An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 38

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146

USA > Washington > Kittitas County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 38
USA > Washington > Yakima County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 38
USA > Washington > Klickitat County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > 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).

Throughout all the later sixties the country continued to settle up slowly, and gradually to take on the characteristics of a civilized com- munity. According to records in the local land office, the first surveys in Yakima valley were made by Charles A. White. The third standard parallel, runing between Yakima City and North Yakima, Leonard Thorp tells us, was the basis of this survey and the first township surveyed was township thirteen north, range eighteen east. The survey was extended in later years as the development and settlement of the county de- manded.

An incident of the early times which aroused considerable interest then and later was the ex- hibition at Fort Simcoe, by an old Indian named Zokeseye, of some silver-bearing rock. This was about 1862 or 1863. Zokeseye gave the quartz to the agency secretary, whose name was Walker, and about a week or ten days later Walker took it with him to The Dalles, Oregon, where he showed it, while intoxicated, to a California assayer, Blachley by name. Fully appreciating its richness, the Californian at once assayed the rock and found it to be nearly two-thirds silver. He questioned Walker regarding the place where it was discovered, and was sent to F. M. Thorp as the one who could most likely find the ledge on account of his friendliness with the Indians. Thorp joined him in a prospecting tour, taking along some Indian guides, of whom, unfortun- ately, Zokeseye could not be one, as the old red man had died shortly after giving Walker the rock.

The party prospected for more than a month, going up the Tietan to the summit of the Cas- cades, thence northwest to the headwaters of Bumping river, exploring numerous streams, but finding nothing.

After returning from this trip, Blachley went back to California, but the next summer he was again in the Yakima country, ready for another search. With Thorp and Indian guides and part of the time Charles Splawn, he explored the Wenatchee country, the upper Yakima and towards Mount Baker, going wherever the Indians reported the existence of the precious metals. The search was bootless.

For several years afterward F. M. Thorp and

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Charles Splawn gave a portion of each summer to prospecting. Numerous other parties and. individuals sought earnestly for the Zokeseye lode during the sixties and seventies, and the story has been revived frequently in more re- cent times, but, despite every effort, the ledge from which the old Indian took his rich specimen is still a lost one.

About the fall of 1864 a discovery of placer gold was made on what is known as Ringold bar on the west side of the Columbia river, twenty miles north of Goldendale, by a party of which a surveyor named Hall was one. Quite a large number of men flocked to the diggings, which were worked with water from the Columbia river. L. L. Thorp spent three months there and re- ceived as recompense for his labors only a twenty-dollar clean up, but White & Black, four claims below him, took out twenty-five hundred dollars in less than six weeks, while a French company did even better. The bar yielded some thirty thousand or forty thousand dollars in all to white miners, and an unknown sum to the Chinamen who washed its gravels intermittently for several years afterward.

Persons who were here at the time speak of the year 1867 as a particularly mild and prosper- ons one, though its closing month brought some disaster to lowland settlers. A snowfall of six or eight inches was followed by three days of rain, causing all the streams and rivers to rise to high water mark. The Naches was especially high and the old Nelson farm, situated on a low flat close to the river, was greatly damaged. A rapid erosion followed the flood, threatening to undermine even the house and farm buildings. The family were compelled to leave their house at midnight, but though their place was greatly damaged, the house still stood when the waters subsided. The farm of James Allen, near by, was also seriously injured, and other lowland settlers suffered, though in a less degree. Next season the Nelsons moved to a spot a little higher up the Naches, where they located the home- steads now known by their names.

Although the earliest settlers were practically all engaged in the stock business, the great in- dustry of the country, yet some experiments had been made in agriculture from the first; small ones, however, owing to the erroneous impression which prevailed as to the capabilities of the sage brush lands, and confined to the areas of sub- irrigation, near the streams. But the facts being as they were subsequently discovered to be, such experiments could tend in only one direction, namely, toward the ushering out of cattle raising on an extensive scale, and the ushering in of the era of irrigation, farming, horticulture and the like. The first attempts at fruit raising were ridi- culed by stockmen in general, who scouted the idea of planting trees in the desert. They lived to see their error, though the initial experiments

were calculated to confirm them partially in their preconceived ideas.

