USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. II > Part 13
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erer, too self-contained to seriously regard the suggestions of the commander of an American trading ship, "couldn't see" the river that Gray recommended him to find. Passing inland from the bay, we see hills so crowded with the pines that their dark battalions, extending as they do north to the base of the Olympics, make its reserve of timber the most inexhaustible in the State. Though the busy saw-mills, with their eternal whir, average an aggregate of half a million feet per day, though the axe is ever busy, and the streams crowded with logs drifting to the booms, the inroads of the lumberman upon the virgin forests are scarcely perceptible. Then, too, Chehalis has store of coal, iron, and stone. In agriculture there is not only enough produced to support its large population, but to furnish a considerable excess for export. The soil on the rivers is re- muneratively tillable, with small patches of fertile prairie on the uplands interspersed with the timber ; add to this the thousands of acres of tide lands easily reclaimed, and we have shown that " there is ample room for the farmer, as well as for the mill man. Fruit flourishes ; timothy and clover, all the grasses, daintily feed the numerous cattle ; grain gives its generous yield, and the hops grown upon its soil equal any in the State.
The county-seat is Montesano, situated at the head of tide- water on the Chehalis ; it is a flourishing city of nearly two thousand souls, beautifully located, and securing its full share of emigration. It was not laid out till 1881; but with that phenomenal growth, so wonderful, yet so common to the Pacific coast, is already metropolitan in appearance, needing but the completion of the Puget Sound and Gray Harbor Railroad to fully utilize its many resources. There is also the new city of Gray's Harbor, for which its projectors predict favorable things, planted at the head of deep water on the north shore of the bay. Minor towns well worthy of description we must pass by lest we exhaust the space we allot to other counties. . There is Aber- deen, suggesting the presence of some canny Scot, who, though far distant from the Land o' Cakes, still remembers " Aberdeen awa," Hoquian and Wynoochee. Evans suggests Chehalis as a good place to settle. For our part, we will go a step farther and declare that there are very few places in the great State of Washington where a man could go and yet find reason from lack of natural advantages to regret his action. It was organ- ized in April of 1854, and has an area of 2104 square miles.
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CLALLAM COUNTY,
now to be described, is another bad boy in the corner, though big enough to have known better. He is posted in the far-off Northwest, and is diagonally the vis-à-vis of poor little Asotin. Sea-washed on the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and on the west by the unbroken surf roll of the broad Pacific, with Cape Flattery as its terminal misnomer, Clallam County is a dis- appointment : for this, the extreme northwestern limit of the American Union, is almost uninhabited. But what better could you expect from a region that takes its name from a " clam," or worse still, from a clam man or clam people, from the Indian words " clobib," meaning clam, and "abit," man. From its rugged surface rise the densely wooded heights of the majestic Olympian range, which find their highest altitude between the counties of Clallam and Jefferson. Of these mountains the author will venture to predict, though laying claim to no special spirit of prophecy, that one day the prospector will stumble among its unexplored recesses upon mines which will rival those of the far-famed Californian Eldorado. The Indian reserva- tions of the Makah and Quillihute tribes are contained within its borders. Port Angeles, also a speculative seduction, and Pysht, together with Port Dungeness, the county-seat, are the principal places. No less than twenty creeks and rivers connect the melt- ing mountain snows of the Olympics with the strait and sea. It was organized in April of 1854, has an area of 1824 square miles and a population of only 2771. Yet if our predictions be veri- fied, it may one day, as in the rush for gold, teem with people.
CLARKE COUNTY,
with its twin, Lewis, suggests to the well-instructed reader the origin of its title, for Lewis and Clarke are household words in a land where every league bears witness to the faithful explora- tions of their original discoverers. First known as Vancouver, when counties were districts in the early days of Oregon, in 1844, it was more patriotically dedicated in 1850. With an area of 648 square miles, it supports a population of 11,709. Its property list approaches three millions. Heavily timbered, but exposing a fertile soil when opened to the sun, it offers an at- tractive " pitch" to the locater and attracts a fair part of incom- ing emigration. Bounded on the south and west by the full
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flowing Columbia, it is also a corner county, and the extreme southern district of the State ; but though " cornered," is in less disrepute than little Asotin or big sea-washed Clallam. It is oc- cupied by an enterprising people, is well dotted with towns, with Vancouver, the ancient throne of the autocratic Hudson's Bay Company, for its county-seat. Of this city Evans writes as follows : "Historically this county, by reason of its containing Vancouver, the ancient capital of the Hudson's Bay Company, is one of the most interesting on the coast. Vancouver, after many years of lethargy, is now becoming one of the most active places in Western Washington. Its situation is one of such super- lative magnificence that any other natural city site in the whole Pacific Northwest dwindles in comparison with it. No wonder that Dr. McLoughlin chose it as the headquarters of his king- dom. If there is not a great city there sometime it will seem a wanton waste of the favors of Providence. There is one thing, though, the people who build a city there will have to build a grand one; anything short of that would be an insult to na- ture." Besides Vancouver, La Camas, with its superb and well-utilized water-power, and Washougal are worthy of notice.
