An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 42

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

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"This young and flourishing State bears the undisputed reputation of being the greatest in coal beds and forests, as large statements can be made with perfect truthfulness about other natural resources; but this is no place to intro- duce them. Coal is our text and we have plenty to talk about. All the Pacific coast will for- ever have to look to this State for its coal. What we need now is more railroads to the coal fields, more coal washing machinery for the heavy coking varieties of coal, more coke ovens, more and cheaper ocean transportation, and this State will shut out all competition from foreign coals on the pacific coast."

The following tables will give a better idea of the extent of coal operations and the quality of the coal than pages of descriptive matter would do:

Name of Mine.

Output 1891, Tons.

Employes.

New Castle

106,514

222

Franklin

44,557

254

Cedar Mountain

15,866

Black Diamond

111,472

319

Fairh'v'n Coal & Coke Co

1.250

Blue Canyon. . .

7,200

Gilman

55,956

221

Kangley

5,544

Alta ..

2,000

Roslyn ..

331,444

998

Carbon Hill.

161,041

361

South Prairie,

44,450

115

Wilkeson Mines.

64,337

150

Bucoda

13,385

Pittsburgh

1,950

Centralia.

4,850

Not specified.

30,933

Total

1,056,249

2,957

The following table shows the product of the State for the past five years by counties:

1887

1888

1889

1890

1891

Counties.

Short

tons.

King

339,961

546,535

415,779

517,492

429,778

Kittitas.

104,782

220,000

294,701

445,311

348,018

Pierce ..

229,785

276,956

273,618

285,886

271,053

Thurston ..

15,295

42,000

46,480

15,000

1,400

Whatcom . .

6,000

Not spec'fd.

82,778

130,259

Total 772,601 1,225,75℃

130,578 1,263,689 1,056,249

IRON.

There is no point in the world where so great a quantity of good iron ores, good limestones and good fuel can be massed at so small a cost for handling as on Puget Sound.

Iron ores are found in Washington in four distinct belts, each belt differing from the others in both the chemical and physical features of the ore. The Skagit belt on the south side of the Skagit river, near Hamilton, Skagit county, and extending castward beyond Birds- view, has a width of from seven to eight miles. The belt consists of a large number of veins which will aggregate fully 500 feet in thickness. The strike of the vein is southeast, and the dip northeast, on the east side, and southeast on the west side, having an anticlinal near Birds- view. Similar ores have been found on the Pillchuck in Snohomish county, and on the west slope of the Cascade mountains in King county, where the Guy and Denny mines are located.

268

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

These ores occur in schistose rocks, showing much chlorite, lower geologieally than the Cretaceous. These ores would probably be called elay iron stones, although carrying in many cases more iron than is generally found in this class of ore.

The ores are very compact and hard, the iron existing in part as hematite and part as mag- netic, with greater or less admixture of man- ganese oxides and more or less combined silica with varying small proportions of other im- purities. The sulphur and phosphorus, however, appear to be in small quantities.

Lying west of the Sound and east of the Olympic mountains is another belt, passing through Mason and Jefferson counties. Near Hoodsport, on Hood's Canal, ten or twelve veins of red hematite are being opened by the San Francisco Mining Company.

Near Port Townsend a body of brown hema- tite was worked and the product smelted at Irondale, Washington, by the Puget Sound Iron Company with excellent results. The ores of this belt are porous and the silica is, to a great extent, free; while the sulphur is rather high the phosphorus is quite low.

There are two strong belts of hematite ores in Eastern Washington, one near Ellensburgh, Kittitas county, the other north and west of Spokane. Both these belts show ores that are porous and soft, and with the silica, to a great extent, free, though rather large in quantity, and phosphorus very low and sulphur small.

Further, tributary to Puget Sound, there is a strong belt of magnetic ores cropping on Tex-

ada Island, and extending southwesterly across Vancouver Island, British Columbia. All these ores lie within easy reach of water transporta- tion.

There are a number of belts of limestone traversing the State, the greatest body cropping on the islands of San Juan county, where the stone is of excellent quality, showing from ninety-five per cent. to ninety-eight per cent. carbonate of lime, with sulphur not exceeding four per cent. and phosporns traces to none. A belt occurs near the Guy mines in King county, a body near Ellensburgh, and another near Spokane. There is also a strong belt of marble in Vancouver Island, which is very free from sulphur and phosphorus and very low in silica.