It is unnecessary to attempt to determine who first set out fruit trees within the limits of the county. No doubt many of the settlers planted a few in the late sixties and early seventies. Alfred Henson is said to have planted an orchard on river bottom lands in 1866 which did not begin to bear until nine years old. N. T. Goodwin states that in 1868 he set out an orchard of one hundred and fifty trees on his homestead on the west side of the Yakima near the Moxee bridge. Being, like other pioneers, of the opinion that the sage brush land was worthless, he chose for his orchard a location on the bottom next to the river. The result was that the trees were washed away by high water. George Hinkle stated to the editor of the Herald that he planted an or- chard about 1868, and that his experiments seemed a failure at first, the tender limbs of the trees being destroyed by frost during the winter sea- son, but that the trees eventually got a start and bore bountifully. Mr. Goodwin states that in 1870 a man named Vaughn made a successful attempt at fruit tree culture, and it is known that during that year the late Judge John Wilson Beck set out fifty apple and the same number of peach trees on his homestead above Yakima City. These and other like experiments in time dem- onstrated the adaptability of the country to fruit raising.

The culture of some kinds of vegetables was contemporaneous with the coming of the earliest settlers; indeed, had been tried in a small way by Indians before the cattlemen came in to spy out the land. Small quantities of cereals were also raised; always, however, on the bottoms near the streams. Perhaps one of the first, if not the first, to demonstrate that the sage brush land farther back contained elements of fertility was the N. T. Goodwin heretofore mentioned. He pre- empted land near the Moxee bridge in the spring of 1866. A year later he cleared the sage brush from a five-acre tract, and seeded it with wheat, obtained from the Walla Walla country. That fall he harvested a crop, averaging forty bushels to the acre. The result of this success and the practical demonstration it gave of the fertility of sage brush land was the starting of an irrigation enterprise, by a species of farmers' cooperative company. The promoters were Messrs. Good- win, Stollcop, Vaughn, Maybury and Simmons. Work was begun by these men during the spring of 1868, the intake of their canal being located about a mile above the mouth of the Naches river. The ditch was a small one. It had to be constructed under difficulties by men who were not blessed with an abundance of capital, and its progress was slow. By the early seventies, however, it was turned to good account by farm- ers near its head, though it was not completed to Mr. Goodwin's place until several years after-

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ward. In later times it was greatly enlarged and improved, becoming what is now known as the Union canal. Judge John Wilson Beck stated to a Herald reporter some time before his death that he constructed an irrigation ditch in 1872, "be- fore Charles Schanno built his ditch," taking the water out of the Yakima half a mile above the Moxee bridge, and conveying it in a rudely con- structed aqueduct to his homestead above Yaki- ma City.

Simultaneous with or shortly after the con- struction of these simple and primitive irrigation canals, a number of others were put in, all small, each being used only by one or a few farmers. The era of extensive irrigation did not dawn until some years later.

The interview with Judge Beck just referred to gives us a glimpse of conditions as they were when he came to the country in 1869. Among other things, he said:

"After the close of the war I got the western fever, like a great many other people of the East. On June 1, 1865, our band of two hundred pio- neers met at Fort Kearney, Nebraska, according to agreement and started across the plains by ox teams. We followed the old Oregon trail and experienced the usual hardships of such a long journey by land. We had no trouble with the Indians, for they were well under subjection by that time. We landed in Walla Walla Septem- ber 18, 1865. That was a small place then with perhaps five hundred population.

"I remained there four years, and in the spring of 1869 left for the Yakima valley. This was a memorable journey, and when I look back I marvel at the development that has taken place in a few short years. We crossed the Columbia at Umatilla and followed up its west bank to the Yakima, and thence to the present site of Pros- ser, where we crossed the Yakima. The first

family we met was at the Henry Cock place, ten or fifteen miles above Prosser. Then came Ben Snipes' ranch at Snipes mountain. Our next stop was Sam. Chapell's place near the present site of Zillah. He lived one-half mile northeast of this city (North Yakima). George Taylor and Alfred Henson lived in the Selah valley. A man named Mauldin lived near the Naches bridge; a bachelor named Bell lived on the John Cleman place in the Wenas; Alfred Miller and A. Cleman, the father of John Cleman, also lived on the Wenas.

