The Foreclosure of a Frontier Town: Snohomish’s Land Grab in 1877
As the region's economy shifted, three separate sheriff's sales were scheduled for April 1877, signaling that land ownership was becoming concentrated and precarious for local residents.
NOTICE OF SHERIFF'S SALE OF REAL ESTATE.
By virtue of an order of sale and judgment issued out of the District Court of Snohomish county, Washington Territory, in the case of Robert G. Hill against Eunice U. Hall and others, I have duly levied upon all those certain lots, pieces and parcels of land known and described by the metes and bounds of the U.S. Survey: as lots 1, 2 and 3 of section 1; lot 4, and the lot 5 of the w 1/2, and the e h' of the nw 1/4, and the s 1/2 of the ne 1/4 of section 17, in township 29 north, of range 5 east. containing 518 acres, more or less, and situated in Snohomish county, Washington Territory.
Notice is hereby given that on FRIDAY, the 27th day of April, A.D. 1877, at the hour of 3 o'clock P.M. of said day, at the Court House door of Snohomish county in Snohomish City, W.T., I will sell to the highest bidder, for cash, gold coin of the United States, the whole of the said mortgaged premises or so much thereof as may be necessary to satisfy the mortgage and the costs of the action, according to said order of sale.
BENJ. STRETCH, Sheriff of Snohomish County. G. Mounts Leary, Attorney for Plaintiff.
This 1877 notice highlights how quickly land ownership in early Washington could be lost through debt and foreclosure. While today's housing crisis is often driven by high prices and speculation, the 19th-century equivalent was a lack of liquidity and the rigid enforcement of mortgage contracts, where losing one's farm meant immediate public auction at the courthouse door.
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