USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. II > Part 16
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WHITMAN COUNTY,
another remembrancer of the martyrdom of that gallant soldier of the cross, Dr. Marcus Whitman, who fell at his post of duty, dying a dreadful death in the effort to better the condition of those who treacherously slew him. There are none of our read- ers to whom it will be needful to recall the memory of that fear- ful winter ride to secure Oregon for the American Union nor the details of the shocking tragedy which sent him, Bible in hand, to a bloody grave beneath the strokes of an Indian's tomahawk.
It was a good and gracious thing to call so grand a county as Whitman after this devoted missionary martyr, and thus for- ever connect his fame with the cause for which he died. The
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county was organized in November of 1871. It is heavy in wealth and population, second to none in the fruition of its numerous and productive farms, and occupied by a people well worthy of the natural blessings they utilize and enjoy. Topo- graphically varied, it embraces a wide range of surface-moun- tain, forest, arable and grazing lands being all well represented, and, withal, a water supply so abundant, sweet, and sparkling that its facilities for irrigation, if such were required, would defy competition. It is, indeed, a banner county, nobly named, fine- ly peopled, and excellently improved. It has its sad memories also, for the most part linked with the red man's futile attempt to retain his ancient hunting grounds. Steptoe's Butte, fifteen miles north of Colfax, the county-seat, recalls the defeat and near escape from annihilation of the United States Regular troops, under the command of that unlucky officer, by Indians in 1858. The author mourns among those who fell in that day's battle a gallant brother officer and fellow-townsman, Captain Oliver H. Perry, than whom a braver soldier or more accom- plished gentleman never fell in the discharge of his duty. It may be said of him, as of Latour d'Auvergne, the first grena- dier of France, were we to call the roll of our bravest dead, that he lies " mort sur le champ de bataille."
The area of Whitman is 2124 square miles ; its population, 19,109.
YAKIMA COUNTY.
Last of this long bead-roll to answer to her name comes Yaki- ma, the thirty-fourth on our list ; last, but by no means least, with her 5760 square miles of territory, she is excelled in size by only two counties in the State -- Stevens and Okanagon-but her meagre population of only 4429 would seem to indicate either barrenness of soil, want of water, or such dearth of general at- tractiveness as to discourage the influx of settlers. But in the case of Yakima, so unflattering a diagnosis would be untrue. She is in reality a sleeping giant, only waiting to be awakened to prove her strength. Then Yakima will come to the front and speedily utilize the ten talents committed to her care. Professor Lyman, whose organ of reverence, wise geographer though he be, certainly requires cultivation, describes this county as being " shaped like a mutton-chop"-a favorite edible of that learned gentleman, we should fancy, for it is a simile he seems to pre-
lexwalton
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fer. The mutton-chop in question has been cut off very straight- ly upon its southern side and almost equally so on its western end, while its eastern and northern outlines are, as an orthodox " mutton-chop" should be, irregular and meandering. We are free to confess, however, that to our eyes it does not resemble "a chop" at all, or if it does, we have yet to meet with one so generous in breadth.
The natural gifts of Yakima are gracious and manifold-tim- ber, minerals, foothills dotted with cattle and sheep which thrive and grow fat upon their rich grasses. The valley of the Yakima, replete with fertility and other advantages too numer- ous to mention, may well justify Professor Lyman when he ven- tures to predict " that all these things are but a slight forecast of the time, now near at hand, when Yakima County will be the home of happy thousands, provided with all the appliances and comforts of the most civilized condition ;"' and what this writer says for Yakima we most confidently predict for the State of Washington at large. Surely hath the Almighty blessed her with every good and perfect gift, and wise are they who go in and occupy this favored land, so full of promise, so rich in vic- tories already achieved.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CLIMATE AND NATURAL BEAUTIES OF THE STATE OF WASH- INGTON.
" A dual climate here is found, With softer airs for Puget Sound, Where kisses of the ' Chinook ' gale To call the flowers seldom fail. Divided by the Cascade ridge It finds its isothermal bridge ; For on their eastern slope the snow Hath freer leave to fall and flow, To hang its garlands on the pine, Or bid the mountains grandly shine ; While less of rain its fields obtain Than those the western pastures gain."
-BREWERTON.
