USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. I > Part 2
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481
Hogan, F. Pierce
247
Huggins, Edward.
115
Hutchinson, R. H.
331
Jenkins, David P. 73
Joab, Albert E. 277
Johnson, Jonathan 441
Jones, Daniel. 181
Kilbourne, E. C. 181
King, C. B.
415
Lane, Franklin K. 397
Lee, Ț. W
157
Lillis, Henry M. 397
Little, Gilbert F 349
Loomis, E. G
91
Loomis, L. A
97
Madigan, Francis E. 391
Mann, C. B
397
Marks, T. E.
421
Mathews, J. W 355
Metcalf, Ralph 403
Metcalfe, J. B. 79
Miller, Fred C. 307
Munks, William 85
O'Neill, James 211
Parker, Hollon 175
Parker, John A. 385
Peterson, Frank M 461
Peterson, Mary A. 471
Hale, Charles E.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
XV
PAGE 115
Pomeroy, Joseph.
Post, Frederick.
271
Prosser, W. F
103
Richardson, F. D. 313
Ringer, L. M.
313
Saunders, J. C.
127
Schulze, Paul.
109
Seaborg, B. A.
265
Simmons, D. W
355
Snell, Marshall K
361
Snell, W. H.
319
Stevens, Isaac I.
.Frontispiece
Stinson, F. L.
223
Thronson, Joel A
355
Turner, George.
151
Weed, A. B ..
217
White, Harry
325
Wilbur, Lot ..
431
Wilkinson, J. A.
313
Woodhouse, C. C ..
277
Spokane Falls. 193
Snoqualmie Falls. 229
Post Falls, Upper Channel 367
Post Falls, Lower Channel. 409
223
Stowell, H. L.
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
" As from some mountain's shrouded side The misty veil is drawn,
When nature's quickened pulse reveals The coming of the dawn, Andl cliff and crag grow rough and real, No longer dim or strange,
Till clearly o'er the crested snows The eager eye may range ; So History, piercing Error's night, And legendary lore, Divides the doubtful from the right, Bringing fair Truth to face the light, Making each occult record bright, Through unsuspected door."
-BREWERTON.
WHEN the patient astronomer, searching the azure fields which the poet tells us are " thick inlaid with patines of bright gold," finds some as yet undiscovered planet newly risen into the constellations of those stars which, like the sands upon the seashore, no man may number, he gives his discovery to the world, and straightway the telescope of every observer is turned to verify and add what it may to that which has already been learned of the glittering stranger. It is even so with this new- born State whose history is about to be written ; nor is the work to be accomplished in so doing an easy one when we consider the careful winnowing of legendary chaff needed to obtain the
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that has finally hardened into seeming reality the grossest fic- tions. How many mariners risked life and fortune, braving the terrors of the unknown frozen seas to find and explore the mythical Straits of Anian, because the original falsehood was repeated till its very reiteration impressed credulity with its truth. This world is full of men who can repeat a baseless state- ment till they really believe it themselves ; and such people, being possessed of vivid imaginations, are ofttimes dangerously circumstantial in their reports.
Secondly, we have journals and personal experiences whose value depends largely on the truthfulness and trustworthiness of their authors and narrators, and even then are handicapped with the danger of unconscious exaggeration to which we have fust referred.
Third and last, there remains the field of fairly accredited histories, ancient and modern, sustained by collateral evidence and undisputed facts. But even here, like the planet Mars, whose opposition is just at present exciting so much interest and controversy on our own globe, the evidence of even written and accepted history becomes more clear and satisfactory as the events recorded approach our own time, and in so drawing nearer to us emerge from the mists of years, and that cloud of uncertainty which must ever attend upon distance to embarrass the searcher for the truth.
And, after all, these records must be combined, contrasted, and put into the witness-box of probability to undergo the cross- examination of common sense, and even then be cautiously received by the painstaking and clear-headed author, who de- sires faithfully to fulfil his task. Taking truth for his guiding star in the narrative of public events and in dealing with indi- vidual character, never forgetting that he himself must one day render up an account, and, therefore, adopts the noble maxim (and a grander was never enunciated by man) of the martyred Lincoln : " With charity for all, and with malice against none."