Fuel can be had in great quantity from the numerous veins of coking coal of Western Washington; and the great extent of timber makes charcoal available at small cost. The timber consists of fir, alder and maple in quan- tity according to order stated. The charcoal should be delivered at any Puget Sound point at a cost not to exceed six cents per bushel.

The coking industry has been so little devel- oped that the cost of coke can not yet be exact- ly determined, but from the abundance of coals producing good coke this fuel should eventually be cheap on Puget Sound.

Taking into consideration the close proximity of all the ores, fluxes and fuels to the great water highway of Puget Sound, Washington should be without a rival as an iron-producing State.

269

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

EARLY WASHINGTON BAR.

V/ ERY much of the social and intellectual history of any country is wrapped up in the sayings and doings of the men who are connected with its professional life. No chapters are more interesting and instructive than those that relate to what they said and did and were. We are persnaded that we could not better illustrate the genius of the times and the men that laid the foundations of the now great and prosperous State of which we write, than by devoting a chapter to personal reminiscences relating thereto. For the material of this chap- ter we are indebted to Ilon. J. J. MeGilvra, who has himself been an influential member of the bar of Washington for more than thirty years, and is now an honored citizen of the chief city of the State-Seattle. Our readers will surely appreciate the glimpses it gives into the life and manners of the times of long ago.

From the organization of the Territorial Gov- erument of Washington, in 1853, until the sun)- mer of 1861, the Territorial Judges had all been appointed by a Democratic government. In the spring of 1861 the first Republican appoint- ments were made, and during the summer and fall of that year the Republicans qualified, and a radical change took place.

The retiring judges were: O. B. McFadden, Chief Justice, and William Strong and E. C. Fitzhugh, Associate Justices. McFadden was succeeded by C. C. Hewitt, Strong by James E. Wyche, and Fitzhugh by E. P. Oliphant; how- ever, Fitzhugh held the August term of the District Court at Port Townsend, Oliphant not arriving until after the close of that term.

The population of the Territory of Washing- ton, which then embraced the three Northern counties of what is now the State of Idaho, was less than 12,000, and was composed somewhat of a rough class of people.

Judge Fitzhugh was a Virginian, and in 1860 shot and killed a man in Whatcom in a quarrel.

Ile was admitted to bail, and was afterward tried and acquitted at Olympia, in the meantime per- forming his duties as judge in the Third Judi- cial District. In 1862, Fitzhugh went on to Washington, D. C., drew the balance dne him ont of the United States Treasury, worked his way through the Federal army and into that of the Confederacy, where he was made Brigadier- General, and served the Sonth in that capacity during the balance of the Civil war. Fitzhugh, with all his faults, was a just and impartial judge and a man of very considerable ability.

At the August term, 1861, at Port Town- send, all the mill men in the Third Judicial District were indicted for cutting timber on Goverment lands, and there being no other land in the Territory then except a few donation claims (but few lands having been surveyed and none sold by the Government), the timber cases were continued by consent to await further in- structions from the Government. The result of communication between the United States At- torney and the Interior Department was the establishment of a rate of stumpage, to which the mill inen assented, and the cases were all settled npon the basis thus agreed upon.

At this term of court the sloop "Leonede " was libeled for smuggling Hudson Bay blankets from a IIndson Bay barque (wrecked on Race Rocks, in the Straits of Fuca) to Dungeness. The master of the sloop and the Dungeness merchant, who was supposed to have received the smuggled and stolen blankets, were also indicted for smuggling. The sloop was convicted, con- demned and sold, but the jury promptly acquitted the merchant and master. The proof showed that the merchant's store was filled from floor to ceiling with these smuggled blankets, or blankets of the same kind.

The Port Townsend Bar at that time em- braced some able men, among whom were Salu- cius Garfield, afterward delegate to Congress for

210

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

two terms; and B. F. Dennison, afterward Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory and still an able member of the Washington Bar.

The next term of court was held at Olympia in September, Hewitt presiding.

There were several important criminal cases on the docket of this term at Olympia, among which was the case of a man by the name of Riley, indicted for killing an Indian.

