USA > Idaho > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 22
USA > Montana > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 22
USA > Washington > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 22
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Thus attempts and contempts, writs and restrictions, continued, which, however interesting and instructive at the time, it would be irksome for us to follow. The Pierce county men were tried by a military con- mission, and martial law abrogated. But the end was not yet; for over innumerable technicalities, in which lawyers, judges, citizens, officials, and military men had become involved, wrangling continued throughout the year, B. F. Kendall,6 bitterly opposed to Stevens,
6 Bezaleel Freeman Kendall, like Elwood Evans, crossed the continent in 1853 with Stevens. He was a native of Oxford, Maine, and a graduate of Bowdoin college. His talents are highly praised hy all his biographers. Evans, who knew him well, says that he possessed a grand physique, was a fine scholar, able writer, powerful speaker, hard student, and of thorough in- tegrity, but ambitious, aristocratic in his feelings, bitter in bis prejudices, and indiscreet in his utterances. 'The newspapers cannot too highly paint his contempt for the opinions of others, his bitterness of expression, his un- qualified style of assault upon any with whom he differed.' He carried this strong individuality into a journal which he edited, called the Overland Press, and which was the occasion of his death, Jan. 7, 1863. Kendall had been clerk of the legislature, territorial librarian, prosecuting attorney of the Olym- pian jud. dist; had been sent on a secret mission by Gen. Scott, and appointed Indian agent in the Yakima country, but soon removed on account of his im- periousness. After his removal he published the Press, and used it to attack whomsoever he hated. He was the attorney and warm friend of George B. Roberts of the Puget Sound Co. On the 25th of October an attempt was made to burn the buildings of this company on Cowlitz farm. Kendall boldly charged the incendiarism on Horace Howe, a farmer residing on the Cowlitz, who, on the 20th of Dec. 1862, met Kendall in Olympia and struck him over the head with a small stick, in resentment. Kendall retrcated, and Howe pursued, when Kendall drew a pistol and shot Howe, inflicting a dangerous wound. A few weeks later a son of Howe shot Kendall through the heart. Or. Statesman, Jan. 19, 1863; S. F. Bulletin, Jan. 12, 1863; Wash. Scraps, 146; Olympia Wash. Standard, Jan. 10, 1863.
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THROUGH FOUR ADMINISTRATIONS.
having been meanwhile appointed United States dis- trict attorney by Lander.7
The matter having been brought to the attention of the president, Governor Stevens was reprimanded by the executive through the secretary of state, who assured him that, although his motives were not ques- tioned, his conduct in proclaiming martial law did not meet with the approval of the president.8
Soon it was rumored that Stevens would - be re- moved, when his friends announced that they would send him as delegate to congress in 1857, and imme- diately set about marshalling their forces to this end. This being the year when the republican party was first organized in the territory, the election campaign was more hotly contested than usual, Stevens being a southern democrat like Lane, while the new party took direct issue with the south.
The candidate put forward by the republicans was A. S. Abernethy,9 a mild-mannered man, like his brother George Abernethy of Oregon, and having nothing either in his character or his history to hang praise or blame upon, could not contend for the peo- ple's suffrages with Stevens-Stevens, who had a mag- netic presence, a massive brain, great stores of knowl- edge, which he never paraded, although in private a brilliant talker, a memory like Napoleon,10 whose small stature he approached, and bristled all over with
" The documents in this case are contained in Sen. Doc., 98, xiv., 34th cong. Ist sess .; Id., 41, viii., 34th cong. Ist sess .; Id., 47, viii., 34th cong. 3d sess .; Id., 78, 34th cong. Ist sess .; S. Misc. Doc., 71, iii., 35th cong. Ist sess. Many are to be found in the Olympia Pioneer and Democrat from May to August; and comments in the Oregon Statesman and Portland Oregonian, S. F. Alta; New York Courier and Inquirer, Feb. 14, 1857; New York Times; Philadelphia Ledger, July 4, 1856; Phelps' Reminiscences of Seattle, 34; Ore- gon Weekly Times; New York llerald, June 27, 1856; Washington Union; Washington Republican, April 17, 1857; but the most complete collection of papers on the subject is Evans' Martial Law, before quoted. See also Cong. Globe, 1855-6, pt 2, 1517, 34th cong. Ist sess.