While statistics, the essence of arithmetical history, cannot well be entirely ignored, we do not propose to burden our pages by mere tabular statements, for even official reports are often- times garbled, or at least colored favorably by a natural desire to make a good showing in population or finance. They are, nevertheless, to a certain extent valuable as the barometers,
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more or less faithful, of progress, showing to the weatherwise in social science the probabilities of the future as they rise or fall to their scale of degrees, and compare the present with the recorded past. But as weather prophets, for good or evil, are seldom popular with the world at large, so the pages of a history weighed down by calculations which are ofttimes approved to- day and condemned to-morrow are apt to deaden the interest of the narrative for the general reader.
Furthermore, the space to which we are necessarily confined must affect the scope of our work and to some extent curtail our record even of facts, to say nothing of more tempting paths into which the writer, as well as the reader, is constantly liable to be beguiled. We must, therefore, walk for the most part in the beaten, albeit dusty road of bounded historical description, eschewing, though sadly against our will, those shady vistas and flowery byways which, promising as they do many a beauti- ful beyond, might tempt us to stray from the prosy line to which a sense of duty confines us.
Having thus said our say as custom demands, as the lecturer makes his initiatory bow to his audience from the platform, we will conclude these introductory remarks with the equally con- ventional prayer for that indulgent endurance of editorial short- comings which, were the positions of author and reader reversed, the latter, with far better appreciation of the difficulties to be overcome, would most freely accord.
CHAPTER II.
BEING THE OPENING OF THE FIRST DOOR BY COLUMBUS, AND HIS GREAT DISCOVERY.
" First in the ranks of those who bravely dare Tempestuous seas in search of shores unknown, Though the new world another's name may bear, The fame of finding must be thine alone ; Thine the first eye to catch the transient beam Of welcome watch light on its stranger strand, Foretelling ere the moon brought brighter beam, The certain presence of the looked-for land."
-BREWERTON.
" God will cause thy name to be wonderfully resounded through the earth, and will give thee the keys of the gates of the ocean which are closed with strong chains."- Vision of Columbus.
EVERY age produces its hero. Every crisis in the extreme need of man brings forth some Moses fitted to lead the people through the desert of trial into the Canaan of rest. There are critical periods in the world's general condition also, times of stagnation when civilization seems to labor upon worn-out and exhausted fields, and cries loudly for new worlds to conquer. Her enterprises, dammed up and circumscribed, chafe against their barriers and require larger opportunities for action. To find some imaginary promised land to enter in and possess it be- comes the universal hope and general endeavor. It is the work- ing out, but only on a grander scale, of the same spirit which actuates the restless settler of to-day, who takes up his claim, improves it, and then growing dissatisfied with "his pitch," shoulders his axe and once more loses himself in the wilderness in search of a new location. Yet it is, after all, a wise provision, an aggregation of those tides of unrest which stir the human sea and give healthful motion to the ever-seething waves of political, religious, social, and financial effort. So it was in that old day when Columbus "gave to Castile and Aragon a new world." The arenas of the nation's battle-fields for bread would appear to have become too stale and limited. We may assume
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that a condition of things had been reached which required not only a Moses for its leadership, but some land of promise to be possessed and enjoyed. It remained for Christopher Columbus to solve the problem; to become, in his search for that then greatly desired " shorter ocean pathway" to the riches of " Far- ther Ind," a modern Moses : like the law-giver of the He- brews, permitted to see but not to realize the fruits of his labors : building far " better than he knew," for it would have been a greater revelation to himself than the discovery he actually inade could he have seen with the eyes of centuries to come the vastness of an empire compared with which the land of ancient promise was but a barren field. In thus giving to civilization an open gate through which the floods of humanity might pour for ages and still find homes and remunerative fields of labor, better opportunities and more assured rewards, Columbus gained what most public benefactors receive at the hands of ungrateful con- temporaries-a life of neglect, but posthumous immortality of praise.
And now, as the first step leading to the Northwest coast set- tlement and occupancy, it may be well to pause for a moment and give some space to the consideration of the character and history of the man whose very obstacles and neglect spurred him on in spite of every discouragement and difficulty to that hour of his final triumph when he anchored the little Pinta and her consorts in a harbor of that hitherto unknown continent which should have borne his name rather than that of Americus Ves- pucius ; but, to use his own homely illustration, he had broken the egg, and it was an easy task to follow his example.
