An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 23

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1056

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wife and children a sanctuary of defence and a shelter of protection. These latter strayed in- land up the narrow valleys of the little streams that enter the Sound or over the gravelly prai- ries that island the great forests, and set them- selves down in unhistoried quiet and toil. The former roamned the shores of the Sound, landed on every "point," explored every "bay" and "cove," discussed and dreamed and calculated all the possibilities they could conceive of for the future, staked off "claims," named cities, and when they had satisfied themselves, as they all did, that they had all the afterwards of the greatest city of the northwest bounded by the lines of their "claim," sat down to wait its coming.

Among these expectants of the future of course most were fated to failure. Bnt a com- pany of enterprising gentlemer, in the hey-day of young and ambitions life, who came to the Sound country in the autumn of 1851 and selected their "claims" on "Elliot Bay," were more fortunate, if not more far-seeing, than the other parties, and, because of that fortune, won a larger place in the history of the State. These were Messrs. C. C. Terry, John N. Low and John C. Holgate, who were joined later by Ar- thur A. Denny, D. T. Denny, W. N. Bell and C. T. Boren. This company mostly came from Portland by water on a schooner, and disem- barked at " Alki Point" on the 13th of Novem- ber, and sat down in the unbroken waste of woods on the one hand and waters on the other, in the beginning of a long winter, without even a wigwam to shelter women or babes from the unceasing rains and stormny winds.

When we think of the contrasts that thus entered into the lives of these families, coming, as the most of them did, from the prairies of the West into this wilderness, is it any wonder that the faces of the wives and mothers became sad, or that an artless chronicler of these events should say "the women sat down and cried?"

The first " city" laid out on Elliot Bay was on "Alki Point," and was called, very ambi- tiously, New York. But the majority of its

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people, after some examination of the country, and some information from the Indians that there was a "pass" through the Cascade mount- ains to the Yakima and the great plains of the upper Columbia, removed to the east side of the bay, and established a rival city, on more ad- vantageous ground, and gave it the name of "Seattle."

This was the name of a chief of the Dwamish tribe of Indians, whose home was in this vicin- ity, and who was a personage who stood high in the estimation of the American settlers. The name was felicitons, as it retained the Indian nomenclature, and perpetuated the memory of one of the most dignified and honorable of the Indian chieftains of the Pacific coast.

The men who thus became the founders of Seattle, the largest and most prosperous of all the cities of Puget Sound, were David T. Denny, W. N. Bell, Arthur A. Denny and C. D. Boren. Connected with them were D. S. Maynard and Holgate, who kept the first trading house in the new city. In the autumn Henry L. Yesler located a sawmill on the water front. The loca- tion of the city was well chosen, being midway between Port Townsend at the foot and Olym- pia at the head of Puget Sound, and hence its growth was steady, and in four years it had a population of 300, and was fairly launched on its career of history.

Cotemporaneous with the settlement of Seat- tle the settlements extended to New Dunginess, near the month of the Dunginess river. In the meantime Whidby's Island was quite densely populated, as it afforded some very beautiful prairie, very pleasing to the eye of the western settler who intended to construct a home. The settlers on this island were of a very intelligent and energetic character, and rapidly made it to blossom and fruit like a garden. In 1852 the settlements were extended to Bellingham Bay, on the east side of the Sound, where some of the most intelligent and enterprising men of the Territory settled, and entered into milling and coal mining operations. These, indeed, became the speculative furors of all that region, and

timber and coal prospectors almost rivaled in energy and expectations the gold prospectors of California. Large milling companies were or- ganized and immense sawmills were erected at Ports Ludlow, Gamble, Madison, Orchard and Blakely.