COLUMBIA COUNTY.
Evans again becomes geographically irreverent when, forget- ting its high origin, he calls Columbia " a team horse with Walla Walla." What sacrilege is this ! it is even worse than putting poor Pegasus in the pound. Think of it! " Columbia, the gem of the ocean, the boast of the brave and the free," in harness, and bound to an Indian mate at that. But a truce to badinage. We are writing history, a serious subject at the best ; and even if history have her humors, they are seldom permitted to break out. This county lies directly east of Walla Walla and south of Snake River ; it is also penetrated by the famous Walla Walla valley with undeteriorated richness. The incline of altitude to the eastward adds to the rainfall, and of necessity stimulates agricultural growth. With its southern base along a spur of the Blue Mountains, it slopes gradually north to the Snake River. It is finely watered by streams rising in the mountains just named, of which the principal are the Touchet, Tukannon, and Petit. Outside of the delightful valleys which follow the streams, and vary from one to two miles in width, the country
Eng dny F G Kennan, NY
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is rolling prairie, beautiful in aspect and fertile as to soil. These prairies would be named differently in accordance with the localities from whence their observers came ; an Illinois farmer would call them hills, while the New York or New Eng- land man would designate them as magnificent plains. One fifth of this whole country is mountainous and broken, but by no means worthless, for it is heavily timbered, bearing tama- rack, spruce, and the different varieties of pine ; then again, as the higher land sinks into foothills, it offers a choice grazing ground well adapted to the business of the herder. Wheat, oats, and barley are its principal productions ; forty to fifty bushels per acre are no uncommon reward of good tillage, and oats of high quality reach from fifty to one hundred bushels. No fail- ure of a crop has ever been known, even when not a drop of rain has fallen after May. Vegetables of all kinds, with no other moisture than that which they draw from the ground, are both large, full flavored, and abundant. Sugar beets weighing fifteen to twenty pounds are raised anywhere, and beet sugar is regarded as a large industry of the future. Tobacco, we regret to say-for we hold it in slight regard-has been cultivated with marked success. Broom-corn and sorghum are also profitable crops. Hops are abundant, and the soil seems adapted to flax. Without doubt the superior excellence of all these things, both here and in other sections of Washington, is due to the absence of those insect pests ever the annoyance of the Eastern farmer. It may be they too will come, but as yet the ubiquitous potato bug, with all his kindred nuisances, have not been able to pene- trate the passes of the Rocky Mountains.
The county was created in November of 1875, being carved out of Walla Walla. The census of 1890 rates it at 864 square miles and 6709 inhabitants.
Taken all in all, with its absence of drought and possessing a soil which ardently responds to every kiss of cultivation, it offers every inducement to the settler to visit, examine, and remain. Well provided with railroads, it blossoms with flourishing farms and well-equipped ranches.
Dayton, its beautiful county-seat, is situated in the charming valley of the Touchet, at the confluence of Petit Creek, thus giv- ing it the double advantage of clear, pellucid mountain water of admirable purity, and still flowing with sufficient volume to jus-
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tify an occasional cut off for manufacturing purposes. With a population of 2000, it already surpasses in the conveniences even of city life many Eastern towns which have long considered themselves metropolitan. We regret that space does not permit further presentation of its advantages. Other towns are Tucka- non, Huntsville, and Marengo.
