An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 36

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

USA > Washington > An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 36

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In 1853, at the head of a large exploring party, he traversed the region from St. Panl, on the Mississippi, to Puget Sound on the Pa- cific, a distance of 2,000 miles through a wild and almost nnknown country, and by means of lateral parties and information gathered from trappers and Indians, as well as instrumental surveys, he made a most comprehensive and ex- hanstive survey of the route committed to his charge and of the country bordering it for from one hundred to two hundred miles in width, and also established the entire practicability of nav- igating the upper Missouri and Columbia riv- ers by steamers; yet his report was the first one prepared and submitted to Congress. He organized and set in motion .the civil govern- inent of his Territory. In 1854-'55 he made treat- ies with 22,000 out of the 25,000 Indians of that Territory, and extinguished the Indian title to more than 100,000 square miles of territory. His Indian policy was one of beneficence to the Indians, guarded most carefully their rights, provided for their civilization, and guaranteed to them homesteads on their assuming the hab- its of civilized life. Governor Stevens also in October, 1855, negotiated a treaty of amity and friendship with the Blackfoot Indians on the upper Missouri, and also as between them and the hunting tribes of Washington and Oregon.

Eight thousand Indians, representing fully 20,000, were present at this council. It was a complete success. With his small party of only twenty-five men, without any military escort, he traversed a thousand miles of Indian territory, crossing the Rocky mountains in order to make this treaty. Tribes which had for centuries been enemies, fearlessly met together, relying upon Governor Stevens' protection, and a peace was made which has lasted unbroken to this day. During his absence the disaffected In- dians of his territory had broken out in open war and had massacred many settlers, and driven the survivors to take refuge in fortified places. Withont an instant's delay, he forced a passage across the Rocky mountains in winter, and by the aid of friendly Indians and celerity of move- ment reached Olympia, the capital of the Terri- tory, on the first of January, 1856, amid the rejoicing of the people. He called out a thon- sand volunteers, encouraged the settlers to return to their abandoned farms and live there in block houses, placed all the friendly and doubtful In- dians on islands in .Puget Sound, and fed and clothed them, and waged two campaigns against the hostiles with such vigor and success that before the year had expired the Indians were thoroughly subdued, their chiefs slain and the others had surrendered and were incorporated with the friendly Indians. In this struggle his energy, resolution and resources overruled every obstacle. He issned script to pay his troops; he impressed supplies, wagons and teams when- ever the owners refused to furnish them for script; he maintained strict discipline. He re- moved half-breed and white Indian sympathiz- ers-the former employes of the English Hud- son's Bay Fur Company-from their homes on the frontier to the towns where they could not comninnicate with the Indians; and when po- litical and partisan opponents sought to create trouble by invoking the aid of the courts, and the chief justice of the Territory issued his writ of habeas corpus for the release of these inen, Governor Stevens proclaimed martial law in the two counties, seized the chief justice by a file

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of troopers and kept him a prisoner until the end of the war. During this time he stood like a shield of adamant between the Indians and the reckless and revengeful who thirsted to fall upon the friendly and hostile alike. He pro- hibited all cruelty toward the Indians taken in arms, and that only six cases of unauthorized killing of Indians by white men occurred dur- ing a period of twelve months of alarm and ex- asperation is the best evidence of the vigor and sneeess of Governor Stevens' action. It is not a little remarkable that in his printed vindiea- tion he places his justification for proclaiming martial law on the very grounds and in much the same language as the justification of mar- tial law during the Rebellion.

Governor Stevens was elected delegate to Congress in July, 1857, and resigned as Gov ernor. He served two terms, four years, in Congress, where he vindicated his action in the Indian war, and his Indian policy, and saw his treaties confirmed and the payment of the war serip assumed by Congress, and also ob- tained many large appropriations for develop- ing his Territory. He took an active part in the Presidential election of 1860. He was Chairman of the Breckinridge National Demo- eratic Committee, of which he wrote the address, an able argument covering nearly one sheet of newspaper, in a single night. He was a stanch Union man, and upon the first raising of the banner of secession he openly denounced the party of disnnion.

