History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889, Part 38

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Frances Fuller, 1826-1902
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: San Francisco : History Co.
Number of Pages: 880

USA > Idaho > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 38
USA > Montana > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 38
USA > Washington > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 38

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Sturgeon are plentiful in the Columbia and Fraser rivers, and in the in- terior lakes of British Columbia. They are superior in size and flavor to the At- lantic sturgeon, being less tough and less oily, and are found in the markets of Portland and S. F. The H. B. Co. manufactured isinglass from them for export.

Rock-cod and tomeod are taken in the Sonnd, and are regularly furnished to the markets; as are also smelts, sardines, flounders, perch, turbot, skate, eluh, plaice, sticklebaek, and other varieties. A kind of shark, known as dog-fish from its long jaws and formidable teeth, visits the Sonud in great shoals in the autumn, and is used by the Indians for food and oil. Ebey's Journal, MS., iii. 42. In 1871 S. B. Pardee made oil from dog-fish at Gig Harbor. Olympia Wash. Standard, April 8, 1871. Iu the following year a co. was incorporated under the laws of Cal. as the North Pacific Commercial Company, the principal object of which was the taking of dog-fish for oil. The works were located on Fox Island, ten miles from Steilacoom, the site taking the name of Castlenook. The daily catch by means of wears, pounds, seincs, and trawls was from 3,000 to 4,000 large fish. One hundred and sev- enty-seven fish were taken at one set of the lines at Oyster Bay. Olympia Transcript, May 2, 1868.

As soon as spring opens, or whenever the weather will permit after the first of Jan., the Indians at Cape Flattery put out to sea in their eanoes a dis- tance of 10 or 15 miles to catch seals, which at this season of the year are

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SEALS AND OYSTERS.

migrating north in myriads, and on a bright day may be seen for miles jump- ing, splashing, and playing in the water. When fatigucd with this sport they turn over on their backs and go to sleep, at which time the Indians ap- proach cautiously and dart their spears into the nearest. They catch eight or ten a day in this manner. Later they used the pilot-boat to go out and return, taking their canoes and cargoes on board. Port Townsend Message, Jan. 31, 1871. Occasionally they killed forty or fifty a day.

Ten vessels were employed in 1881, the catch being about 8,000 seal-skins, worth from $7 to $9 cach. The number of Indians engaged was over 200, and their profit on the season's catch about $200 each for skins, besides 1,500 gal- lons of oil for food.

The sea-otter, which formerly was taken in great numbers at Point Gren- ville, 60 miles north of Suoalwater Bay, has become comparatively rare. The Neah Bay Indians monopolize the hunt on that part of the coast, while at Gray Harbor white men take them, using rifles, and perching themselves on ladders placed at intervals along the beach, from which they can discern the otter, which seldom comes nearer than 300 yards. It requires skill to shoot them swimming at that distance, but they have been killed at 800 yards. The average was about two otter-skins a month to each hunter, worth from $30 to $50 each. Land otter-skins were very rare; but about four thousand beaver pelts were annually shipped from Washington.

The first discovery of oysters on the Pacific Coast was made at Shoalwater Bay by C. J. W. Russell, between 1849 and 1851. In the autumn of 1851 the schooner Two Brothers, Capt. Fieldsen, came into the bay and loaded with oysters for S. F. Theyall died on the way, but another attempt by Authony Lud- lum, was more successful. A writer in the Portland West Shore, Aug. 1878, claims the discovery for Fieldsen; but as Swau was on the ground soon after, and knew all the persons concerned, I adopt his account. Natural oyster-beds stretched over a distance of thirty miles in length and from four to seven in width. These beds were common property. The first territorial legisla- ture passed an act prohibiting the taking of oysters by any person who had not been a resident of the territory for one month, without a license. The next legislature prohibited their being gathered by non-residents. The use of dredgers was forbidden, the oystering season was desiguated, and all small oysters were to be returned to their beds. The legislature of 1864-5 granted Michael S. Drew and associates the exclusive privilege of planting, eultivat- ing, and gathering oysters in Port Gamble Bay, and to Henry Winsor and L. D. Durgin the same exclusive right in Budd Inlet.

An act approved Oct. 31, 1873, granted to each person planting oysters in localities where no natural beds existed ten acres, to hold while the planting should be regularly maintained. Locations could be made in detached parcels, and in Shoalwater Bay 20 acres might be taken; but in no case might the beds interfere with the logging interest. Where marketable oysters were bedded a location was restricted to 20,000 feet superficial area. These privileges were to extend to citizens of the territory only.