Among the men who may be said to have lived before their time, and in their extraordinary genius and foresight to have anticipated their proper day, the Genoese, Christopher Colon, or Columbus, stands pre-eminent. Yet though the statement may seem paradoxical to many, especially in view of the fact that in this year of grace 1892 we are about celebrating another centen- nial of his great achievement, Columbus (if well-authenticated . records are to be believed) did not discover America ; or, to speak more correctly, his discovery was anticipated on both sides of the continent : by a Buddhist monk named Hoei-Shin, sent out by the Chinese as early as the fifth century, who reached the Mexico of to-day with no particular result, and by the Norse-
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men, the sea rovers, and at one time the terror of Europe, who visited Iceland, Greenland, and even Newfoundland in 860, being storm-driven on its coasts. The finding of Nova Scotia followed, and the songs of the Sagas may have mingled with the winter roar of New England pines on the inhospitable coasts of Ply- mouth long before the Pilgrims chanted their hymn of deliver- ance upon its rock. Even the Welsh bards tell us of one Madoc, who, fleeing from troubles at home in 1169, reached the west- ern main with a colony of his countrymen. Catlin, the Indian historian and painter, believes that the Mandans owe their origin to the Welsh, and seems to sustain his position. Vancouver found a tribe in the vicinity of the Columbia whose features favored this theory, and both Lewis and Clark, and also Charle- voix, make statements which go to confirm it. Both the Pawnee and Cherokee tribes have been supposed to be of a similar origin. R. H. Major says of Henry of Portugal, a prince of advanced and liberal ideas, who devoted his life to the study of astronomy and navigation and the encouragement of geographical discov- eries, dying in 1463, nearly thirty years before the landing of Columbus : " The explorations instituted by Henry of Portugal were, in truth, the anvil upon which the link was forged that connected the Old World with the New." It is, however, proper to state that all these discoveries were but as straws heralding the advent of the breeze, bringing about no solid results in them- selves. It is to the unwearied patience, courage, and genius of the great navigator, after all, that we owe the far-reaching super- structure of events whose corner-stone was laid on the memorable 12th of October, 1492.
But we return to the personal history and condensed life sketch of the man who, under God, wrought this great work, premising that we can but touch the prominent points, omitting many most interesting details.
Born, as the best authenticated records assure us-though even the exact date of his nativity is in doubt-at Genoa, in the year 1436-or, as other authorities claim, not till ten years later- Christopher Colon, or Columbus, was the son of a wool-comber in humble circumstances. His father, however, appears to have been self-denying, or possibly ambitious enough to send his son to the University of Paria, to study sciences which might fit him for nautical pursuits. It is evident that the influences of life in
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a maritime city naturally created in the boy an early passion for a seafaring life. Learning was then leaving the monasteries to take up its abode with the laity ; printing was recently dis- covered, and books more easily obtained ; stories of geographi- cal discoveries and adventures were whetting an appetite for larger knowledge, which was increased by the writings of Pliny, Strabo, and others. Columbus began to make voyages when but a boy of fourteen. His enthusiasm ripened with his experience of the sea. The " sailor yarns" of the " fo'castle" of those days, built on the narrowest foundations of truth, loomed beneath the embellishments of their narrators into gigantic proportions. Wonderful tales of the mysteries of those unknown oceans, fan- cies whose extravagance rivalled the romance of Eastern fable, were the food upon which his ardent imagination fed. Among other stories of the time was the tradition that there existed a large island in the Atlantic called Antilla, mentioned by Aris- totle ; there was another rumor of an island on which St. Bran- don, a Scottish and probably very " canny" saint, who knew how to turn his opportunities to the best advantage, landed in the sixth century and founded there a magnificent city. Yet another tale was told of seven Spanish bishops who settled there with their numerous followers and built seven cities, a city to each priest. Then came the story of Atlantis, learned by Plato from the Egyptians-an immense island in the Atlantic, full of large and populous cities, which had been swallowed up by an earthquake. Strange, is it not ? that all these stories, wild as the winds, yet showed a germ of truth when submitted to the clearer light of after knowledge ? What wonder that an ardent boy, full of vivid imaginations as Columbus must have been, eagerly caught up, dreamed over, and dwelt upon these weird legends of the untraversed seas, or that their inspiration should have fired his daring mind with the desire to explore and satisfy himself as to their reality. A certain religious zeal seems to have enhanced and possibly purified this ambition. There is in the Astor Library (whose learned librarian is the well-known and most deservedly distinguished author, Frederick Saunders, to whose excellent work on Columbus the writer is indebted for much condensed information) an antique folio entitled "The Polyglot Psalter of Augustine Justinian, Bishop of Nebbio, in the Island of Corsica :" on the margin of Psalm xix., verse 4, he