On the fall of Suinter, he offered a earte blanche of his services to the Government from a distant part of the Territory of Washington, hurried on in person as soon as possible and ac- cepted the colonelcy of the Seventy-ninth High- landers, New York Volunteers. This was a crack New York city military regiment, composed of Scotchmen or men of Scotch descent, and was the first military regiment of the State to volunteer for three years of the war. The regi- ment suffered heavily at the battle of Bull Run, losing 198 killed and wounded, including among the former its Colonel, James Cameron,

brother of the Secretary of War. The Secretary promised that the regiment should be sent home to recruit, but it was not done. Owing to a number of eauses, among which may be named their severe losses in battle, disappointment at the nonfulfillment of the Secretary's assurance, the evil influence of a few worthless officers and the effect of the liquor supplied by them to the men, eight companies mutinied by refusing to. strike tents and move camp soon after the new Colonel assumed command. Colonel Stevens went among the men, many of whom were in- toxicated and infuriated with utter fearlessness, urging them to return to duty; when a group threatened death to any one who dared strike a tent, and the officers stood back, he took down the tent with his own hands, while the very mutineers applauded his intrepidity. Finally, with the aid of the officers and the two com- panies which remained loyal, he succeeded in removing most of the arms, and, in response to his call, some regular troops arrived and sur- rounded the camp with infantry and artillery. Then Colonel Stevens stood upon a barrel in the midst of the mutineers and ordered them to .return to duty in a voice that rang ont like a trumpet, "Men! I have urged you all the morn- ing to do your duty. Now I order you. Obey, or my next order will be to that battery to fire on you. Now, Highlanders, fall in." The dis- affected men made haste to fall in line. Col- onel Stevens enforced a very severe and just discipline, but the intelligent and generous material of which the regiment was composed recognized the need of such treatment and re- sponded to it with enthusiastic pride and devo- tion to their chief.

When appointed Brigadier General and or- dered to another field of nsefulness, he reviewed and bade the regiment farewell and a universal shout rang along the line, "Tak us wi' ye! Tak us wi' ye!" and in response to it, upon his application, endorsed by General W. T. Sher- man, the regiment was sent after him to Annap- olis the next day by order of the President, overruling the objections of General Mcclellan,

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and remained under his command until his death.

He served in the defense of Washington, and was appointed Brigadier General September 28, 1861. In the same month, in command of 1,800 men, he made the reconnoissance of Lewisville, where he handled his troups with acknowledged skill and rapidly and easily with- drew them from the attack of a superior force. He commanded a brigade on the Hilton Head expedition, October, 1861; landed in South Carolina in November and occupied soon after the town of Beaufort, Port Royal and the ad- joining sea islands. January 1, 1862, he fought the battle of the Coosaw river, with his brigade re-enforced by two other regiments and the gun- boats, drove back the enemy and destroyed his batteries which had closed the river. In June he was placed in command of a division and ordered to James Island to take part in an ad- vanee npon Charleston. While his troops were landing from the transports in the Stone river, npon the island, he pushed forward with his advance, drove in the enemy, captured a battery of four guns and established his permanent picket line. His force formed the right wing of the army under General Benham. Ou the 16th of June, at dawn, he assaulted the enemy's fort of Secessionville with his entire division, but although the troops gained the parapet and even there captured two prisoners, yet the slaughter was so great he had to withdraw them, havng lost over 600 men in twenty min- ntes. This assault was ordered by General Benham against General Stevens' remon- strance.

In July, 1862, be sailed with his division to Virginia, where, at Newport News, it was in- corporated with Burnside's troops from North Carolina, as the Ninth Corps, forming the First Division. Thence proceeding by Fredericks- burg, General Stevens marched along the Rap- pahannock river and joined Pope's army at Culpeper Conrt Honse. He participated in va- rions skirmishes on the Rappahannock, and in the battle of Manassas or second Bull Run, An- gust 29 and 30, 1862, where his horse was

