New Blood for the Snohomish Valley
Eight to ten new families are arriving to carve out homesteads in the river valley, marking a pivotal moment for the growing settlement.
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 advices from private sources, we are made aware of the welcome fact that there are now on the way to this place, with the intention of settling permanently at some point on the Snohomish, eight or ten families. This will be quite an addition numerically to the population of the river; and if they are the proper class of people to enter upon a pioneer life—energetic men with a fixed and indomitable spirit of perseverance to overcome the obstacles to be surmounted in every new country—they are thrice welcome, and will be enabled to make for themselves happy homes in this land of plenty. Though social and educational advantages are not all they might be, our settlement is well advanced for its age and the number constituting it, and a happy improvement in this respect will not be behindhand in manifesting itself as we grow in these particulars.
“If they are the proper class of people to enter upon a pioneer life—energetic men with a fixed and indomitable spirit—they are thrice welcome.”
In 1878, Snohomish was actively recruiting pioneer families to build a permanent town. Today, that same desire for growth is complicated by the housing affordability crisis, as the 'happy homes' envisioned by 19th-century settlers face new pressures from land scarcity and rapid development.
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