8 Sen. Ex. Doc., 41, 56, 34th cong. 3d sess .; Wash. Jour. Council, 1856-7, app. vi.
" A new party paper was started at Stcilacoom, called the Washington Re- publican, by A. S. Abernethy, D. R. Bigelow, and J. P. Keller. Ebey's Jour- nal, MS., v. 16.
10 Providence ( R. I. ) Journal, July 12, 1862.
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STEVENS FOR CONGRESS.
points to attract the electricity of a crowd. Besides these qualities, which might be relied upon to give him success in a campaign, he was regarded by the volunteers as their proper representative to procure the payment of the war debt, against which General Wool was using his powerful influence. Not an ora- tor or debater, and with almost the whole argument- ative talent of the territory arrayed against him,11 his election was a foregone conclusion from the first. Stevens' majority over Abernethy was 463 out of 1,024 votes.12 He resigned his office of governor on the 11th of August, one month less two days after his election, the full returns not being made before the last week in July. Secretary Mason filled his place as acting governor until the arrival of his successor in September.
It would occupy too much space to follow in detail the public acts of Washington's first governor.13 He labored as untiringly for the territory he represented in congress as he had at home, and was met by the same opposition, preventing during his first term the
11 Salucius Garfielde, a captivating speaker, then newly appointed receiver of the land-office at Olympia, took part in the political debates of this cam- paign for Stevens. When Stevens was nominated in 1859 Garfielde opposed him; but when Garfielde was nominated in 1861 Stevens supported him. Ebey's Journal, MS., v. 77.
12 The sparseness of the population and small increase is shown by the fol- lowing comparative statement. At the first election for delegate, in 1854, the total vote was 1,216, in 1855, 1,582, and in 1857, 1,585. Olympia Pioneer and Dem., Sept. 11, 1857. Alexander S. Abernethy came from N. Y. to Cal. in 1849 by steamer, and in March 1850 proceeded to Or. by the bark Toulon. He soon purchased a half-interest in the Oak Point saw-mill, of George Abernethy, owner, and repaired to that rather solitary spot to reside. He was one of the movers for a territory north of the Columbia, a member of the second legislative assembly, and a member of the council in 1856-7. He was one of the organizers of the republican party in the spring of 1857, and was nominated by the new party for delegate. After the election of Stevens he remained in private life, holding some county offices until the constitutional convention at Walla Walla in 1878, when he was chosen a member. A modest, right-minded, and moderately successful man, Abernethy fills an honorable place in the history of Washington. He contin- ued for many years to reside at Oak Point. Letter of A. S. Abernethy, in Historical Correspondence.
13 Evans' Puyallup Address, in New Tacoma Ledger, July 9, ISSO; Yesler's Wash. Ter., MS., 11; Evans' N. W. Coast, MS., 4-5; Hays' Scraps, Mining, iii. 25; Swan's Wash. Sketches, MS., 14-15; Morse's Wash. Ter., MS., vii. 25-9.
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THROUGH FOUR ADMINISTRATIONS.
passage of any bill looking to the payment of the war debt. He urged the claims of the territory to this money, to roads, public buildings, coast defences, a superintendent of Indian affairs, and additional Indian agents, the payment of Governor Douglas of Van- couver Island for assistance rendered acting governor Mason in 1855, more land districts and offices, and the survey of the upper Columbia. None of these measures were carried through in the session of 1858-9. But he was returned to congress in the latter year, running against W. H. Wallace, and beating him by about 600 votes out of less than 1,800. At the session of 1860-1, a land-office was established in the southern part of the territory, called the Columbia River district; an appropriation of $100,000 was ob- tained to be expended on the Fort Benton and Walla Walla road begun by Lieutenant Mullan; $10,000 to improve the road between Cowlitz landing and Monti- cello; and appropriations for fulfilling the treaties with the Walla Walla, Cayuse, Umatilla, Nez Perce, Flat- head, and confederated tribes, and the coast tribes of Washington; and an act was passed giving to the territory an Indian superintendent and a fuller corps of agents. At the close of this session, also, congress agreed upon a plan for paying the war debt, after re- ducing it one half.
In April 1861 Stevens returned to Olympia, look- ing grave and careworn, for he had taken deeply to heart the troubles between the north and south. Being a pro-slavery democrat,14 yet a determined sup- porter of the government, he had labored earnestly to prevent secession, but as he probably knew, with little effect. Almost simultaneously with his arrival came the news that Fort Sumter had been taken by the South Carolinans, and civil war begun.