A man by the name of Aleck Smith had been elected to the office of prosecuting attorney of the Second Judicial District, and as he had never tried a case in his lite, even in a Justice Court, he arranged with the United States attorney to represent him in court. In fact, by similar arrangements, the United States Attorney represented the Territory in all the judicial districts for several years.

Aleck Smith, who was a son-in-law of Dr. Auson G. Henry, hereinafter alluded to, was subsequently appointed one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of Idaho, and, according to current reports at that time, dispatched justice in a primitive and summary manner. It is said that when it came time to adjourn for the drinks, if no attorney made the necessary motion, the court would make the requisite order on its own account.

Riley's trial was commenced, but, notwith- standing the prosecuting attorney's protest, he was allowed to run at large, and at the end of the second day of the trial he became alarmed and ran away, which resulted, of course, in a discontinuance of the trial and the discharge of the jury. The sheriff was not even repri- manded by the court; and, after an absence fo several years in British Columbia, Riley re- turned, but was not molested. He had only killed an Indian who had objected to Riley's interference with his (the Indian's) domestic relations.

The next term of the District Court was held at Vancouver in the latter part of September and the first part of October, 1861, Wyche presiding.

Among the members of the Vancouver Bar at that time was the venerable Columbia Lau- caster, the second delegate to Congress from the Territory, an able man and the Chesterfield of the Vancouver Bar.

The firm of Lawrence & Struve, composed of Andrew J. Lawrence and Henry G. Struve, was the leading firm of that bar in those days, both young and active men and good Democrats. When the Territory became hopelessly Repub- lican, Lawrence migrated to the Sandwich Islands, but Struve chose the better course by becoming a good Republican and remaining in the country where he has met with general success, both at the bar and in politics, as he has so far stack to the Republican party.

There was nothing unusual at this term of court, and at its close the judge and most of the attorneys went to Walla Walla to hold the fall terin of conrt there.

Judge William Strong, the retiring Judge of the Second Judicial District, was in attendance at the Vancouver term, and also went with us to Walla Walla. Judge Strong was one of the ablest jurists of Oregon and Washington in those days, and was the real anthor of the first Code of Washington.

In ascending the Columbia river from Van- couver to Walla Walla on the old steamer "Okanogan," we were wrecked at the Johu Day's Rapids, and had to lie there for three days and until the steamer "George S. Wright" came up the river. In making a sharp turn in the river at that point, the current caught the bow of the boat, and threw it around and back down stream, where one of the compartments in the hull was canght on a sharp protruding rock, and the vessel was there held careened sidewise at an angle of over thirty degrees until after we left her. Still, we had plenty to eat and plenty of blankets, so that all hands were made comfortable on board or on shore, as the passengers chose. We had a boat and spent much of the time fishing in the John Day's river. Colonel A. C. Gibbs, a member of the Portland Bar and afterward Governor of the State of

271

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

Oregon, was the Izaak Walton of our party.

In dne time we arrived at Walla Walla, at that time a veritable mining town. Every pub- lic house was a gambling saloon, and gambling was as open as daylight. In fact, the foreman of the jury was Colonel Stone, of the firm of Stone & Ball, the principal gambling house in town. Colonel Stone was not only a good member of the grand jury in general, but when the question came up of indieting the gambling houses he voted for it every time.

The court was held in the second story or loft of one of these gambling houses, ap- proached by outside stairs, and it was one of the most, if not the most, primitive temples of justice that ever existed in any country. The building was constructed of hewed sticks of timber, clapboarded on the outside but entirely unfinished on the inside. The naked, hewed logs at the sides, and the rough joists and rafters overhead was the inside finish.

Some Indians had killed a Frenchman six or seven miles from Walla Walla a few days before court convened, and while court was in session one of the Indians arrested confessed, and offered to conduct the sheriff to the spot where the body was buried. As the event was an important one, the conrt adjourned, and the sheriff, judge and prosecuting attorney, and others, accompanied the Indian to the spot indicated, where, sure enongh, we found the body buried at the roots of a tree, abont a foot under ground.

The Frenchman was a returned miner who had been camping near where his body was found, and the motive for the killing was money; but we found $500 in gold coin fastened under one arm, beneath his clothing, which the murderers had failed to find.

