The Decade-Old Debt of the Log Drive
Local creditors hope to finally collect on a failed timber contract from the 1880s involving prominent political figures.
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.
Attorney H. J. Knively has gone to Seattle to endeavor to get a settlement of an old matter in which many Yakima people are interested. Ten years ago, Billy Harkness, E. H. Morrison, Wm. McMicken, and others were associated in a big contract to get out ties and timber for the Northern Pacific railroad company. The big log drive to Ainsworth was a losing venture and a failure. Supplies were furnished by merchants and farmers of Yakima, but Harkness & Co. owed large amounts. Harkness lost everything; Morrison lost nothing, for he had nothing when he started. McMicken’s property was all transferred to Governor Ferry and later back to Mrs. McMicken. George W. Cary obtained a judgment of about $3,000, and it is believed this can be realized out of the McMicken-Ferry property. Should the fight be a winning one, the result will be the distribution of about thirty thousand dollars throughout the county.
“Morrison was a smooth-tongued man, who was always going into big enterprises without having or investing any coin.”
Historical land and labor disputes involving powerful figures often left local small business owners holding the bag, a dynamic that remains familiar in modern commercial litigation.
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