14 Stevens was chairman of the Breckenridge wing of the democracy after the division in the party in 1860, for which he was denounced by the legisla- ture of his territory in certain resolutions. Sce Wash. Jour. Hlouse, 1860, 337-8. He acquiesced in the election of Lincoln, and urged Buchanan to dis- miss Floyd and Thompson from his cabinet. Shuck's Representative Men, 501.
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SECTIONAL POLITICS.
There were in Washington, as in Oregon, many southern democrats; and there was in the democratic party itself a tradition that nothing should be per- mitted to sunder it; that to depart from its time-hon- ored principles and practices was to be a traitor. Stevens met the crisis in his usual independent spirit. His first words to the people of Olympia, who con- gregated to welcome him home, were: "I conceive my duty to be to stop disunion."15 He had returned with the intention of becoming a candidate for reƫlec- tion, but when the convention met at Vancouver he withdrew his name, promising to sustain the choice of the delegates, this falling upon Salucius Garfielde, who had been for four years receiver in the land-office. Again he urged the duty of the party to support the government, and procured the adoption of union res- olutions by the convention; yet such was the hostility which pursued him, that many newspapers represented him as uniting with Gwin and Lane to form a Pacific republic.16
He remained but a few weeks on the Pacific coast, hastening back to Washington to offer his services to the president, and was appointed colonel of the 79th New York regiment, the famous Highlanders, on the death of their colonel, Cameron. Stevens' service, beginning July 31, 1861, was first in the defences of Washington. In September he was commissioned brigadier-general, and commanded a brigade in the Port Royal expeditionary corps from October to March 1862. From March to July he was in the department of the south. On the 4th of July he was commissioned a major-general of volunteers, but the senate refusing to confirm the appointment, he continued to serve as a general of brigade in the northern Virginia campaign, though in command of a division. At the battle of Chantilly, while leading his faltering command in a charge, himself carrying the flag which the color-
15 Olympia Pioneer and Dem., May 16, 1861.
16 Or. Statesman, May 20 and August 12, 1861.
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THROUGH FOUR ADMINISTRATIONS.
bearer, strieken down by a shot, was about to let fall, he was struck in the head by a ball and died upon the field. But his courage and devotion had saved the city of Washington, for had Pope's army been forced to capitulate, the nation's capital would have been involved in the disaster.17
When the intelligence of the death of Stevens reached Washington, the grief of all classes was sin- cere and profound. The war had readjusted party lines; personal jealousies had been forgotten; nothing could any one recall that was base or dishonorable, but much that was lofty and manly, in the dead hero. When the legislature met, resolutions were passed in his honor, and crape was ordered to be worn for ten days. So mutable is human regard ! The legislature of Rhode Island also formally regretted his loss. The most touching, because the most sincere and unaffected, tribute to his character was contained in a eulogistie letter by Professor Bache of the coast sur- vey, in whose office he spent four years. "He was not one who led by looking on, but by ex- ample. As we knew him in the coast-survey office, so he was in every position of life ... This place he filled, and more than filled, for four years, with a devo- tion, an energy, a knowledge not to be surpassed, and which left its beneficient mark upon our organiza- tion ... Generous and noble in impulses, he left our office with our enthusiastic admiration of his character, appreciation of his services, and hope for his success."18
Thus died, at forty-four years of age, a man whose talents were far above those whom the president too often appoints to the executive office in the terri- tories. As a politician he would always have failed,
17 Letter of a corr. in Olympia Wash. Standard, Oct. 25, 1862; Battles of America, 305.
18 Providence Journal, Jan. 12, 1863; Boston Journal, Sept. 5, 1862; Coast Survey, 1862, 432-3. Stevens married a daughter of Benjamin Hazard of Newport. His son Hazard, 21 years of age, captain and adjutant, was wounded in the battle in which his father lost his life. There were, besides this son, three daughters in the family, who long resided in Washington. Olympia Wash. Standard, Oct. 25, 1862.
209
GOVERNOR McMULLIN.
despising the tricks by which they purchase success; but as an explorer, a scientist, or an army commander, he could have reached to almost any height. His services to Washington are commemorated by the county east of the northern branch of the Columbia bearing the name of Stevens.
The successor of Stevens was Fayette McMullin of Virginia, a politician, whose chief object in coming to Washington seems to have been to get rid of one wife and marry another.19 He held the executive office only from September 1857 to July 1858, when he was removed. His administration, if such it can be called, embraced the period rendered memorable by the Fraser River gold-mining excitement, of which I have given a full account in my History of British Co- lumbia, to which the reader is referred for particulars.