killed under him while leading a charge of his troops. He withdrew his division from that disastrous field in perfect order, and with every regiment unbroken, although with the loss of one half their number. The next morning at daylight he was placed in command of the rear guard of the army with two divisions of infantry and a strong force of cavalry and artillery and took post between Bull Run and Centerville. The next day, September 1, 1862, while march- ing his division, closely followed by Reno's di- vision of the Ninth Corps, across from the main road between Centreville and Fairfax Court House to the Little River turnpike, in order to reach a position to withstand a column of the enemy reported as advancing and threat- ening the main road and only line of retreat, he suddenly came face to face with the Rebel skirmishers who were hastening forward in order to seize the road. With instant decision and rapidity, throwing out skirmishiers who drove back the enemy and developed his posi- tion, General Stevens formed his entired divis- ion in column and ordered ihe assanlt. The enemy were formed behind a rail fence in the edge of thick woods. In their front, slightly descending, extended for some distance a corn field and a tract of cleared land with stumps and logs scattered over a portion of it. The column with fixed bayonets swept on to the attack with firm but rapid step nntil half the intervening ground had been traversed. Then the enemy's line, hitherto concealed and silent, suddenly smote the column with a sheeted fire so terrifie and deadly that it staggered and halted. At this erisis, when another moment might have seen the troops in headlong flight, General Stevens rushed forward on foot, seized the colors of the foremost regiment-the Seventy- ninth Highlands, his own former regiment-as they were falling from the hands of the wounded color-bearer, and, calling upon the men to follow their general, bore them to the front. The regiment, followed by the column, dashed forward with redoubled fury; they hurled the rail fence to the ground with one sweep of the

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line, dashing themselves against it, and drove the enemy before them. General Stevens fell in the moment of victory. He was found at the fence, dead, his temple pierced by a bullet, and the flag firmly grasped in his right hand. The Rebel force thus fiercely hurled back was a heavy flanking column commanded by " Stone- wall " Jackson in person. He renewed the fight, but Reno's and afterward Kearny's di- visions supported Stevens' veterans until night and a heavy slorm of rain, thunder and light- ning put an end to the conflict. General Stevens' heroic attack upon Jackson at the battle of Chantilly undoubtedly saved Pope's army from serious disaster. Jackson was advancing rapidly and was one half a mile from the only line of retreat when encountered.

General Stevens was appointed Major General July 4, 1862. At the very hour of his death the President and Secretary of War were consid- ering the step of placing him in command of the army. It appears certain that nothing but death could have long kept him from that com- mand for which his talents, courage and devotion so well qualified him.

General Stevens married in September, 1841, Miss Margaret L. Hazard, daughter of Benjamin Hazard, a distinguished lawyer of Newport, Rhode Island, and left his widow, one son and three daughters. His remains were buried in Newport, where the city reared an imposing monument of granite, upon which is inseribed, " In memory of Major General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, born in Andover, Massachusetts, March 28, 1818, who gave to the service of his country a quick and comprehensive mind, a warm and generous heart, a firm will and strong arm, and who fell while rallying his command, with the flag of the republic in his dying grasp, at the battle of Chantilly, Virginia, September 1, 1862."

It must suffice for Olympia that we select one other name, and that the name of a man in his sphere, a thoroughly representative character, namely:

NATHANIEL OSTRANDER, M. D., 317 Eighth street, Olympia, Washington, one of the oldest medical practitioners in the State, was born in Ulster connty, New York, December 28, 1818.

Dr. Ostrander's parents, Abel and Catherine (Esterly) Ostrander, were natives of New York, and were descended from Holland ancestry. Abel Ostrander was reared to agricultural pur- suits, which he followed until 1836. Then he emigrated to St. Louis, Missouri, and engaged in building and renting houses. In 1852 he removed to Washington Territory, located a donation claim upon the Cowlitz river, and there followed farming until his death.

Nathaniel Ostrander was taken in infancy by his uncle, Nathaniel, by whom he was reared to the age of fourteen years, enjoying the privi- leges of the schools of New York city. In 1832 he returned to his parents, and remained with them two years. Then he joined his brother, John, a merchant in St. Louis, Missouri, and as clerk in his store remained until 1836, when he moved to La Fayette county, and there con- tinned mercantile pursuits. He was married, in 1838, to Miss Eliza Jane Yantis, a native of Kentucky, of Dutch deseent. In 1845 he removed to Cass county, and engaged in farm- ing, and about this time commenced the study of medicine under the instruction of Dr. D. K. Palmer, pursning his studies as he drove the plow. In 1847 he moved to Saline county, continuing his studies and attending two courses of lectures in the medical department of St. Louis University, where he graduated in 1848. He then commenced practice in Saline county, continuing until 1850.