"On the Ahtanuin there were Andrew Ger- vais, James Allen, H. M. Benton, 'Judge' Olney, Joseph Bowser, Joseph Robbins and a man named Honsacker. Father Santosh was the priest at the time at the mission on the upper Ahtanum. As far as I can remember these were the families living in the valley when I came here, and for a short time afterward. [Judge Beck overlooked a considerable settlement in the Moxee valley.] While I enjoyed the isolation, we had to

put up with a great many hardships and pri- . vations.

* *

"The only store in the county when I came was kept by O. D. and Sumner Barker, under the firm name of Barker Brothers. Their place of business was at Fort Simcoe, where we went to buy our necessaries of life and other things. Store goods of all kinds were high then. The freight from The Dalles over the mountains was two dollars a hundred pounds. Sugar sold at twenty cents; muslin, twenty cents; oil was five dollars a can or one dollar a gallon; coffee, fifty cents; nails, ten cents; but meat was cheap be- cause this was the chief product of the valley at the time. We got our lumber and grist at Fort Simcoe. "

The gentleman who is responsible for the foregoing quoted statements received his title of judge from his having served as justice of the peace for twenty years continuously. He was the first to hold that office in the county, having been appointed in 1870. The Indians who took part in the massacre of Lorenzo Perkins and wife had their preliminary hearing before him, and Kipe, Salusakin, Tommy Hop-Towne, Tewowney, Wyanticat and Moosetonic were by him bound over to appear before the superior court for trial. It is stated that in all the years of his service as justice, and very many cases were tried before him, he rendered just one de- cision that was reversed by a higher tribunal.

Mr. Beck's statement that there was only one store in the county in 1869 seems to be a little inaccurate. Wallace Wiley, who settled on the Ahtanum in early days, states that Joseph Bowser kept at his home, two miles east of the mission, a miniature trading post. The store room was a sınall addition to the cabin in which Mr. Bowser resided, and it could only be entered by the resi- dence part. When a customer appeared, the worthy merchant would retire to the store and attend to the wants of his patron (who was com- pelled to remain without), exhibiting the goods and receiving the price through a small window, the only aperture by which direct communication with the outside could be had from the store. The Indians soon dubbed this window the "pot- latch hole," and by that expressive sobriquet it became widely known among both races. It is stated, too, that a kind of general store was kept by a squaw man named French in Parker bottom. Mr. French was afterward killed in Klickitat county by a vicious horse.

During the early seventies, the process of settling and subjugating the country, already begun in the preceding decade, was carried on quietly and slowly. August 13, 1870, the pioneer settlers were given the first substantial intimation that their isolation from the rest of the world and the inconvenience of getting their products

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to trade centers and their supplies back might some day be things of the past. On that date the Northern Pacific Railroad Company filed its map of preliminary location in the United States general land office. The map showed that the railroad, if built according to the then existing plans, would traverse Yakima and Kittitas val- leys, and to those of astuteness and prevision the future of the region began to reveal itself. Every step made by the Northern Pacific com- pany in promotion of its great scheme to span the continent by a mighty highway of steel gave an impetus to the general progress of Washing- ton territory, a progress in which every part of that commonwealth must necessarily have its share. There can be no doubt that the prospect of the transcontinental railway hastened on the work of settlement in Yakima county, though its influence was not specially marked at first. Time was required to demonstrate the value of the soil, the effect of irrigation and the practicability of agriculture; and when all of these were known, time was required to project and construct the great canal systems, without which farming, fruit raising or horticulture on a considerable scale was an impossibility.