During the time of the establishment of these settlements in the Puget Sound region, the country adjacent to and north of the Columbia from the Cascade mountains to the month of the river was steadily though slowly improving. In the vicinity of Vancouver, on Lewis river, on the Cowlitz and abont Baker's Bay near the mouth of the Columbia quite a number of fan- ilies had selected homes for themselves. Among them was Columbia Lancaster, at one time under the Provisional Government supreme judge of Oregon, and for a whole generation was one of the foremost citizens of Washington. An effort was made to build a city on Baker's Bay, which should become the commercial entrepot of the whole Columbia region. The embryonic town was called Pacific City, but its brief existence of a year or two was on paper and in the imagination of its " founders " only. From Baker's Bay some settlers found their way to Shoalwater Bay, on the northward coast, where an oyster fishing community was built up, which has continued with alternating for- tune until the present time. The enterprising immigrant songht ont every nook on coast and river that offered the least chance for a future town. So, as early as 1851, the valley of the lower Chehalis and the region of Gray's Har- bor about the mouth of that stream were visited, and "Chehalis City " was laid out by John Butler, but it scarcely reached beyond the dignity of a plat on paper. Still the settle- ments gradually extended up the valley of the lower Chehalis until they reached those of the upper valley of the same stream not far from the settlements on the Cowlitz Prairie, where the Hudson's Bay farms were located, and where in 1850 E. D. Warbass had laid out a town and established a trading post.

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Another settlement that, in later times, figured quite conspicuously in the Indian wars of the Territory, grew up contemporaneonsly with these on the north side of the Columbia at the " Cascades," where quite a number of men, prominent in the after history of the northwest coast, had settled as early as 1850. Among them were the Bradfords, L. A. Chenoweth, L. W. Coe, and B. B. Bishop. Thus when 1852 was closing, the settlement in Northern Oregon, as it was then called, extended, though sparsely,

from the Columbia river on the south to British Columbia on the north, and from the coast of the Pacific to the Cascade mountains eastward, and it had within its borders the rising towns of Vancouver, Olympia, Steilacoom, Seattle, and Port Townshend. None of these, at this time, probably exceeded a population of 500 souls. The entire population in the region north of the Columbia at the close of 1832 did not exceed 3,000.

CHAPTER XVI. SEPARATE POLITICAL EXISTENCE.

GENERAL DESIRE FOR IT -- FIRST PUBLIC MEETING TO PROMOTE IT-ITS ACTION-INDIFFERENCE OF CON- GRESS-CONVENTION AT MONTICELLO ACTION OF OREGON LEGISLATURE- COURSE OF GENERAL LANE-CONGRESS INSTITUTES THE TERRITORY OF WASHINGTON-OFFICERS APPOINTED-REGION INCLUDED WITHIN IT -- ISOLATION OF THE REGION -MEANS TAKEN TO RELIEVE IT -- CONDITION OF THE TERRITORY IN GENERAL.

HE purpose of a political existence sepa- rate from Oregon was from the first very clearly defined in the minds of all the inen who had led the emigration north of the Columbia. Its ultimate necessity was just as clearly conceded by those who remained south of that stream. It was a subject constantly in the minds of both sections, and it, therefore, cansed no surprise when active movements were begun looking in that direction. The first of these occurred on the 4th of July, 1851, when the Americans abont the head of Puget Sound met at Olympia to celebrate that day. The orator of the day, Mr. J. B. Chapman, made the "Future State of Columbia " his special theme, and greatly delighted his hearers by his enthusiasm on that subject. At the close of the general program for the celebration a meeting was organized to promote this purpose, which was addressed by several of the leading gentle- men of that region, and a committee on resoln- tions was appointed, consisting of Ebey, Golds- borough, Wilson, Chapman, Simmons, Cham- bers and Crockett. This committee presented

resolutions recommending a convention of re- presentatives from all the election districts north of the Columbia to be held at Cowlitz Landing "to take into careful consideration the peculiar position of the northern portion of the Territory, its wants, the best method of supply- ing those wants, and propriety of an early appeal to Congress for a division of the Territory." This action of the meeting at Olympia was promptly responded to in parts of the designated territory abont Puget Sound, and delegates, according to this resolve, were elected.

The convention met on the day appointed, and, in its twenty-six delegates, held the most representative men of the then infant common- wealth. It adopted a memorial to Congress on the subject of division; a resolution of instruc- tion to the Oregon delegate in accordance with the memorial; a petition to Congress for a Ter- ritorial road from some point on Puget Sound over the Cascade mountains to Walla Walla, and a plank road from the Sound to the month of the Cowlitz, and also asked that the benefits of the Oregon land law should be extended to the

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new Territory, should their prayers for a divis- ion be granted. It also defined the boundaries of twelve counties, all west of the Cascade mountains. This work done, the convention adjourned to meet on the 2d day of May fol- lowing, awaiting the intervening action of Con- gress on their requests. The convention re- solved that, on its second meeting, if Congress had not meantime favorably considered its re- quest, it would proceed to the formation of a constitution, and ask admission into the Union as a State.