In 1850 Dr. Ostrander joined the tide of western emigration, and with an ox teamn crossed the plains to California. He passed one year at mining, and in the practice of his profession in the camps at Rough and Ready and Onion Valley. In the fall of 1851 he returned to his family in Missouri, making the return trip via the Nicaragua route. He then converted his farm property into cash and a prairie outfit

CLARK SPRINGS.

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of three wagons and the necessary oxen, and again started for the Pacific coast, bringing his family and father, but this time directed his course toward Washington, then a part of Oregon. Arriving at their destination in the fall of 1852, they located on the Cowlitz river, being among the first settlers in that valley. The Doctor engaged in farming, and also prac- ticed medicine as occasion required, remaining in that locality nntil 1872. He reclaimed two farms from nature's wilds, and a creek and vil- lage now bear his name. In 1872 he sold out and moved to Tumwater, where he opened a small drug store and engaged in a general medical practice. In 1879 he sold his store, and moved to Olympia, where he has since followed his profession.

Dr. Ostrander has been prominently identi- fied with the public affairs of this country, and none have been more untiring in their efforts to advance its best interests than he. He was

the first Probate Judge of Cowlitz county, appointed by Isaac I. Stevens, the first Terri- torial Governor, and in that capacity served for twelve years. IIe has served several times on the City Council of Olympia, and two terms as Mayor; also one term as a member of the Territorial Legislature. Socially, he affiliates with the I. O. O. F., having passed all the chairs of the subordinate lodge and encamp- ment.

Although now seventy-four years of age, the Doctor is still erect, and vigorous, only prac- ticing among his older patients, and passing the closing years of his life in the enjoyment of peace and plenty. He and his good wife have had eleven children, one son and ten daughters, eight of whom survive: Catherine, Mary A., Theressa, Margaret, May, Florence, Fanny L. and John Y.,-all married and settled in life.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

PRINCIPAL CITIES, CONTINUED.

SPOKANE.

THE "INLAND EMPIRE" -- LOCATION OF SPOKANE-BEAUTY OF SCENERY-ITS RAILROAD SYSTEM- SCHOOLS AND BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATIONS-MEDICAL LAKE-EDISON ELECTRIC COMPANY-TELE- PHONE BUSINESS-L. H. PRATHIER-I. S. KAUFMAN-JUDGE MCBRIDE-REV. J. B. RENÉ- REV. NELSON CLARK.

W HAT is known in the parlance of the Western coast as the " Inland Empire" is the region of country east of the Cas- cade range of mountains in both Washington and Oregon, extending from Couer d'Alene mountains on the north and the Klamath plateau on the south, and reaching eastward to the granite foot of the great Rocky range. In area it is three times as large as the great " Empire State." Its popular title, therefore, "The Inland Empire," is by no means an unmeaning design- ation. With many towns and cities of the great

present, and vastly greater prospective import- ance, it has one that is, and without doubt is to remain, the regal queen of that imperial realm, namely, Spokane.

"Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth," is this Spokane. If this may seem a hyperbole in the statement the writer will con- sent to limit its application to the "Inland Em- pire,"- a region of scenic loveliness and grandenr and snhlimity not exceeded on the whole on the American continent. As the eye never wearies of this loveliness, so the pen would not tire in

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recording it; but the limitations of our book compel discretion.

The city is located in the very heart of the most perfect scenic poem. Form and color and motion have here their rarest blendings. Woodlands, lawns and waters mingle green soft- ness, gray soberness and silver brightness in one long and broad picture such as no hand but that of the Infinite Artist could ever toueh. Just where the Spokane river, which has come wan- dering down through the plains from the north- east for many miles, breaks first into langhing ripples, then speeds away through various chan- nels for a half mile race of flashing and jeweled beauty, and then leaps and rushes out of sight into the deep basaltic chasin of its lower flow, the city crosses plain and river, and rises up the hill-slopes that echo back and across the soft music of the incomparable cascade.