Then, too, in accordance with the laws of agricultural development which have obtained among all peoples, the wealth of pasturage the country afforded must show signs of coming exhaustion before sufficient incentive could exist for seeking the treasures it might hold as a reward for the husbandman's toil.

But as already stated, there were premonitory signs of the larger and fuller development for central Washington very soon after the country was invaded by whites, and these signs did not disappear as time went on. Thus, in 1872, Sebastian Lauber and Charles and Joseph Schan- no began their efforts to get water upon their land at Yakima City. The first ditch was a small one, taking its water out of Wide Hollow creek. It did not prove satisfactory, as a suffi- cient water supply was available only while the snow lay on the foothills, so its proprietors de- cided to construct a large ditch, conveying water from the Naches river. Operations were begun in 1873. The surveys followed the path of least resistance, utilizing natural draws as much as possible. When completed, the ditch was eight- een feet wide on the bottom and carried a body of water eighteen inches deep under normal con- ditions, with a fall of a quarter of an inch to the rod. Its length exceeded eight miles. Plows and scrapers were used in its construction, and at times as many as fifteen or twenty men were employed in its deepest cuts. Water did not reach the old town of Yakima until 1875, the rea- son being that the bed of the canal was very po- rous, necessitating a great deal of puddling. This was the first ditch of large size and public utility to be constructed in the country. While

the ditch later known as the Union canal was sooner started, it was of slower growth and did not develop into an important factor in the agri- cultural progress of the county until some time afterwards. Of course, the number of small, private ditches constructed for the use of one or a few farmers increased with the passage of time.

Those who were residents of the Yakima country at the time will remember that a very noticeable earthquake occurred in the fall of 1872. No newspapers of that date are available and the memories of the old pioneers do not seem ade- quate to the task of fixing the day of the month upon which the seismic disturbance was experi- enced, but perhaps we are justified in supposing that the earthquake was the same as that noticed in many parts of the Inland Empire. If it was, it occurred on the evening of December 14th. The old north Idaho newspapers mention such a phenomenon at that time, as did the Baker City, Union and Walla Walla publications. Speaking of the shock in Yakima county, Wallace . Wiley stated that the house on the Ahtanum in which his family lived was rocked with such violence as to scare the inmates. A Congregational minister, he said, was staying at his home with two chil- dren, and when the earth began its strange mo- tions he lost his head and ran out, taking one of the children with him, but temporarily forget- ting the other. At the mouth of Nasty creek, a small branch of the upper Ahtanum, Frank A. Splawn was then operating a small sash sawmill (said to be the first erected in the county). He was living alone in a little box house that he had built for temporary use. When the earthquake came his first thought was that mischievous boys were playing pranks on him, and wishing to give the practical jokers a scare, he rushed out, half- naked, gun in hand. The shock is described as consisting of two disturbances, the first being of considerable force and lasting several seconds, the second milder and of shorter duration. It did no damage. The time of its occurrence here is stated as late in the evening, and the eastern Oregon newspapers fixed the hour of the disturb- ance in those parts as 10:21 p. m.

It is claimed that the summer of 1874 was rendered memorable by a remarkable series of earthquakes in central Washington, some of them of unusual severity. Indeed, it has been asserted that as many as sixty-four distinct shocks were counted. The Yakima Herald of March 4, 1892, states that not since Washington was known to white men had so great an earthquake been experienced within its confines. "The indica- tions of its force," continues the publication referred to, "are still seen in great crevices, huge stone monuments of queer shapes and broken trails. A great mountain at Chief Wapato John's ranch, near the mouth of the Chelan river, was rocked into the Columbia, damming that huge stream, flooding the chief's ranch, carrying away

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his house, and forcing him to fly for his life. It was a number of days before the waters washed away a portion of the rocks and receded to any- where near their original level. Chief John was so thoroughly scared that he never returned to his ranch." It is thought by some that the flood- ing of Wapato John's ranch was an incident of the earthquake of 1872.