The Hudson's Bay Company had for three years been in the receipt of gold-dust purchased of the Indians in the region of Fraser River with lead, ounce for ounce, when in the winter of 1857-8 some of this gold found its way to Olympia, and caused the great- est excitement here as elsewhere all along the coast. Men rushed to the mines from every quarter, and the prices of labor, provisions, lumber, and real estate on the Sound advanced rapidly. There were many routes to the new mines, and divers outfitting posts; but a policy of exclusiveness on the part of the fur company authorities prevented Washington from re- ceiving the advantages which would otherwise have accrued to the territory.
While the great gold excitement of 1858 gave-a new life and impetus to certain branches of business in the
19 McMullin petitioned the legislature of 1857-8 for a divorce, which was granted, and in July 1858 he married Mary Wood, daughter of Isaac Wood of Thurston county. He returned with his wife to Va, and during the civil war was a member of the confederate congress. After the conclusion of the war he was little known in public affairs. He was killed at the age of 70 years by a railroad train, Nov. 8, 1880, at Wytheville, Va. Olympia Pioneer and Dem., May 1, Aug. 14, Sept. 11, 1857; Or. Statesman, June 30, 1857, Aug. 3 and Dec. 21, 1858; Bancroft's Hand-Book, 1864, 350; Olympia Tran- script, Nov. 13, 1880.
HIST. WASH .- 14
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THROUGH FOUR ADMINISTRATIONS.
Puget Sound country, it failed to build up trade and cities in that region, as some sanguine speculators had hoped. The good that it did came afterward, when many disappointed adventurers, chiefly young men, not having been able to reach the gold-fields, or re- turning thence poorer than they went, as some gold- seekers always do return, sought work, and finally homes on the government land, and remained to help subdue the wilderness and cultivate the soil. From this class Puget Sound nearly doubled its population in two years.
Another benefit to the country resulted from the impetus given to intelligent explorations, made both in quest of the precious metals and in the search for passes through the Cascade Mountains that might lead more directly to the mines on the upper Fraser. It made the country thoroughly known to its older in- habitants, and caused the laying-out of roads that opened to settlement many hitherto unappropriated valleys and isolated prairies, completing the unpre- meditated explorations made during the Indian wars of 1855-6. Attempts were made this summer to open a pass at the head waters of the Skikomish branch of the Snohomish River by Cady and Parkin- son, who were driven back by the Indians. An ex- ploration was also made of the Skagit, with a view to constructing a road up that river to the mines, and W. H. Pearson led a large mining party through the Snoqualimich Pass, intending to proceed to Thomp- son River by the Similkameen route, but was pre- vented by the Yakimas and their allies. A large immigration to the British Columbia mines subse- quently took place by the Columbia River route, and in 1861 Governor Douglas, as a means of depriving Americans of the benefit of free-trade, established a higher rate of duty on goods conveyed over the border, although the Hudson's Bay Company were allowed to carry goods from Nisqually across the line without hinderance.
211
GOVERNORS MASON AND GHOLSON.
After the removal of McMullin, and until the ar- rival of his successor, Mason again became acting governor, soon after which he died. No man in Washington had a firmer hold upon the esteem of the whole community than Mason, who for six years had held the office of secretary, and for nearly half that time of vice-governor. Efficient, prompt, incorrupti- ble, and courteous, he deserved the encomiums lavished upon him in post-obit honors.20 Stevens pronounced his funeral oration, and he was buried from the capital with imposing ceremonials. The legislative assembly of 1864 changed the name of Sawamish county to Mason, in honor of his services to the territory.
The third governor of Washington was Richard D. . Gholson, of Kentucky, and like his predecessors, a radical democrat. He arrived in July 1859, and offi- ciated both as governor and secretary until Mason's successor, Henry M. McGill, arrived in November. The following May Gholson returned to Kentucky on a six months' leave, during which such changes took place in national politics as to cause him to re- main away,21 and McGill officiated as governor until April 1861, when W. H. Wallace was appointed to the executive office by President Lincoln, L. J. S. Turney being secretary.