COWLITZ COUNTY
comes next into line, making a very nice alliteration. In Cow- litz we recognize an old settler, her admission dating back to the comparatively venerable age of April, 1854. Clasping to her bosom the meanderings of the famous Cowlitz valley, she boasts the finest body of lands suited to agricultural purposes in West- ern Washington. Alive with cattle who thrive upon its rich grasses, with near by and easily approachable markets, her dairy farms cannot but prove profitable. It is equally rich in his- torical reminiscences. It was the field of labor spiritually of the Catholic priest, and in a temporal point of view of the old Puget Sound Land Company. Here, too, in those dis- tant by-gone days was the British lion mauled by American hands. Though backward in growth, Cowlitz is wealthy in natural resources, magnificent in timber, productive in soil, rich in mines, both in reality and indication. It finds its legal foun- tain-head at Kalama, on the Columbia, and considers Monticello, Freeport, Kelso, and Olequa places of growing importance. Square miles, 1124 ; population, 5917.
DOUGLAS COUNTY,
the next to attract our attention, with Lincoln and Adams on its right and a surrounding on its other boundaries of Indian- named neighbors, makes a large showing as the principal central figure on the map of the State of Washington. It is, as a glance will show, " couléed" to perfection. These " coulées" are a sin- gular natural feature, for whose origin various theories have been suggested. Evans inclines to the belief, as most reasonable, that they were the result of the draining of the great lake which evi- dently once tilled the entire upper basin of the Columbia, brought about by the disruption of the Cascade Range at the present gorge of the Columbia, which, when the waters of the lake were nearing the bottom, the monstrous attrition of the
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flood literally scooped out these immense channels, hundreds of feet deep, and in some places a mile or more in width. Other theories attribute these "coulées" to the presence of the old beds of the Columbia, now gone dry and for many years deserted by the river, which sought a different outlet. The name " coulée," corrupted from the French word " couler," meaning a " cut off,"' was probably given by some of the French-Canadian voyageurs, of whom the Hudson's Bay Company had many wandering through these regions, and to whom we are indebted for many prairie and mountain terms and appellations inseparably linked with the nomenclature of the primitive Far West. Some of these are exceedingly appropriate. We are told that a famous resident of one of these " coulées,"' possibly the extensive one on the western border which bears his name, is no less a person- age than Chief Moses ; unless history does him wrong, by no means as meek a man as the famous law-giver of Hebraic legend. An Indian more admired (or better expressed, perhaps, by the word feared) than any other warrior on the Northwest coast, he is described as being magnificently formed, dreading neither God nor man, well educated, and the idol of his people. To this word portrait is added the very significant suggestion : " He is a chief whom all travellers through these vast solitudes will do well to propitiate." Situated west of Lincoln County, and bound- ed on the northwest and south by the Big Bend, which the Co- lumbia River here describes, it is nearly all arable-its climate, rainfall, expanse of treeless, open, gently rolling prairie and similarity of soil and productions making it in every way the counterpart of Lincoln County. In area Douglas is one of the largest in the State, being exceeded in this respect by only three others. It is rated at 4552 square miles. It has a population of 3161 souls. Wild and comparatively speaking uninhabited as it is, its property valuation foots up over half a million of dollars. Its county-seat is Waterville, situated in the northwestern part of the county, not far from the Okanagon County line. It is a flourishing place of over one thousand inhabitants. Minor towns are called Badger, Okanagon, Orondo, and Lincoln. This county was constituted in 1883.
FRANKLIN COUNTY.
Little did the wise Quaker philosopher, of whom Mirabeau writes, " He caught the lightning from heaven and the sceptre
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from the hands of tyrants," dream that ere a century should elapse his name would be revered in both hemispheres, would be selected as the fittest to stand sponsor at the christening of the subdivision of a State which should link his memory with that of his distinguished contemporary, Washington. Looking like a wedge of desert earth driven in between those great rivers of the Northwest, the Snake and the Columbia, it is less unpromis- ing than it seems, and when a sufficiency of water is obtained will doubtless be found pleasantly deceptive. But alas ! here comes the rub. For the proposition of successful irrigation is one yet to be satisfactorily demonstrated. It is arid, a desert clothed only with the sage bush, unfit for agricultural purposes without artificial aid, and with no means of supplying the de- ficiency of rainfall yet in sight. It contains some bunch grass pasturage, but their only productions are limited to stock and wool. These, too, are but indifferently watered, and the streams on which they might otherwise depend flow from them, afford- ing no opportunity for cheap or easy irrigation. Nevertheless, unproductive as it is, it is by no means friendless. Many are ready to speak a good word for Douglas. And why not ? It is one of the mysteries of farming throughout the whole State of Washington that " the unexpected is always happening." In a word, land that the superficial observer, accustomed to the rich alluvial deposits of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys, or the deep black loam of corn-bearing Nebraska's prairies, would deem valueless, not worth the turning of a furrow, proves when that furrow is driven, seeded, and properly cared for, through the silent eloquence of an enormous return, an astonishment for which no agricultural logic can account. Franklin County, as we have shown, needs irrigation ; but with sufficient capital judi- ciously applied to that end will undoubtedly give a favorable response to labor so bestowed. It has an area of 1244 square miles, but her total of what the Arkansas man calls " humans" foots up an aggregate of only 696-the smallest population of any county in the State, though Skamania in this respect is almost equally wanting. It boasts but one town, which of neces- sity is the county-seat, Pasco, which the " Guide to the Pacific . Northwest" speaks of as follows: " At Pasco, in the southern part of Franklin County, efforts are now being made to procure water by artesian-well borings. A depth of 600 feet has already
Eng doy F G Kernan, NY.