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puts a note in which he affirms that Columbus frequently boast- ed that he was the person here referred to, and appointed of God to fulfil this biblical statement. "It is recorded," says Saunders, " that on a certain occasion a mysterious voice said to him in a dream, " God will cause thy name to be wonderfully resounded through the earth and will give thee the keys of the gates of the ocean which are closed with strong chains." It was doubtless the result of overwrought study of his theory ; but to the mind of Columbus it must have had the force of a supernatu- ral revelation. He very beautifully adds, "Columbus, it has been said, stood midway between the mediæval and modern ages ; even his adventurous voyage over a dark and perilous ocean seems symbolic of the fact, for gloom and disaster overshadowed his course until he gained the western shore, when they vanished, and all became transfigured with the radiant light."
Columbus made voyages in the service of the Portuguese, visiting Iceland in 1477, where he doubtless heard of the discov- eries of Erik the Red. Still poor and unable to equip an expe- dition, he appealed to the King of Portugal, then too much en- gaged with a war against Spain to listen to him. Waiting until his successor, John the Second, ascended the throne, he renewed his supplication. "His scheme, referred," says Saunders, "to a junta composed of two eminent cosmographers and a bishop, was decided to be extravagant and visionary ; yet the king was not satisfied with their decision, and called a council, with no better result. It was then that the bishop, who was the king's con- fessor, proposed the mean stratagem that he should obtain from Columbus his plans, charts, etc., under pretext of consider- ing his enterprise. The evil suggestion was acted upon ; a three-masted caravel was sent to the Cape de Verd Islands, with secret instructions to go as far westward as possible, to ascertain if there was any truth in the theory of Columbus. They did not go far before the cowardly crew became frightened by the storms, and their base attempt ended in disgrace, for Columbus discovered the treachery and left Lisbon in disgust about 1484."
" He next appears," says the same authority, "at the gate of the Franciscan monastery near Palos. According to the testi- mony of the physician of Palos, a seafaring man accompanied by a very young boy stopped one day at the gate of the convent of La Rabida, and asked of the porter a little bread and water
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for his child. While the porter was giving refreshments to the boy the prior of the convent passed by and was at once impressed by the dignified bearing of the stranger. He entered into con- versation with him and invited him to remain as his guest. Co- lumbus revealed his name to his benefactor and told his troubles and his purposes."
Meeting in the prior a man himself learned in geographical science, who sent for a scientific friend to come and converse with his guest, a full discussion of Columbus's projects followed, ending in an offer to take his son Diego into the convent and educate him, and provide his father with a favorable letter to the Spanish court. The time was inauspicious, the war spirit rul- ing the land to the exclusion of all peaceful enterprise ; so we find Columbus returning, to wait patiently at La Rabida till the spring of 1486, when the court had gone to Cordova. Upon repairing there and presenting his letter, he was curtly dismissed with a shake of the head by the prior in attendance, but, after long waiting, obtained an audience with Ferdinand and Isabella. Then came the famous Council of Salamanca, the favorite theme of many a painter, where our poor mariner took nothing by his motion but the objection " that if the earth is round you will be compelled to sail up a kind of mountain from Spain, which you cannot do, even with the fairest wind, and you could never get back." By some he was regarded as an adventurer, by others a visionary, by all an innovator upon what to their nar- rower conceptions were well-established facts. From the throne we find him going to the rich nobles of Spain. The Duke of Medina Celi, to whom he applied, advised another application to the king and gave him a letter to Isabella ; but his proud. spirit, grown weary with repeated refusals, rebelled, and he had determined to visit France. When it was found that another power might benefit by his plans, Santangel, the crown treasurer of the Church, pleaded the cause of Columbus with the mon- archs. The king doubted, but the queen believed ; and when Ferdinand decided that his battles with the Moors had depleted his treasury, leaving him too poor to invest in so uncertain an expedition, Isabella, with that clearer foresight often given to womanhood, exclaimed, " I will undertake the enterprise, and, if necessary, will pledge my jewels for the money." Santangel declared with emphasis, " It will not be necessary." Saunders
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tells us that " a courier was sent after Columbus, the queen assented to his terms, and," woman-like again, " urged his de- parture as speedily as possible. Columbus claimed as his re- ward to be named high admiral, governor-general, and viceroy over the land he discovered, together with one tenth of the prod- uce of the countries. Ferdinand acquiesced, and the contract was signed by the sovereigns at Santa Fé, on April 17th, 1492.