The divine marvel of its jeweled setting is matched by the human marvel of its own growth and beauty. Only twenty years ago a pioneer explorer, searching for a way through an unin- habited wild, accompanied only by his wife, a pioneer like himself; and a little daughter, found himself so bewildered in the unpathed intri- cacies of pine forests and basaltic precipices at the nighfall of a long June day of lonely travel, that he was compelled to halt and camp for the night under a pine tree's protection, without food for supper or breakfast. The morning woke them with the tremnlous music of a near waterfall filling the white air. They found that they had encamped almost where the spray of Spokane Falls would moisten their brows. Against the gray breast of a distant hill a few blue wreaths of smoke from some Indian wig- wams were all that told of humanity near. Then the writer first saw this spot; but he did not dream that night of all that he would see here only twenty years later.

How to write of Spokane in any way and not seem to deal in enlogy rather than deseription is hard to tell. Its simple story is a romance. Its statistics show almost an Aladdin's creation. To enter upon either is to venture a field where

we ean find no near place to panse. A few sen- tences must cover all that we say, before we in- troduce to our readers some of the characters, who type hundreds like themselves, who were the builders of this Queen City.

Spokane is the inland center of a vast system of railroads. It is on the main line of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads. A branch of the great Union Pacific system, leav- its main line at Pendleton, in Oregon, makes this its objective point. The Spokane Northern, Dow terminating at Northport on the upper Columbia, but to extend to the center of the great mining dtstricts of British Columbia, the Spokane and Idaho, with other lines begun and projected, make this the one great focus of travel and trade in this vast interior.

Its street railway system is a prominent fca- ture of the city's progress,-cable, electric and motor lines, operated by four companies, thirty- six miles combined. The electric-light plant, the cable railway, the electric railway, the ma- chinery of the eity water works, an efficient water service for the fire department, are all operated by the water power of the falls. By a telephone system the city is connected with all points within a radius of 300 miles. The num- ber of church organizations is about thirty, all denominations being represented, some having several church edifices. There are ten public schools, employing fifty-eight teachers, one of which is the high school, with twelve instruc- tors. Of private schools the most notable are the Gonzaga College, with 100 pupils; two parochial schools, a girls' academy, a kinder - garten school and orphanage, the Jenkins Uni- versity, St. Mary's Hall, a young ladies semin- ary; a music conservatory and a business col- lege. The Hospital of the Sacred Heart, con- ducted by eighteen Sisters of Charity, has 100 patients. The Sisters of St. Joseph conduct an orphanage, under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church, with 150 orphans at present under their care. The Ladies' Benevolent So- ciety maintain a children's home, and now have forty in charge. There are eight banks, with a

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paid-up capital of $1,600,000; surplus and un- divided profits, $500,000. There are also sev- eral savings banks; the two leading ones have an aggregate capital of $110,000 and a surplus of $50,000. There are located here two flour mills, four breweries, twelve wooden- product factories, four iron foundries and many other manufacturing enterprises.

Like Seattle the city of Spokane was visited by fire in the eventful year for Washington fires. On July 4, 1889, the entire business section of Spokane Falls, as the city was then called, was swept ont of existence by a devastating fire; and, like her sister city, Spokane has also arisen resplendent from the heaps of ruins, and finer, more substantial and more beautiful structures adorn Spokane, the third principal city of the State of Washington.

A remarkable physical feature of the county, immediately related to Spokane, is Medical Lake, the location of the Eastern State Hospital for the Insane, which has 216 patients confined therein. The lake is situated on the summit of the great plain of the Columbia, at an altitude of 2,300 feet above sea level. It is about one mile long with a width of over half a mile. It is so namned from the medical properties of the water. By an analysis by Professor Lansing, of New York, the water was found to contain in grains per United States gallon: Soda chloride, 16.370; potassic chloride, 9.241; lithie carbonate, traces; sodic carbonate, 63.543; mag- nesia carbonate, .233; ferrous carbonate, .525; calcie carbonate, .186; aluminic oxide, .175; sodic silicate, 10.638; potassic sulphate, traces; sodic diborate, traces; organic matter, .551; total, 101.463. The Indians ascribed to its waters healing properties long before the lake became a popular resort for the white man.

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An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 36

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