CLIMATE, ever important as affecting both the comfort and industries of life, now demands something more than mere men- tion of Washington's historian. The State of Washington, nothing if not divine, and never given to sameness, has a dual climate, the ridge of the Cascade Range being the natural divider of its isothermal lines. It possesses two as separate and distinct temperatures as ever marked the variations of an orthodox San Francisco day, where you wear your summer suit in the morn- ing, finding it quite comfortable, but acknowledge the usefulness of furs as the afternoon draws on. The winter snows, that fall a foot deep, hanging with " ermine too dear for an earl" the pines of the eastern slope of the Cascades, lay a carpet so light upon the hill slopes of the sound that it hardly obscures their perennial verdure and scarce conceals the winter-blooming flow- ers, which ofttimes thus literally blend " the lily with the rose," till the first kiss of the morning sunshine lifts its white robe heavenward. Then, again, Jupiter Pluvius would seem to have established his residence in Western Washington from November till the pussy willow sends forth its April blossoms, and, if the
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truth must be spoken, is most persistently at home-too much so, perhaps, in the dreary December days, but, like a ghost, to his credit be it spoken, most busy in the dark hours, and conse- quently seldom " dropping" in till the afternoon. Were he to come oftener during the summer solstice he might find himself a more welcome guest ; but paradoxical and nonsensical as it seems, if there be such a thing as a rain that never wets what it should not-at least, never drenches to annoy-that rain is the persistent downpour of Puget Sound. Children play out in it regardless of overcoat, and light waterproofs are all that the most delicate woman desires if exposed to the shower. Then, too, this aqueous god brings with him the whole family of Fogs, with their half brothers, the Mists, who come arrayed in thick, foul weather wrappings, forgetting the greater beauty of their lighter August robes. But in other matters he is much more consider- ate. He shuts out the gales. He has had enough of the boister- ous "blizzards" and the winds, with their continual conten- tion ; so, well knowing their quarrelsome disposition, he leaves them to hold their revels as they will upon the Atlantic coasts. They are challenged and halted by the snow-helmeted sentinels of the Cascade mountain-tops. So also is elsewhere all puissant Jove, the Thunderer ; he too must enter Western Washington unarmed, leaving his bolts in their keeping. But there is one guest to whom his halls are ever open, who comes with light footsteps and airy caresses-the ever-welcome Chinook wind, sweeping in from the sea-warmed tides sun-heated in distant Japan, a breeze the like of which blows not on earth save in the State of Washington ; a breath so mild and balmy that it might well have filled the silken sails of Cleopatra's galleys or stirred the palms above our first parents' heads as they slum- bered beneath their shadows amid the bowers of Eden.
Then, too, the Cascades, if they be, like all mountains, as many aver, " weather-breeders," they are at least honest enough to confess it, for they make most reliable barometers, forecasting the approach of storm centres or their opposites, and anticipat- ing foul or fair weather with a certainty that might put the sig- nal service to shame and bring a blush to the cheek of that oft- quoted and as frequently mistaken authority " the clerk of the weather." In this respect they are to the close observer of their ever-changing moods what Mount Pilatus is to the dwell-
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ers in Switzerland's Lucerne. If Mount Tacoma (the geographi- cal Rainier) throw off her vests of rose tint or silver and hide her beauties beneath the mists, or Mount Baker conceal his native savagery by assuming his cloud blanket, there will be a change, and not for the better, in the aspect of the day. How often is the pulse of the weather thus felt and its conditions diagnosed through these natural monitors and most truthful instructors, let the carefully kept and oft-quoted records which mark the days when they were visible or obscured answer the question. And now, leaving the language of hyperbole and poetic imagery, let us in all soberness of commonplace, every- day prose discuss the climate of Washington.