"Furnished with authority from the court, he caused the royal order to be read commanding the authorities of the town to have two caravels ready for sea within ten days, and they with their crews placed at the disposal of the admiral. A sim- ilar order was issued for the third vessel. When this edict was announced, although Palos was a seaport and there were plenty of seamen, none seemed inclined to hazard their lives on such a perilous expedition, and the greatest consternation prevailed. Many fled the town to avoid being compelled to serve, and for some weeks no progress was made toward the equipment of the vessels. At this crisis, however, Martin Alonzo Pinzon ap- peared, the same who sailed in command of the Pinta, and was either separated by the storm or wilfully abandoned his admiral on the return voyage, arriving on the very evening of the day that Columbus reached Palos. He evidently thought to fore- stall and arrogate to himself the honors gained by his com- mander, whom he had already reported from Bayonne, and possibly believed, to be swallowed up. His chagrin at the enthusiastic reception and safe arrival of his chief, combined with his own disappointment and his sovereigns' refusal to re- ceive him at court, so worked upon him that he died in a few days after landing. This man now came forward with his brother, Vincent Tanez, both navigators of Palos, of great wealth and undoubted courage, and not only agreed to furnish one of the vessels, but to go themselves with Columbus."
The expedition sailed, with the benedictions of the Church, on Friday, August 3d, 1492-mark the day, for it seems a singular rebuke to a popular superstition, most common among sailors, that Friday is an unlucky day. Certainly it is a curious coin- cidence that Columbus began his voyage on Friday, discovered America on Friday, began his return on Friday, and reached his port on the same "unlucky day," arriving at the Canaries on the 9th. They were detained at these islands for more than three
Granville O.Stallen Colonel ud a., Retired.
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weeks. When passing to the west of the group they laid their course to brave the dangers-magnified a thousandfold by igno- rance and superstition-of the unknown western seas.
Losing sight of the Canaries and favored by the weather, the little fleet of Columbus pushed boldly out into the mare incog- nita. Passing within sight of the peak of Teneriffe, then shoot- ing forth its volcanic fires, his sailors began to manifest that fear which increased apparently with every league of their western progress. Two hundred miles more finds the deviation of the magnetic needle adding another element of embarrassment and dread. The variation reaching five degrees to the northwest and continuing to increase, they sail on, with no other guide but the heavenly lights, directing their course by the polar star. Great masses of seaweed, even now a hindrance to the progress of vessels in those latitudes, retard their voyage. But as hope begins to fail and courage to waver, like an angel messenger from the unknown shore comes a land bird to welcome and cheer them on. The murmurs of mutiny are hushed for a while. For eleven days the caravels drive on before a favoring gale, for the wind is easterly, then it shifts to the southwest and dies away, leaving them becalmed. The dim dawn breaks slowly, just gray- ing the horizon, when Martin Pinzon, standing on the high stern of the Pinta. shouts to the admiral with exceeding joy, " Land, land, Señor ! I claim the promised reward." But the phan- tom shore vanishes with the sunrise, the first of a series of sim- ilar disappointments which add to their disheartenment. A more southerly course is recommended by Pinzon, who has seen a flock of parrots flying from the southwest. But Columbus is not to be moved. Trusting to his own judgment, he holds upon his course. Again the mutterings of mutiny break forth ; hope departs, and they openly defy their commander. With what dignity does he meet their objections and disregard their threats ! Hear his reply :
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