In 1861-2 the oysters at Shoalwater Bay were nearly all destroyed by frost and low tides. Their enemies were the skates and drum-fish, to protect them against which it was sometimes necessary to surround the beds by a fence of closely set pickets.

Iu 1853-4 there were from 150 to 200 men on Shoalwater Bay and affluents who lived chiefly by oystering. Up to 1859 all the oysters shipped came from natural beds, but in that year planting began. The trade steadily increased until the opening of the first transcontinental railroad, when the shipment of eastern oysters began, which materially decreased the demand for the native mollusk. The shipments made from Shoalwater Bay in 1874 amounted to 120,000 baskets. Portland West Shore, Aug. 1878, 2. This locality had now to contend not only with the importation of eastern oysters, but with the beds of Totten Inlet and other parts of Puget Sound, which ship by railroad in any desired quantities, while the Shoalwater Bay oystermen must ship in large quantities, because they depend on vessels. Natural beds of oysters are found

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RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES.

everywhere in Puget Sound, the quality and size being affected somewhat by the locality and the density of the masses in which they grow, the better fish being where they are most scattered. Near Olympia they exist iu banks sev- eral feet thick. They are abundant in all the tide-waters adjacent to the strait of Fuea, in Bellingham Bay, in Commencement Bay, and are found in Gray Harbor. The native oyster has a slightly coppery taste, which does not come from copper beds, but from the mud flats in which they grow, aud it disappears with cooking. They are of a delicate flavor, not so rank as the eastern oyster. The Olympia beds are said to be superior to others. In 1880 $100,000 worth were shipped from the beds in the Sound to Portland.

Another shell-fish which is found in inexhaustible quantities in Washing- ton is the clam, of which there are several species, from the immense quohog, the meat of which will weigh three pounds, to the small blue clam, preferred by some to the oyster, the white clam, also small, and the long razor-clam of the ocean beach. This testaceous fish has furnished many generations of Indians with a considerable portion of their food supply, and fed hungry white men as well in the early settlements of the country. Narrative of B. F. Brown, MS. In 1879 a company was formed in Olympia for the preserving of clams by the process of canning, similar to the method used in preserving beef aud salmon, and from which a delicious chowder was quickly prepared for the table. The company consisted of E. N. Ouimette, N. H. Ownings, S. G. Ward, J. R. Hayden. Olympia Wash. Standard, April 2, 1880.

Salmon-fishing, one of the most important of the resources of both Oregon and Washington, I have treated of in my History of Oregon. There are many salmon taken in the Sound and its affluents, though not so easily caught, or of so uniformly good quality, as those of the Columbia. In 1873 V. T. Tull of Olympia established a salmon fishery at Mukilteo, principally for putting up fish in barrels. The first year 500 bbls were packed at Mukilteo, after which the fishery was moved temporarily to Seattle to take the late run up the Dwamish River, which is usually large. Fifteen hundred good large salmon have been taken at one haul of the seine in the Puyallup. Olympia Columbian, Sept. 10, 1853. In 1877 Jackson Myres & Co., formerly of Port- land, erected a canning establishment at Mukilteo, and made of it a suc- cessful enterprise; but it had not, in ISSO, been followed by any others. The catch of 1877 was estimated at 10,000 cases, and over 2,000 barrels, valued at $77,300. Snohomish Northern Star, Sept. 22, 1877; Olympia Transcript, Dec. 1, .1877. In 1874 Corbett & Macleay, of Portland, founded a fishery at Tacoma. Sixty barrels were packed in five days, only three men being em- ployed. New Tacoma Tribune, Nov. 14, 1874. In 1876 John Bryggot, a Norwegian, founded another fishery at Salmon Bay, six miles north of Olympia. In 1878 a company of Puget Sound men established a fourth at Clallam Bay. They put up the first season 600 easks of salınon and 700 of halibut. Morse's Wash. Ter., MS., xviii. 17-18. In the following season D. H. Hume established a fishery near Steilacoom for the purpose of salt- ing salmon. In 1880 H. Levy, of Scattle, went to London with 100 barrels to introduce Puget Sound salted salmon to that market. In 1882 a salmon- packing establishment was opened at Old Tacoma by Williams. Salmon rau in great numbers this year. One boat brought in a thousand fish. Queniult River, on the coast, produced salmon quite cqual to the best Chinook or Columbia River fish, though they were small, averaging five pounds. The territory has by legislative enactment endeavored to save the salmon product, it being unlawful to place traps, or other obstructions, across streams with- out leaving a chute for the passage of fish. An act of 1868 also pro- vided for an inspector of salmon in each county where it was put up for ex- port. All packages marked bad by the inspector were condemned. No pack- ages could be sold unbranded with the name of the packer and the year of the catch; and penalties were imposed for counterfeiting brands.

lu February 1839 an act was passed prohibiting non-residents from taking fish on the beach of the Columbia, between Point Ellis and Cape Hancock. Wash. Stat., 1858-9, 26. On the 26th of Jan., 1861, J. T. Lovelace and W.

