The Price of a Debt: 400 Acres Up for Auction
A Snohomish County Sheriff’s notice reveals the steep cost of financial failure in the late 19th-century frontier.
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.
Notice is hereby given that by virtue of an execution handed out of the District Court of the Third Judicial District of Washington Territory, holding terms at Snohomish in King County, for the counties of King and Snohomish, duly attested and to me directed and delivered, commanding me to levy upon the property of Bennett & Co. to satisfy a judgment rendered therein in favor of A. A. Jennings, for the sum of $449.17 and costs amounting to $34.50 and accruing costs. Now, therefore, in pursuance of said execution, I have levied upon the following described real property, to wit: SE 1/4, NE 1/4 of NE 1/4, 3/4 of NW 1/4, 1/4 of SE 1/4, Section 1, Township 27 North, Range 5 East, containing 400 acres. And I will proceed to sell the same at public auction on the 15th day of Dec. 1877, at the Court House door in Snohomish City between the hours of 10 A.M. and 4 P.M. of said day, to the highest responsible bidder, in lawful money of the United States of America. Dated this 10th day of November, A. D. 1877.
“I will proceed to sell the same at public auction... to the highest responsible bidder, in lawful money of the United States of America.”
This 1877 foreclosure notice highlights the brutal finality of land-based credit in early Washington Territory. Today, while the mechanism of the 'Sheriff's sale' remains a fixture of our property law, the scale of debt and the volatility of land ownership continue to haunt the housing market in Snohomish County.
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