Leonard Thorp tells us that in 1874 a slide took place on the west side of Yakima river a few miles above the mouth of the Satus, opposite Snipes mountain. A slice of rock a quarter of a mile wide and of still greater length broke away from its fastening, forming an interesting monu- ment to the force of the internal convulsions in that region. In other parts of Yakima county great cracks were made in solid rocks, and 'con- siderable excitement, sometimes feelings of appre- hension and terror, were aroused, but no damage was done.

It is worthy of notice at this point that by leg- islative enactment approved November 14, 1873, the boundaries of Yakima county, as defined in the creating act heretofore quoted, were changed somewhat, the new boundary on the south and a part of that on the east being thus described: "Commencing at the northwest corner of town- ship number six north of range number twelve east; thence east along the north boundary of township number six north, until said line inter- sects the Columbia river, thence north up the mid-channel of said river to the mouth of the Yakima river."

In 1875 the interests of Yakima and other counties of central Washington received due attention from the territorial legislature, as appears from the fact that a memorial to congress was that year passed asking for an appropriation from the national treasury of fifty thousand dol- lars for the construction of a wagon road to con- nect King and Yakima counties, said road to lead through the Snoqualmie pass. The memorial also petitioned that E. P. Boyles, George Taylor, F. R. Geddis, Jeremiah W. Borst and Rufus Sterns be constituted a board of commissioners to disburse said appropriation. Its initial paragraph reads:

"Your memorialists, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Washington, would respect- fully represent to your honorable body, that the Cascade range of mountains divides the territory into western and eastern Washington; that east- ern Washington Territory is almost exclusively a grazing and agricultural country; that in the western country the lumbering and mining in- dustries largely predominate; and that the west- ern is largely dependent upon Oregon and the eastern portion for its supply of beef and bread- stuffs; that even in the present undeveloped con- dition of the western, $200,000 in gold is taken annually from the Puget Sound district to the eastern portion for beef cattle, which sum is

expended by the cattle raiser of the eastern sec- tion without this territory to the great detriment of the western and the whole territory; that the wheat, breadstuffs and dairy products of eastern Washington have to seek a market without this territory to the great detriment of both sections ; that Puget sound is the safest and most accessible harbor known and affords facilities for commerce superior to any other body of water in the world; that a connection of the material interests of the eastern and western sections of the territory would insure a rapid increase of population and wealth; that direct mail facilities by said pass are of great necessity; that a semi-weekly mail and stage line could run on such road with very little interruption from snow, and accommodate the traveling public many times when they could not be accommodated by way of the Columbia river on account of ice. The unity and ultimate pros- perity of both sections of the territory require that every means be fostered to protect and pro- mote the material interests of both sections."

For some reason the national government did not see fit to make the appropriation petitioned for or any appropriation, and the much desired aid to communication with Puget sound was not secured at this time.

The same legislature memorialized the post- master-general of the United States relative to the establishment of a mail route from Seattle to Wallula. As giving an idea of conditions obtain- ing during the period, its language is here repro- duced :

To the Honorable Postmaster-General of the United States.

Your memorialists, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Washington, would respectfully represent that there are over 2,000 inhabitants in the valley of the Yak- ima river in Yakima county in this Territory, and the num- ber is very rapidly increasing in consequence of recently discovered gold mines in said valley, as well as the rich and extensive agricultural and grazing lands in that sec- tion; that a large portion of the people of said valley are entirely without mail service, and that what service there is in said valley is by very circuitous routes, namely, to Wallula via Umatilla on the Columbia river, over the foothills of the Blue mountains, and to Puget sound via the Columbia river. Also that there is no postoffice at the mouth of the Yakima river, where one is very much needed to accommodate a large settlement at that point. Therefore,

Your memorialists pray that a mail route may be estab- lished from Seattle, in King county, via the Snoqualmie pass to Ellensburg, thence to Yakima City, thence to Smith Barnum's at the mouth of the Yakima river, and thence to Wallula on the Columbia river; that a postoffice be estab- lished at Smith Barnum's, at the mouth of the Yakima river, and that Smith Barnum be appointed postmaster of said postoffice. Also that a semi-weekly mail service be immediately established on such route.

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An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 38

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company Number of Pages: 1146

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146