Congress, however, took no action on the matters contained in the memorials and prayers of the convention, and, before the time appointed for the reassembling of the convention the enthusiasm for an immediate separation from Oregon had so far died away that the body never came together again. Still the subject was not forgotten, and as a means of keeping it before the people a weekly newspaper, called The Co- lambian, was established at Olympia, and published its first number on the 11th day of September, 1852. Under its lead another con- vention was planned for the 25th of October, 1852, to meet at Monticello, on the Cowlitz river, near its mouth, and in the extreme south- ern limits of the intended new territory. This convention consisted of forty-four of the most influential citizens of Thurston and Lewis coun- ties, as then organized, and its action was in harmony with the action of the previous con- vention. It set forth, in its memorial to Con- gress, tnost cogent reasons for the establishment of the new Territory. The memorial was for- warded to General Lane, their delegate in Con- gress from Oregon, and the proceedings of the convention were published in all the newspapers of Oregon.

Ten days after the Monticello convention the Oregon Legislature met. The action of the convention was not only not opposed, but was approved by the members from the counties south of the Columbia river, and in all respects the legislature was favorable to the desires of the people north of the river. A memorial to

Congress, introduced by Ebey, asking the erec- tion of the new Territory passed without oppo- sition, and other legislative action favorable to the country north of the Columbia was passed with very cordial unanimity. The only subject of debate was on the dividing line, one party desiring it to run east and west along the Colum- bia and the 46th parallel to the Rocky mountains, and the other that it should run north and south along the summit of the Cascade mountains, thus putting Oregon Territory west and Columbia east of that range. There was some sympathy with this view among the people residing immedi- ately along the north bank of the Columbia river, as their commercial and social relations were more intimately connected with those of Portland, which was already the largest city of the northwest coast, than with those of Puget Sound, from which they were separated by a hundred miles of very rugged wilderness. But on the whole it had feeble support, and Mr. Ebey's memorial passed without opposition on the final vote.

So, in harmony with the general sentiment of the Territory, both north and south, was the action of the convention, and the subsequent action of the legislature, that the Oregon dele- gate in Congress, General Lane, who was ever quick to catch the drift of popular feeling and put his own action in accord with it, had intro- duced the measure into Congress immediately on the receipt of the memorial of the Monticello convention. He presented it to the House by a resolution instructing the Committee on Terri- tories to inquire into the expediency of the measure. This resolution was adopted, and the committee prepared a bill in harmony with the memorial of the convention and reported it to the Ilouse. On the 8th of February, 1853, that body proceeded to its consideration. On the 10th the vote was taken on the bill, it having been previously amended by substituting " Washington" for "Columbia" as the name of the new Territory, and was adopted by the very decisive vote of 128 to 29. On the 2d day of March it passed the Senate, and the president

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affixed his signature the same day, and thus that partieular region of country that had contribu- ted the real bone of contention between the United States and Great Britain for so many years, and for the possession of which the bold and brave pioneers from the Cumberland and Ohio had dared and done so much, was not only certified by treaty to the American republic, but was also certified to history as one of the " bright, particular stars" in the constellation of the American Union.

While these events were occurring in the national capital, the people who were most es- peeially interested were in anxious waiting. So slow and difficult were the means of communi- cation between the East and the West at that time that it was not until near the last of April that information of the passage of the act of Congress reached them, and not until the middle of May that intelligence of the appointment of officers for the new Territory arrived. Then it became known that Isaac Ingall Stevens, of Massachusetts, had been ap- pointed Governor, C. H. Mason, of Rhode Island, Secretary, Edward Lander, of Indiana, Chief Justice, John R. Miller, of Ohio, and Victor Monroe, of Kentucky, Associate Justice, and J. S. Clendenin, of Louisiana, United States District Attorney. Miller did not accept, and O. B. McFadden, of Oregon, was appointed in his stead. J. Patton Anderson, of Mississippi, was appointed United States Marshal, and di- rected to take the census. The marshal was the first of the Federal officers to reach the Ter- ritory. The others arrived at different dates until about the last of November, when Gover- nor Stevens arrived at Olympia and issued his proclamation organizing the government of the Territory. Awaiting the active movement of the wheels of the government, it is proper that we now pause and take some survey of the con- ditions of the nascent commonwealth.