First, of the Chinook wind. It would be difficult to find a more graphic picture of its benign influence than in that given in the following quotation from Professor Lyman's "Pacific Northwest of To-day.". The location selected to show its effects · is among the Rattlesnake Mountains in Kittitas County, just east of the Cascades. He says :
" The Rattlesnake Mountains are especially exposed to the visits of the Chinook winds in the winter, and, in consequence, are said to have a warmer climate than the greater part of the country south of them. Here more than anywhere else can the stockman perform his feat of letting stock run all winter with no feed except the bunch grass nature cured on the ground. Sometimes on the table of the elements" (remember, this is east of the Cascades), " in the eternal flux and reflux of the seas of the air, the biting blizzard from the frozen northeast strikes the vanquished squadrons of the south in midheaven and turns their treasures of mist into fleecy flakes of snow. Then six, ten, or, in rare cases, fifteen or twenty inches of snow cover the bound- less bunch grass plains. Then the stock must paw for a living. Their weakening legs carry them less and less farther, and they begin to stretch out for a final surrender. Then, while the stock- man looks anxiously around the sky for some hope of relief, suddenly he sees, far away southward, a blue-black line forming along the horizon. He goes to sleep happy, for deliverance is at hand. In the night a roaring is heard. The prairies are taking breath. Bedclothes begin to be uncomfortable. Drip- ping from the eaves begins to be heard. By morning the mer- cury has risen to 60°, and still it blows, and by night the ground
Jesse, Arthur
PO Dawning
Dr. Ce Pilknap
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is bare. Sometimes, to complete its victory, it blows another night, till the humbled northeaster sullenly retires even from the lower mountains and takes refuge in the fastnesses of the Rockies. What has happened to all the snow? The ocean breathed upon it, and it is gone. The stockman stands on a height of scab-land and surveys the scene with a countenance irradiated with joy, and says, 'Chinook, old fellow, you did a pretty good job that time. None too soon, either.' Such is the great Chinook wind. The most remote parts of the inland em- pire are subject to its benign visits, and in consequence immi- grants find it much easier to make their homes with scanty shel- ter than they do in the blizzard-ruled realms in Dakota."
If there be such a thing as a photograph in words, mind painted on the sensitive plates of the brain, we have it in the vivid description just recorded.
Our space does not permit an enlargement of this portion of our theme. Ascent of course means additional coolness until coolness becomes positive coldness in the presence of unmelting snows. Descend to the west and find a tropic winter, making its presence known by fog, dampness, and almost continual rain precipitation, with a summer correspondingly dry, cloudless, and delightful. We may safely challenge the world to produce the equal of the summer months on Puget Sound. East of the Cascades the climate is dryer, and partakes more of the char- acteristics to which the Middle State immigrant is accustomed, but nevertheless disarmed of its usual winter rigors and con- tinual cold, with the storms attendant upon it, by the ameliorat- ing influences of the wind of which we have spoken. The sum- mer is correspondingly warmer, being further removed from the breezes which soften the same season in the vicinity of the sound. Of agricultural advantages, soil, etc., we have spoken so fully under the head of " counties" that this branch of our subject hardly seems to require any detailed description here. Let those who doubt the wonderful fertility and adaptation to the most diverse crops of Washington visit her industrial expositions, see their exhibits, and then judge from experience of the wonderful re- sults. The writer has seen vegetables almost, as it were, chance grown, with only ordinary care, whose dimensions must be seen to be believed. In the matter of fruits, with the exception of those which require a long period of high temperature to ripen,
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she may challenge the nurseries of California itself. In cereals, the exports of Spokane, and, indeed, the whole wheat-growing lands of Walla Walla, with its forty-bushels-to-the-acre crops, should convince the most incredulous that the output of Washing- ton grain will rank with the best, both in quality and quantity, except, perhaps, in the growth of corn, which the most favored lands east of the Rocky Mountains have produced. The soil of Washington cannot be judged by external tokens or by merely superficial examination. "All signs fail in a dry time," says the proverb, and it is even so here. You will get a crop where you least expect return. Nature in this region seems to have hidden forces and reserves at her command by which she insen- sibly and mysteriously supplies elements which even to the eye of expert agriculturalists appear totally lacking. There are un- doubtedly sections where artificial irrigation will have to be resorted to, and those lands are naturally neglected by the set- tler, whose only capital is his hard-handed labor, for other and more favored regions ; but when the best are settled up, the back- water of this human tide, with capital to aid its efforts, will flow in and force from the hitherto reluctant soil-only needing the stimulus of moisture -- results which, if we mistake not, will put the so-called naturally better lands to shame. It is the hack- neyed, oft-quoted Latin motto which, after all, covers the whole ground, whether in Washington or elsewhere : " Labor omnia vincit." There is, indeed, no victory without work. The grand old first gardener, Adam of Eden, found it so, and the year of grace 1893 only echoes his experience. In this connection we would suggest that, even making due allowances for the eccen- tricities of that most uncertain element, capital-now eminently rash and foolhardy in its ventures, and then equally stupid and short-sighted in its holding back-we cannot understand why its plethora does not flow more readily into the channels of Far Western investments. Men of wealth at the East are content to let funds lie idle or put them out to use at almost nominal inter- est, when eight, ten, and even fifteen per cent might be realized on as safe securities in Washington, if its possessors had only the courage to see, judge, and venture a surplus with such men as Allen C. Mason, of Tacoma, or many another investor, whose honor makes their word as good as their bond. Besides all this, there is the added gratification that capital so employed is not only
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vielding a satisfactory amount of interest, but going to build up and develop the natural resources of a State whose star, now so newly risen, will, ere many decades have declined, occupy as proud a place in the national constellation as any of those which have blazed the longest in the azure field of our country's flag. It is not speculation in real estate, in town lots and outside " additions" that we recommend, though fortunes have been realized even in this way, but the development of the farming and manufacturing interests of the State, which improves, beau- tifies, and renders realty more valuable, and at the same time gives employment to toiling thousands, who are thus enabled to establish and maintain homes and swell the wealth and popula- tion of the State in which they dwell.
