The Bitter Feud Over a Burnt Seattle Sawmill

Mr. Gustav L. Yemker: Sir: Your communication through the columns of the city newspapers has been duly considered. Since you seem to challenge a public discussion of the merits of our controversy, I am willing that all the facts about it be made known, and that public censure should rest where it belongs. The whole trouble has grown out of your efforts to compel me to fulfill a contract which you are notoriously unable to fulfill on your part, as the records of the Court clearly prove. I was to receive a good and sufficient deed to the sawmill property, and pay $45,000 with interest. That contract I have always been willing to fulfill. However, the mill has since been destroyed by fire. You now ask $30,000 for the site, though a better mill could be built for $15,000. You also retain the brick corner and other property worth at least $10,000, and ask for an additional $15,000—making a total of $55,000, which is $10,000 more than the total amount of the judgment against me. Such generosity I must respectfully decline. In view of the fact that the only great fire that ever occurred in this town originated in one of the shanties under your control, you cannot reasonably refuse to give me the mill property on the ground that it would be exposed to fire danger. I now offer to pay $40,000 and costs, or to pay $25,000 and return all other property to you if you retain the mill site. J. H. Colman, Seattle, Nov. 27, 1880.