The Con Artist Who Fleeced All of Seattle
A smooth-talking lawyer arrives with a letter of introduction from the Governor, only to leave a trail of unpaid debts, fake mortgages, and broken promises across the city.
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.
On February 8th, Smith, the patent lawyer, brought a stranger into Judge E. D. Wheeler's law office at 710 Front Street, and introduced him as Frederick Van Norman, a fellow lawyer from Washington Territory. Van Norman talked fluently, produced a letter of recommendation from Governor Squire of Washington, and asked to share office space. He agreed to pay one-third of the rent and expenses, but once installed, he made no move toward payment.
Soon, the creditors began to appear. Van Norman had borrowed $20 from Judge Wheeler and convinced the judge to endorse a note for $60 that went to protest. It turned out he had been playing the same game all over town. A clerk at Hawley Brothers' hardware store had rented him a room on Van Ness Avenue, only to have Van Norman skip town, 'trunk and all,' between two days without paying rent. The stationery shop, the building janitor, and a man named Mitchell were all chasing him for unpaid debts.
When Judge Wheeler’s son investigated, he discovered that a $6,000 mortgage Van Norman claimed to hold on a lumber mill in Washington Territory was 'not worth a dash.' Van Norman had even been floating stories about being robbed at the Palace Hotel or being entrusted with collecting a $500,000 estate in Calcutta. Despite his total lack of funds, Van Norman remained in town, still actively looking for his next mark.
“It is a question if all these attractions will succeed in disguising the fraud.”
This 1886 account of a 'land shark' preying on local trust echoes the persistent modern issue of predatory scams and housing fraud in rapidly growing cities. While the technology of the scam has shifted, the vulnerability of the local business community to well-dressed impostors using fake credentials remains a timeless Seattle anxiety.
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