There was no jail in the county then and the accused Indians, two in number, were inanacled and chained to staples driven in the walls of the court room. The attorneys' seats were common benches, and there was one small table in the room, which in the evening was sometimes used by the attorneys for a social game of cards. The

cards were deposited for safe keeping during the day on the judge's desk, which was an old- fashioned wash-stand.

One day, during the session of court, one of the Indian prisoners, by getting the length of his chain from the wall, and reaching well out, got possession of the cards, and during the bal- ance of the day's session the Indians enjoyed themselves in a series of social games. A cut of that scene would make a good view for one of our magazines.

The United States attorney and his immediate predecessor, Butler P. Anderson, in September, 1861, traveled together from Olympia to Van- couver to attend that terin of the court. At Burbank's Hotel, at Monticello, the shipping point for Portland and Vancouver, they met some returning miners who had two Cayuse ponies with saddles and bridles for sale at twenty-five dollars for each horse, with the sad- dle and bridle. The horses had been turned ont to pasture, but as the saddles and bridles were worth about that sum, the ex-United States attorney and snecessor purchased the ontfits. Anderson returned first, and of couse had his choice as to ponies; whether he got the best one or not was never known, but the one left was not of minch account, and on the return, at Jack- son's, a half day's ride from Monticello, gave out and the attorney traded him off for another, giving five dollars to boot. At Pumphry's, twelve miles further on, he again traded, getting seven and a half dollars to boot, and at Van Warmers', thirty miles from Olympia, sold his pony for twenty-five dollars, took his saddle and bridle and went on to Olympia in the stage for $2.50, having cleared the saddle and bridle in the operation.

Anderson, who was a Mississippian and a brother of General Patterson Anderson, soon returned to the South, also, and it is believed entered the Confederate army, but the writer is not certain as to that.

Next in order came the annual session of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Olympia in January, 1882.

972

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

The most important case on the docket of the Supreme Court of that term was the capital case, so-called. The Legislature, at its previons session, had passed an act re-locating the capi- tal at Vancouver, but the act was detective in not having an enaeting clause. The case was argued pro and con by the ablest lawyers at the bar, among whom was ex-Chief Justice Edward Lander, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory, an able jurist, and now an active, though aged member of the bar of Washington, D. C .; and IIon. Elwood Evans, secretary and acting governor of the Territory, and now a resident of Tacoma. Judge Strong and others were also engaged in this cause.

The case was decided against Vancouver and in favor of Olympia by a divided conrt, Wyche dissenting.

The winter of 1861 and two was the hardest ever known in this country, either before or since that time. Snow commenced to fall on Christmas, 1861, and lay on the ground until April, 1862.

The terms of court were so arranged at that time with reference to the convenience of the United States Marshal and attorney that the last term in the spring and the first terms in the fall should be held east of the Caseade mountains. Consequently the writer, as United States attorney, was required to spend the sum- mer in Eastern Washington.

A light, covered spring-wagon and a good span of Indian ponies were considered the best means of transportation for himself and family, consisting of a wife and two small children, as there was then no rail and but little water trans- portation on the lines to be traversed. Conse- quently, about the middle of March, thus equipped, we started from Olympia to make the portage to Columbia river through snow and mud. At abont thirty miles from Olympia we had to employ an extra team, and at Pumphry's Landing, on the Cowlitz, we had to ship the wife, babies and wagon on two canoes lashed to- gether, taking the horses over the mountain by a trail through the deep snow, and meeting

again at Monticello, at which point we shipped on board a steamer for Vancouver, landing, however, about six miles below Vanconver at a point opposite the mouth of the Willamette, as the steamer was bound for Portland.

After attending a term of court at Vancouver, we again shipped for the Dalles, and from that place followed the old stage road to Walla Walla.

At Butter creek our horses were stolen, and we went into Walla Walla with a mule and a sore-backed pony hired for the occasion from some miners en route for the Boise and Oro Fino country. A reward was offered for the ponies, and while attending the court at Walla Walla they were returned to ns not much the worse for wear, but plainly marked by pack-saddles. They had been packed to the Powder River mines.