Mango Mr. Murphey
the
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been reached without obtaining it as yet ; should the same suc- cess attend these efforts as has been met in the prairie States of the East, the agricultural reports of this county will be of an astonishing character, for no finer body of fertile land, with this one defect, no more healthful and pleasant climate can anywhere be found than that which is possessed by the county of Frank- lin." Its assessed value, with all these drawbacks, already ex- ceeds half a million. Not bad that for a "one town region." Its organization dates back to 1883.
GARFIELD COUNTY.
So named in remembrance of the martyred President, who succumbed, after a long and lingering battle with death, a victim to the pistol of the crazy assassin Giteau, enduring months of agony, during which the great heart of the American people may truly be said to have beat responsive to every throb of their stricken ruler's pain. It was erected into a county in 1881. Favored by nature, it rejoices in the beauty and fertility of its rolling plains. In shape it stands like a long-necked vase upon the map between little Asotin and Columbia, with a bit of the Blue Mountains as a very substantial base, and the serpentine coils of the Snake River by way of cover. By way of garniture this same cover follows the famous Snake River fruit belt, while its navigable waters furnish excellent facilities for transporta- tion. With the exception of its more rugged mountain base the whole county is rich in farming lands of the finest quality. The southern portion is finely timbered, with a sufficiency of mills to supply the large local demand for lumber. Sloping gradually from the mountains, the whole space between Asotin and Columbia teems with fertility. Crops are abundant and easily matured. Fruits do well, especially the smaller ones, which are found in unlimited quantity. It needs but larger railroad development to place Garfield in the front rank ; as yet not more than one fifth of the arable land is under cultivation. Pomeroy, the county-seat, pleasantly situated on a tributary of the Snake River, had even in 1889 a population of 1500. It is located on a flat which here widens out beneath the hills, leading to the lofty uplands. It is a prosperous and growing place, rapidly becoming metropolitan. Its towns, though not numer- ous, are steadily advancing, and their inhabitants are credited
10
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with the possession and exercise of great push and energy, quali- ties which go far in building up, even with more indifferent materials than those good gifts so liberally bestowed upon Gar- field. Its property list already touches the two-million-dollar mark. Its area is quoted at 672 square miles, with 3897 dwell- ers within its borders. Other towns beside the county-seat are Pataha, Alpowa, and Ilia-their names alone would entitle them to special mention, if only to emphasize their singularity.
ISLAND COUNTY.
And now we suffer a sea change, from inland rock and lake and craggy mountain-side, or rolling prairies stretching out with motionless billows like a verdant sea, to the wave-washed shores of the county so appropriately called Island. We go back in memory as we write to the fair representatives, though duplicat- ed in number, of the " Apostles," the island gems of Lake Supe- rior. But not more beautiful are these children of the Father of Waters than those of which we write. We may group them thus, like an emerald cluster, set with pearls of the ever- sounding sea, the larger brilliant being the islands of Whidby and Camano, the first named for one of Vancouver's lieutenants, and the latter, as its greater euphony suggests, called, in the more sonorous language of Old Spain, after one of the early Cas- tilian navigators. Whidby is linked, alas! with sorrowful memories of Indian foray and outrage, with bloody revenges upon its innocent and unoffending settlers, its outlying and ex- posed position rendering it especially vulnerable to the incur- sions and attacks of the warlike sea pirates of the far Northern tribes. Clustered round these, the larger gems, are one or two baby isles ; but a link of land bridging Saratoga Passage is want- ing to have made sea-set Island County a " solitaire." It fills a large space at the mouth of Admiralty Inlet, has an area of only 220 square miles, the least of any other county, but no less than 1787 islanders. Its wealth is assessed at half a million. The acreage of the larger island (Whidby) is about 115,000 ; that of Camano, the smaller, nearly 30,000. Both are fortunate in the richness of their soil and the possession of some fine belts of tim- ber. Coupville is not only the county seat, but a seat of learn- ing also, for it boasts an academy. Utsaladdy and Coveland are also places of importance, the former being the location of the
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immense mills of the Puget Sound Lumbering Company, whose busy saws are fast converting the denizens of the primeval forest to the uses of civilization through repeated assaults of the cold steel at close quarters, which finally ends in boarding, prepara- tory to the shipment of these woodland captives both by land and sea, there to be prisoned in many a home, whose denizens lit- tle dream that the roof which shelters them once waved in the winds of far-off Puget Sound. Let us call a halt here and con- tinue our review, lest its long procession grow wearisome in the following chapter.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE COUNTIES OF WASHINGTON CONTINUE TO PASS IN REVIEW.