The region thus erected into a Territory con- sisted of the counties of Clarke, Lewis, Pacific, Thurston, Pierce, King, Jefferson and Island. Clarke and Pacific were the southernmost, ly-

ing along the Columbia river and the coast of the Pacific immediately north of the mouth of the river. Between Clarke and the counties that touched the waters of the Sound was Lewis; and the four others lay upon the waters of that inland sea. Clarke was the most populous county, with a total population of 1,134, accord- ing to the census completed in the autumn of 1852, while Pacific was the smallest, listing only 152 people. The total white population of the Territory at this time was only 3,965,- confessedly a small number to take upon them- selves the responsibility of a separate political existence. The physical character of the coun- try precluded rapid settlement. West of the Cascade mountains, to which portion the settle- ments were as yet confined, the country was al- most entirely very densely and heavily timbered and offered few inducements for agricultural employments. Its vast and stately forest, un- rivaled in America, charmed the eye of the lumberman, while its coal measures awakened the interest of the miners; but the people to use these productions were so few that they offered no immediate hope of remunerative markets for them. As yet there was little call for exporta- tion and hence these possible industries lan- gnished. Rich as the country was in the ma- terials for making wealth, at this time it was poor in present possessions. It had no high- ways. Rough and rugged trails through the deep forests connected widely separated settle- ments. while the " towns" on the Sonnd had no means of communication with each other but the canoe or the "plunger," or perchance an occassional small steamboat. The people were a marvel of will, and of that peculiar only quality denominated " pluck," but they could manifest that quality by waiting for a good time coming, --- when no one knew, but that it would come all men believed, and so they waited with a courage that was truly sublime.

One of the difficulties in the way of inducing immigration was the fact that there was no road connecting the waters of Puget Sound with the open country east of the Cascade mountains,

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nor, for that matter, with the Columbia river and the Willamette valley on the south. Canoes on such rapid and dangerous streams as the Cowlitz, and rough pack trails through nu- broken forests, presented little inducement for travel and were really a terror to multitudes who would gladly else have sought homes along the shores of the Sound. But the hundred and fifty miles of mountains lying to the eastward, whose crests culminated in the eternal snows of Monnt Ranier, Mount Baker and Mount Adams, were a still more terrible obstacle even than the canoes and trails to the southward. But a people like those who had already penetrated this wilderness, and boldly assumed the burdens of self-government would not be long in opening some more feasible way of ingress and egress, and thus secure a larger share of the emigration that was still pouring westward over the interior plains. To do this a way must be opened pass- able for wagons; for the empire on the Pacific coast came in the immigrant's wagon. Accord- ingly plans were laid to open a wagon road over the Cascade mountains from the vicinity of Nisqually to the head of the Yakima river and then down that stream to old Fort Walla Walla, and thence to an intersection with the Oregon road at the western foot of the Blue mountains. As early as 1850 some measures were taken, and some work done towards this end, but it was not until the spring of 1853 that measures sufficiently effective were taken to secure the desired result. During the summer of that year the way was opened so as to permit the passage of wagons, and over it thirty-five wag- ons reached the shores of the Sound in the autumn of that year. The completion of this enterprise, even so far as to permit the passage of wagons at all, was a great point gained in the morale of settlement, and henceforward the peo- ple on the Sound had a less oppressive sense of isolation than before.

The immigration that reached the Territory in this way, though not numbering more than two hundred persons, was of very sterling stuff and contributed very greatly to the prosperity

of the country. They marked the line of fut- ure travel, and were but a prophecy of the day, not so very far distant, when the iron track should follow the trail of the ox hoof, and the palace coaches of the Northern Pacific should whirl in a few hours over the very path they were weeks in traversing. This immigration set- tled the valley of White river and that of the Puyullup, and scattered southward of Olympia over the " Grand Mound " prairies, but their settlements were so sparse that on the occur- rence of Indian hostilities a year or two later, an account of which will be given elsewhere, they were compelled to abandon their claims for some years.