We afterward went to Lewiston and the Lap- wai Indian Reservation, and also to Colville, with this same outfit, and finally traded it off for a house and lot in Walla Walla and went to housekeeping. We bought a cook-stove, car- pet, and some old-fashioned wooden-bottomed chairs, all we could obtain in Walla Walla; our bedsteads, tables, etc., we made ourselves, and with calico window curtains, and such other things to match as we could make or purchase, we were not only comfortable but cozy.

When we arrived at Walla Walla, being a United States official, be were invited to take possession of some vacant officers' quarters, which we gladly did, and on starting out for Lewiston at the elose of the term of Court, the Quarter Master loaned ns a good wall-tent with a fly, and after that we had comfortable quar- ters whenever we camped.

At Lewiston, which was then literally a city of tents, we had one of the best houses in town.

Lewiston, which was a mining town, was sit- nated upon the Lapwai Reservation, but spirit- nons liquors and wine, as well as malt liquors, were brought in by the cargo, notwithstanding the Indian intercourse act making it a crime

273

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

punishable by both fine and imprisonment to take spiritnous liquor or wine into the Indian country.

Early in July, 1862, Judge Oliphant, Salu- cius Garfielde, Shell Fargo, Charlie Allen, the butler at Walla Walla military post, and my- self started from Walla Walla to Colville for the purpose of holding a term of the district eonrt, the first ever held at the latter place. We had the ponies and wagon already described and two riding mules. The distance was 210 miles, and there was no inhabitant on the road except a ferryman at the crossing of the Snake river and another at the crossing of the Spokane, about eighteen miles below the present city of Spo- kane.

We carried our grub and slept under two small fly-tents. Garfieldle was a good cook, hav- ing had more experience than the rest of us. A frying-pan and coffee-pot composed our cook- ing outfit. We baked our bread in the frying- pan, broiled our bacon before the fire on sharp- ened sticks, catching the drippings on our fresh-baked bread, and settled our coffee with cold water, using buffalo chips mostly for fuel. The bread, bacon and coffee on that trip had a relish that it has seldom been the good forture of the writer to enjoy.

On the route, and somewhere near Medical Lake, we met the Colville garrison, consisting of regular troops ordered east, having been re- lieved by Oregon and Washington volunteers. The officers, of course, hrad some good com- missary whisky along, of which we were invited to partake.

Shell Fargo was the teamster, and although it was not observed that he had appropriated more than his share of the commissary, it was not long after we had parted company with the sol- diers before he npset the wagon and spilled out his passengers, Judge Oliphant and Salucius Garfieldle.

Garfielde was smoking at the time, and Fargo always insisted that he never lost his hold or ceased to puff on that old pipe; Garfielde was a man not easily disturbed; but not so with Oli-

phant; although not hurt, his nerves were con- siderably shaken up.

Upon arriving at Colville we were offered quarters at the military post. Park Winnans was appointed clerk of the court; the sheriff summoned a grand and petit jury and the business of the term commenced. No court hav- ing been before organized and this being the first term, of course there were no cases on the docket. The people of Colville had looked for- ward to the first term of the court with a good deal of interest and were anxious to make a good showing with a view to regular terms thereaf- ter. Consequently the grand jury indieted every one suspected of doing wrong, and all the people who had disputes to settle came into court, waived the service of process, made up the issues in their canses and went to trial. The result was that several criminal and civil cases were tried, two or three divorces granted, and Garfielde and myself made about $750 each.

Shell Fargo was appointed United States marshal.

During this term of court all hands went over to the Hudson Bay Post, about fifteen miles north of Colville, then in charge of MeDonald. This Hudson Bay Post was near the Kettle Falls in the Columbia river, and at these falls were the principal fisheries of the upper Col- minbia, from which several tribes of Indians derived their main sustenance. When we were there several acres of ground were occupied in drying and smoking the salmon already caught.

On the return trip from Colville to Walla Walla Judge Oliphant was very anxious to get sight of a coyote, as we could hear them in the distance nearly every night. The last night be- fore reaching Walla Walla, we camped on the Touchet, where we got some oats in the sheaf for our horses, which were picketed out near our tents. In the night we heard a raeket among the horses and I got up and went out to see what the trouble was. I found several In- dian ponies, called " cayuses," taking the feed from our own ponies, which intruders I drove away and then returned to bed. Garfielde asked

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An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 42

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