The Great Mud Flat Land War
An armed confrontation breaks out over disputed tide lands as settlers use cannon and rifles to defend their property claims.
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.
A few days ago S. S. Bailey, lessee of the New England Hotel, and Robert Abrams employed a pile driver to pile in a small portion of the flats south of this city. The railroad, which claims these flats, but which, in fact, has no title to them, as the title is in the United States, in trust for the future State, through its attorneys, got out injunctions to stop the work, not, however, till certain portions of the flats had been piled in. During Tuesday night the steamers Edna and Ceilio were employed by the aforesaid attorneys to pull out the piles. While engaged in this unlawful work Mr. Bailey turned his Henry rifle upon the steamers, firing several shots into the Ceilio. No one was injured, however, but the steamers, thinking discretion the better part of valor, retired in good order. Yesterday Messrs. Abrams and Bailey secured a cannon, which they loaded up, and gave notice that they would turn it loose on anyone attempting to interfere with their piling. A great many arrests and re-arrests were made, and it is thought the matter will remain in statu quo until adjudicated in the courts.
“Yesterday Messrs. Abrams and Bailey secured a cannon, which they loaded up, and gave notice that they would turn it loose on anyone attempting to interfere.”
Land titles in the tidelands were a massive, unresolved legal issue in early Seattle, pitting individual settlers against the Northern Pacific Railroad's monopoly. This armed standoff illustrates the intensity of the struggle over who would eventually own the industrial ground that would define the city's future economy.
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