FISHER, Martha

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Hoskinsons move to Washington Territory 1877.

Riley's first of many letters to The Osage Chronicle from Washington Territory after leaving California. "We left California on the 18th of last May and reached Seattle, in Washington Territory, in four and one-half days. Came on board an ocean steamer. Seattle is a live town of 4.000 inhabitants; business driven with a rush, lumber and coal being the principal article of trade. These, and especially the coal, seem inexhaustible...Work is plenty and wages good; society of the best. Good schools and good churches well attended. More there is a Sabbath, at least to the majority of the citizens (In his letters to Kansas, Riley was very critical of Californian's neither resting nor attend church on Sunday)...,The soil is deep, rich sand, water of the best, towers on every hillside, climate very mild and the temperature equal. It makes me feel that to live is a pleasure. We have bought 33 and 68-100 acres of excellent land two and one-half miles distant from Seattle, for 8325.00 and expect to build us a shanty and move into it at once....One item of interest I notice is that nearly everybody seems to be in good health and fine spirits, while in California the healthy looking ones were the exception, not the rule." The land here is almost certainly the same land Riley offers for sale six months later in Jan 1878 in preparation for moving to Bainbridge Island.