25th, A.D. 1878, at the hour of 10 o'clock A.M. at the court house 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.”
This 1878 notice reflects the precarious nature of early property ownership in Seattle, where debt could lead to the immediate public sale of one's home or land. Today, while the mechanism has shifted from the sheriff's gavel on the courthouse steps to modern foreclosure law, the displacement of residents from their land remains a central, unresolved tension in Seattle’s real estate landscape.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.