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SALMON AND CATTLE.

H. Dillon were granted the exclusive right to fish in the Columbia for a dis- tance of one mile along its hanks, and extending from low-water mark half a inilė toward the middle of the stream. An act of the legislature of 1865 gave C. C. Terry and Joseph Cushman the right to introduce into and stock the waters of lakes Washington and Union with shad and alewives, with the exclusive privilege for 30 years of taking all these fish in these lakes, and their tributaries and outlets, provided the lakes should be stocked within 5 ycars. This law was modified in 1869 by substituting the name of Frank Matthias for that of Terry, by the addition of white-fish, and hy extending the time for planting, and also making the grant 30 years from that time.

The valne of the salmon exported in barrels or cans is not given authen- tically in any published reports. During the season of 1880, 160,000 cases of canned salmon were shipped from the Washington side of the Columbia to foreign markets, each case containing fonr dozen one-pound cans, or 7,680,000 pounds of fish ready for the table. The price varied from year to year. Be- tween 1870 and 1881 it ranged from $9.50 to $4 a case, averaging nearly $U a case, making a total average for canned salmon of about $900,000 annu- ally. Pickled or salt salmon sold at from $6 to $8 a barrel, and each cannery puts up from 300 to S00 barrels in addition to the canned fish. Giving a value merely conjectural hut moderate for the salted salmon of the Sound from half a dozen fisheries, and that of the Columbia pickled salmon from eight or more factories, auother $50,000 may be safely supposed to have been added to the sum total for salmon.

There is but one other source of wealth to be noticed in this place, which pertains principally to the eastern division of the territory, namely, lire- stock. Two thirds of this part of the territory is excellent grazing land, and has raised immense herds of cattle and sheep, which have been a convenient means of income to the people. Nothing has been required generally, except to herd sheep and brand cattle, which fed at pleasure over the boundless stretches of unoccupied land. Great as has been the reputation of the Walla Walla Valley, from the time when Bonneville and Missionary Parker won- dercd at the riches of the Cayuses, represented by their hundreds of horses, the Yakima country eclipses it as a stock-range, both on account of pastur- age and mildness of climate. The Palouse region, later converted into grain- fields, has also been a famous stock-range for many years; and for many years to come there will be enough unfenced land to support millions of dollars' worth of cattle, horses, and sheep. About one winter in five is severe enough to require the housing and feeding of cattle. It is then that the stock-raiser, grown careless and confident, has cause to lament his indolence in not pro- viding for the protection of his property. Yet, with occasional severe losses, Washington has had from an early day a sure and easy means of livelihood, if not of wealth.

To what an extent the people of the Puget Sound country and the Cowlitz and Chehalis valleys depended upon their cattle for support was illustrated in 1863, when the government prohibited for a time the exportation of live-stock. The order was in consequence of Canada being made a field of operations for the leaders of the rebellion, and the danger that supplies might be shipped to them from the British provinces. It was not intended to affect Washington. S. F. Alla, July 30, 1863; Portland Oregonian, Sept. 3, 1863; Or. Argus, Aug. 17, 1863. Exports into V. I. from the Pacific United States in 1862 amounted to three millions of dollars. Of this amount abont one million was in cattle from Oregon and Washington that were carried by the way of Portland and Puget Sound to Victoria. Those driven iuto B. C. east of the Cascades were not takeu into the account. They were to stock the country, as well as for beef. A small proportion of them only were from Oregon, while they repre- sented the ready cash of the farmers of Washington. The order from the de- partment of state deprived them of this income, as well as the British colonies of beef. Victor Smith was then collector of the Puget Sound district; and although Governor Pickering was of opinion that the law was not applicable

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RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES.

to the territory, he insisted upon its observance. Much of the hostility felt toward the collector and his schemes came from this. Pickering visited Gov. Douglas to explain the embargo, and for a number of months much excitement and evident inconvenience prevailed on both sides of the straits. When at last the embargo was raised, there was a corresponding rejoicing. Instantly the H. B. Co. despatched a steamer for a cargo of live-stock, and the money market was relieved. But there had also been evasion of the law by the ship- ment of cattle to San Juan Island, then neutral territory, and thence to V. I. For a brief period the patriotic citizens of Puget Sound had cause to congrat- ulate themselves that the boundary question was still unsettled.