Such were the physical conditions of the new Territory as the summer of its natal year drew to a close. Intellectually and morally the con- ditions were not more favorable. No system of public education had been established. While the emigrants that settled Washington were ex- ceptionally intelligent, for obvious reasons the only schools that could be established were pri- vate ones, as few or no school districts could be yet organized.

There were as yet no church edifices, and no church organizations, if we except the Indian mission of the Roman Catholics near Olympia, and at the Hudson's Bay post at Nisqually, in the Puget Sound region. At Vancouver, on the Columbia river side of the Territory, it was somewhat different, as here both the Roman Catholies and the Methodists had been engaged in missionary work more or less steadily for nearly twenty years in connection with their wider work south of the Columbia. Among the emigrants had come to the Territory quite a number of ministers of various denominations, who held religious services in most of the small communities, and were counted among the most intelligent, industrious and enterprising of the people. Such was the condition of the new Territory when its newly appointed governor, I. I. Stevens, arrived at Olympia late in Novem- ber, prepared to enter upon the active duties of his office.

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CHAPTER XVII.

TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED.

I. I. STEVENS APPOINTED GOVERNOR-HIS CHARACTER-TOPOGRAPHIC EXPLORATIONS-LEGISLATURE ELECTED-GOVERNOR STEVENS' MESSAGE-STATESMAN-LIKE VIEWS -WORK OF THE LEGISLATURE GOVERNOR STEVENS' REPAIRS TO WASHINGTON-SOME TROUBLE ON THE BORDER-SAN JUAN - IBLAND-RESULTS OF GOVERNOR STEVENS' VISIT TO WASHINGTON.

ILE selection of Isaac Ingalls Stevens by President Pierce as the first governor of the Territory of Washington was exceed- ingly propitious to its interests. He was a man whose natural and acquired elements were fitted in an eminent degree to commend himself and the causes he served to public favor and confidence. A New Englander, born nnder the shadows of Andover, and early trained under influences of intellectual culture, his naturally vigorons and ambitions intellect had already given him special mark when he en- tered the United States Military School at West Point in 1835, and he only met the expecta- tions of his friends when he graduated from it in 1839 with its highest honors. After his graduation he was put in charge of the fortifi- cations on the New England coast. During the Mexican war he served on the staff of Gen- eral Scott, and after its close was for four years assistant of Prof. Bache on the coast survey. This position gave him special training on the lines that so eminently qualified him to lead the surveys for a great trans-continental rail- road which had been the dream and hope of statesman and emigrant alike for nearly half a century, but which as yet was but a dream. Congress having authorized the survey of sev- eral routes for this contemplated road, Stevens was put in charge of the survey of the northern line, whose western terminus was fixed on Puget Sound. Ile was directed to proceed from the upper waters of the Mississippi to this arm of the Pacific and report upon the ronte itself, and upon the Indian tribes through which he would pass, and he was also given anthority to treat with these tribes when he found it prac-

ticable. Something of the facts and results of this survey will enter more naturally into an- other part of this work, and consequently these will be omitted here. Still it is proper here to state that among the officers detailed as his assistants and helpers in this work were several whose names afterward became famous in the history of the great rebellion. Among these were George B. MeClellan, Cuvier Grover and F. W. Lander. Captain McClellan had charge of the west end of the line, and explored the Cascade range for passes leading to Puget Sound, from Vancouver northward for more than a hundred miles, while Stevens, following the. line of his instructions, was proceeding westward from the Mississippi.

In his proclamation looking to the organiza- tion of the Territorial government, Governor Stevens had designated the 30th day of Jann- ary, 1854, for the election of a delegate to Con- gress and members of the Territorial Legisla- ture, and appointed the 27th of February fol- lowing for the convening of the Legislative Assembly. Of course with offices to be filled, there were office-seekers in abundance. Parties soon crystallized. The Democratic party put in the field Columbia Lancaster, of Clarke county. for delegate to Congress, and the Whig party entered as his competitor W. H. Wallace, of Pierce, while M. T. Simmons, whose name has so often occurred in honorable connection with the real pioneer struggles of the country, ap- peared as an independent candidate. The result of the election gave Lancaster 690 votes, Wal- lace 500, and Simmons 18-a total of but 1,208 votes in the whole Territory.

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An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 23

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902 Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1056

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1056