" With varied face and climate fair, Soft breathings of the Chinook air, Topography in vain may try Some fatal error to descry. From Puget Sound to Cascade Range See counties rich in mine or grange ; Green foothills fit for herder's flock, Broad sounds the inlands to unlock ; Vast forests crowded with the pine,
Fair fields with fruitage rich as wine ; Prairie swells, where tasselled corn And bearded rye are swiftly born. Let him who pines for want of wealth, For comfort, happiness and health,
For all good gifts by labor won,
A homestead seek in Washington."
-BREWERTON.
ONCE more recalling our brigade to attention, we continue our review of these grand subdivisions of a glorious State with Jefferson County.
JEFFERSON COUNTY
recalls the wise, and, considering the times in which he flour- ished, the remarkably far-seeing statesman, whose eagle mental eye, piercing the shadows of the uncertain future, saw " a possi- bly friendly empire" one day to be in the regions, then a terra incognita, which lay beyond those snow-clad barriers, then known as the "Stony" or "Shining Mountains." He it was whose genius and persistent official efforts sent Lewis and Clarke to explore the hitherto unknown way. It is well, therefore, and in the case of Washington specially appropriate, that patriotic gratitude should here, as in many another State, perpetuate his memory by giving that honored name to a district of densely timbered and almost uninhabited mountains. Yet there is something grand in the thought that such a region, so wild, so
Engduy R.G. Ker rumn NY
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untamed, so affluent in possibilities of hidden gold and buried silver, should bear the name of our distinguished third President, whose mentality was as strong in its wonderful originality as the craggy chain which in Jefferson links its eastern inland bay with the surf that tumbles in upon its western shores from the restless billows of the Pacific. In shape it is almost a perfect parallelogram save for its outlying eastern boundary, which rather unaccountably travels northward, cutting off Clallam from Admiralty Inlet, and stealing the metropolis of Port Town- send from a county which has no population to spare. For its southern limitations it has Chehalis and Mason, while Clallam marches with its northern border. But however unpromising as a whole-for the uncompromising Olympics hold their stately court within its territory-nature, which always abhors a vacuum, has given Jefferson much of compensation in its north- east corner ; for here, overlooking the sound, sits fair Port Town- send, the county-seat, a lively town, growing, and likely to do better, where art and original advantages combine to produce results which assure substantial progress ; but of Port Town- send we propose to write more fully under its own especial head. Add to this infant metropolis the towns of Port Discovery, Lud- low, and Hadlock, with their great saw-mills, and Irondale, whose name indicates the nature of its predominant industry, and it will be seen that mountain-cumbered Jefferson is not so badly off, after all. Organized during Washington's twinship with Oregon, it dates back to 1852, becoming in 1854 one of the first-named Territory's charter counties. With a tax list of over two millions, it supports upon an area of 1688 square miles 8368 inhabitants ; but most of this wealth and the bulk of its popu- lation cluster about its commercial centre, Port Townsend. It is rich in historic reminiscences also, belonging as it does to a region figuring largely in the early settlement of the State. Port. Townsend is, moreover, honored and dignified by being the favored residence of the " Duke of York"-not exactly a scion of England's royal house, the name having been filched, for your average Indian will steal anything, from a name to a camp kettle ; or, not to do this child of the forest injustice, it may have been applied by some jocose pale face to the famous old savage in question, who is credited with being what the Hibernian would call " one of the real old stock," and, moreover, in this
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