The prices obtained for cattle in the early settlement of the country were great, as great almost as in Oregon when the Willamette Cattle Company was formed in 1838. I find several entries in Ebey's Journal, MS., which throw light on this subject. Iu volume v. 26, he says that his brother, I. N. Ebey, sold, in 1857, four Spanish cows with calves for $80 each. The following year, at a sale of cattle ou Whidbey Island, by W. S. Ebey, 49 head brought $2,324. At another sale in 1859, at the same place, 25 cows and heifers brought $059, or an average of over $38 each, common stock. In 1863, when the embargo was raised, beef cattle on foot, for shipment, brought from 3 to 6 cents per pound, showing the gradual decline in prices with the increase of numbers.

Notwithstanding this decline, the value of live-stock exported from Puget Sound in 1867-8 was $106,989 for 9,476 animals of all kinds. In the following year there were exported over 13,000 animals at an aggregate value of nearly $200,000. The total value of live-stock in the territory in 1870 was $2,103,343; in 1873 there were 23,000 neat-cattle owned in Walla Walla county alone, and 20,000 sheep. For a number of years cattle and sheep were driven from the plains of eastern Washington to Nebraska to be shipped to eastern markets. Shcep were sometimes two or three years on the road, notwithstanding the first Oregon importations overland came through from the Missouri in one scason. Sheep-raising both for mutton and wool be- came a most profitable industry in all parts of the territory, but particularly in the eastern division. Large tracts of land on the Cowlitz prairie, the Nas- qually plains, the islands of the Haro archipelago, and Whidbey Island are peculiarly adopted to shecp-farming, while the whole of eastern Washington is favorable both in climate and natural food to the production and improve- ment of sheep. Inferior breeds average five pounds of wool per annum, and the finer breeds as much as in any country of the world. It was estimated that in 1865, 50,000 pounds of wool were shipped from Washington to Cal., which brought the highest average price in the market because cleaner than the Cal. wool. Yet sheep were comparatively scarce considering the demand, and worth $4 each by the drove. In 1870, according to the census report, nearly 200,000 pounds of wool were exported. Since that time large numbers of sheep have been driveu out of the territory.

Historically speaking, the H. B. Co. introduced the first sheep, both com- mon from Cal. and Saxony and merino from Eng. Watt and other Oregon stock-farmers followed later with various improved breeds. The first wool shipment of Washington was 15,000 pounds from Puget Sound in 1860 by William Rutledge, Jr, for which he paid from twelve to sixteen cents per pound. Olympia Pioneer and Dem., July 27, 1860. The wool was of good quality and neatly put up. A legislative act was passed in Jan. 1860 incor- porating the Puget Sound Woollen Manufacturing Company of Tumwater, but nothing ever came of it except the name, which was suggestive of what ought to be done, if no more. Again, five years later, the Washington Woollen Manufacturing Company of Thurston county was incorporated, with like results. There was an attempt made by A. R. Elder and Clark to estab- lish a woollen-inill on Steilacoom Creek. The carding-machine was purchased by Elder in North Andover, Massachusetts, with the design of putting it up in Olympia, but Clark selling out to Elder, it went to Steilacoom. A build- ing 50 hy 80 feet was erected, four stories high. The factory had a capacity for carding 250 pounds a day, three spinning-jacks of 240 spindles each, and

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SHEEP, HORSES, AND FLOUR.

four looms of different sizes. The cost was over $33,000, and it was com- pleted, together with a boarding-house for operatives, in the spring of 1870. It was bid off at auction for $16,050 in June 1871, when it stopped running. Olympia Pac. Tribune, April 11, 1868; Olympia Commercial Age, Jan. 8, 1870; Olympia Wash. Standard, Oct. 29, 1870; Olympia Transcript, June 17, 1871. Alfred Ridgely Elder was born in Lexington, Ky, Aug. IG, 1806. He re- moved to Springfield, Ill., where he was a neighbor and friend of Lincoln. He came to Oregon in 1849 and settled in Yamhill county, where he farmed and preached, being a presbyterian. In 1862 he was appointed Indian agent at the Puyallup reservation, where he resided for 8 years. He was subse- quently elected probate judge of Thurston county. He died Feb. 14, 1882, at Olympia. Three sons and 4 daughters survived him. Olympia Courier, Feb. 17, 1882. The first successful woollen company was one organized in Dayton, Columbia county, of which S. M. Wait was president and Reynolds of Walla Walla a large owner. The foundation was laid in 1872, the capital stock be- ing $40,000. Over $30,000 was paid out in 1878 for raw wool.