The administration of Gholson and McGill was marked by events of importance to the territory, per-
20 Charles H. Mason was born at Fort Washington on the Potomac, and was a son of Major Milo Mason of Vt, deputy quartermaster-general under Jackson in his Indian campaigns. His mother was a native of Providence, R. I., where C. H. Mason resided after the death of his father in 1837, grad- uating at Brown university with distinction in 1850, being admitted to the bar in 1851, and associated as a partner with Albert C. Green, atty-gen. of the state for 20 years, and afterward U. S. senator. In his 23d year he was recommended to the president for the appointment of district attorney of Rhode Island, but was appointed instead to the secretaryship of Washington. He was reappointed at the time of his death. Olympia Pioneer and Dem., July 29, 1859; Or. Statesman, August 9, 1859; Puget Sound Ilerald, April 15, 1859.
21 Gholson wrote a letter urging the legislature of Ky to call a convention and appoint commissioners to the southern congress at Montgomery, Alabama, who should pledge the state to stand by the south in the attempt to secede. S. F. Bulletin, Aug. 30, 1859; Or. Statesman, March 11, 1861.
212
THROUGH FOUR ADMINISTRATIONS.
taining to the quarrel over the San Juan boundary, in which the territorial authorities were permitted to participate in an insignificant degree, owing to the military occupation of the island. The not unimpor- tant troubles with the northern and local Indian tribes 22 gave the governor frequent occasion for anx- iety. Besides those murders and emeutes to which I have already referred, D. Hunt, deputy United States surveyor, was murdered on Whidbey Island in July 1858. Seven miners were also attacked and killed on their way to Fort Langley, and a white woman captured about the same time. If a party of two or three men set out to perform a canoe journey to the lower waters of the Sound, they ran the risk of meeting their executioners in another Indian canoe in one of the many lonely wastes on Admiralty Inlet.
At length, in February 1859, two schooners, the Ellen Maria and Blue Wing, mysteriously disappeared while en route from Steilacoom to Port Townsend. The latter was commanded by a young man named Showell, and carried several passengers, among whom was E. Schroeder, a well-known and respected Swiss merchant of Steilacoom, lately appointed sutler to Major Haller. Various rumors were afloat concern- ing the fate of the vessels, in which Indians were mentioned as accessory to their loss, but the crime, if any, could not be traced to any tribe or individuals, until in July 1860, when, at the trial of an Indian for another offence at Victoria, one of the Indian wit- nesses irrelevantly gave a clew to the matter. The guilty persons, it seems, were Haidahs, for whom
22 Strong says that Gholson, who had never held any office, and had large ideas of the importance of an executive position, felt it hia duty to auppress the northern Indians in some way, and finally hit upon the happy project of getting out a proclamation authorizing the citizens of the territory to arm and fit out vessels for the purpose of making reprisals against the English for per- mitting the northern Indians to leave British Columbia and commit depreda- tions in Washington territory-regular lettera of marque and reprisal! Strong, to whom he showed the proclamation, assured him it would make him the most famous man upon the Pacific coast. But Tilton, who was also informed of it, put a atop to it. However, the atory leaked out, and Gholson received many a sly innuendo. Thia was during the San Juan difficulty, when there were five British ahips of war at Victoria. Strong's Hist. Or., MS., 72-4.
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213
CAPITAL AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
requisitions were several times made on Governor Douglas, but refused upon one pretext or another, until the criminals had escaped, when it was granted.
Another matter which occasioned some agitation during the administration of McGill was the location of the public buildings of the territory. By the or- ganic act the governor could convene the first legisla- ture where he pleased; but that body was then, at its first session, or as soon as expedient, to establish the seat of government at such a place as it deemed eligible, which place was, however, subject to be changed by an act of the assembly at some future time. At the session of 1854-5 the legislature fixed the capital at Olympia, the university at Seattle, with a branch at Boisfort plains, and the penitentiary at Vancouver.23 In January 1858 the university was relocated on Cowlitz prairie without a branch. Work was begun on the state-house, which, however, was suspended by the Indian war.
At the session of 1856-7 congress appropriated $30,000, in addition to the $5,000 granted in the or- ganic act, which had been in part or in whole ex- pended; and then commenced the advancement of competitive claims for the honor and profit of securing one or other of the public buildings.
A determined effort was made in 1859-60 by a faction to remove the capital from Olympia to Van- couver, but as strongly resisted by a majority of the assembly. The matter coming up again at the next session, the effort was renewed, and the matter having been previously arranged by trading, acts giving Van- couver the capital, Seattle the university, and Port Townsend the penitentiary were passed without dis- cussion in the lower house, and being sent to the council, passed that body without argument also, the president's vote constituting the majority.24 Such
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