The natives of eastern Washington found horse-raising a profitable pursuit, and white breeders are equally prosperous. They are raised with little ex- pense, which enables the owner to sell them cheap at home, while they bring a good price abroad for speed and endurance. Hog-raising, especially adapted to the coast counties, has been neglected, although hogs will thrive on clover and grasses, and could be cheaply fattened on pease, to which the soil and cli- mate are peculiarly favorable. Corn, upon which farmers east of the Missouri depend for making pork, does not produce a good crop in the moist and cool climate of western Washington, but grows and ripens well in the eastern portion of the territory, and, together with the waste of the wheat-fields, should furnish the material for much of the meat consumed on the coast. Bees were introduced into the territory about 1858 from southern Oregon, but little honey has been furnished to the markets. That which is made in the Columbia River region, and sold in Portland, is of great excellence, white, pure, and of a delicate flavor.

Of manufactures from native resources, flour is one of the most important. The first flouring-mill in the territory was erected at Vancouver in 1830 by the H. B. Co., and was a set of ordinary mill-stones run by ox-power. Iu 1832 a mill was erected seven miles above Vancouver, on Mill Creek, to run by water-power. Whitman built a small flouring mill at Waiilatpu, which was in nse about 1840. The first American colony on Puget Sound erected a rude grist-mill at the falls of the Des Chutes, in the village of Tumwater, in 1846. This sufficed to pulverize the wheat, but not to holt the flour. In 1851-2 a good grist-mill was erected by Drew at Cowlitz landing, and later in the same year a larger one on the Chehalis hy Armstrong. In 1854 Ward & Hays of Tumwater built a complete flouring mill at that place, which superseded the pioneer mill of Simmons and his neighbors. The next flour- ing mill was put up by Chambers at the mouth of Steilacoom Creek, in 1858. In 1860 there were, according to the U. S. census, no more than six mills in the territory. Langley's Pacific Coast Directory for 1871-3 gave a table of 23, all run by water-power except Yesler's, at Seattle, and erected at an aggre- gate cost of over $300,000, two thirds of that amount being invested in Walla Walla county, at that time recently settled. Several were erected in that county between 1864 and 1867, among them a mill by S. M. Wait on the Touchet, in 1865, this being the initial point in the settling of Waitsburg. Wait's mill had a capacity of 100 barrels a day, heing exceeded only by one other mill in the territory at that time, that of the Lincoln mill at Tumwater, which could grind 150 barrels daily. The average capacity of all the mills was about 40 barrels, or a little over 900 barrels daily. S. M. Wait was the first man to export flour from the Walla Walla Valley. Having a surplus, he sent a cargo to Liverpool, realizing a profit of $1 a barrel, which, consid- ering the then high rates of transportation to Portland to be shipped aboard a vessel, was a noteworthy success. H. P. Isaacs of Walla Walla was one of

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RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES.

the first millers in the valley, and became proprietor of the North Pacific Mills at that place. In 1880 there were 16 grist-mills east of the Cascades, against 11 in 1873.

Lime was first made in 1860 on the west side of San Juan Island, by Augustus Hibbard. He was killed by N. C. Bailey, his partner, in a quarrel about an Indian woman, June 17, 186S. The works remained closed and in possession of the military authorities from that time to 1871, when Hibbard's heir came from the east and reopened them. Two years afterward he died. Before his death Bailey returned and took possession of his interest. James MeC'urdy held a mortgage on the works, taken in 1866, and when Bailey died in 1874 he came into possession of the whole. The San Juan Island lime- works are the largest north of Cal., and of great value to the country. The average sales for several years prior to 1879 were from 1,200 to 1,500 barrels per annum. The capacity of the kilns was 26,400 barrels. There were ten acres of limestone at the McCurdy works. It was of a light gray color, very compact, and suitable for building stone if not too costly to work.

New lime-works were opened on the north end of the island in 1879 by Messrs Ross & Scurr, who had as much limestone as McCurdy. The same year Mclaughlin & Lee opened a third kiln on the east side of the island, with a capacity of 275 barrels, and burned about one kiln a week. This ledge was first worked by Roberts, who was drowned about 1863. La Name of Victoria then claimed it, but failed to perfect his title subsequent to the settlement of the boundary question, and it was taken by the present owners.

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History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889, Part 38

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Frances Fuller, 1826-1902 Publication date: 1890 Publisher: San Francisco : History Co. Number of Pages: 880

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Frances Fuller, 1826-1902
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: San Francisco : History Co.
Number of Pages: 880