The cattle and stock-raising interests alone of Washington would fill a chapter. It is estimated that the Pacific Northwest produces one hundred thousand beef hides a year, and this was a calculation of three years ago. This, considering the number of live cattle exported and the number of hides not sold, would double those figures and still keep the aggregate within reasonable bounds. Says a writer on this subject : " At the low value of twenty-five dollars each, this represents a source of income about equal to each of the industries of grain-raising, wool-raising, and the fisheries, and one half of that of the saw-mills and coal mines. When dairy products are taken into consideration, our beef cattle and cows rise into very high importance. If the horns, bones, hoofs, hair and hides were kept in the State, and tanning, manufacture of fertilizers, of leather, gelatine and neat's-foot oil carried on, the total value of our herds would be almost doubled." This, however, is but the crude beginning, the dawn before the rising of the sun of an industry peculiarly adapted to the State. In this connection it would be easy to make calculations of increase, available area of grazing lands without trenching upon those required for agricultural purposes, and deduce the amount of profits direct and collateral to be de- rived ; but solid fact so far outstrips even large estimates in Washington that it seems idle to waste time on tabulated predic- tions. We will conclude our remarks under this head by an- other quotation from Professor Lyman, who seems to have made himself master of this interesting theme. He says, speaking of the first cattle introduced into the Territory of Oregon :
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" The first were three animals, sent by ship from England to Fort Vancouver, intended simply for the use of the chief factor and the gentlemen at the post, to supply milk, butter and cheese, and veal at times for their table. Dr. McLoughlin, however, cherished them as the apple of his eye, killing only one calf a year, and soon had a handsome herd. These were English Dur- hams, and furnished some of the best milch cows ever in the country. In 1841 Ewing Young brought up from California a band of Spanish cattle, the tall, bony, fleet, long-limbed and dagger-horned stock imported from the fierce herds of the land of bull fights. Joseph Gall soon after brought another herd, and there were importations from time to time thereafter. These fierce-eyed animals of beastly savagery, which made the fields unsafe for women and children, and even made men on foot keep the inside track for a tree, soon gave character to the herds of our young State, and until 1861 were the conspicuous type."
Since then from various causes this ugly and inferior breed have almost entirely disappeared ; they have given way within the last twenty years to the fine-blooded stock from time to time imported by fanciers, thereby improving the strain through selected breeders. There are not a few of the Jerseys, every- where favorites, in the stables of those wealthy enough to afford such luxuries. It is needless to say that the beauty and docility of these channel cattle, with the richness of the butter-making milk they produce, make them in Washington, as elsewhere, fully appreciated. Ben Holladay was the first to bring them to the State, and the herd is still increasing on Clatsop plains. There are also some Durhams, Holsteins (the Dutch short-horn), Ayrshires, and Herefords, besides the universally esteemed polled Angus.
Of the timber resources of Washington, one of her principal sources of wealth, now being rapidly developed, with apparently endless material to draw from, we have already spoken in our description of her counties. Steamers have been built exclusively of its woods ; it has roofed thousands of humble homes and fur- nished the material for many an aristocratic mansion, spars the ships, and, self-destructive, builds the mill that boards and cap- tures its brethren. Yet this is but a tithe of the uses to which it is put ; and even when the home demand is fully supplied it leaves millions of feet for export. Properly protected and
Eduard Eden
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shielded from their worst enemy, the fire-fiend, the forests of Washington should supply the continent with timber till the march of invention and discovery finds some new material to take its place. We shall refer to this matter again under a statistical head. It is as rich in variety as in quantity, and in quality not to be excelled. " Oregon pine" carries its own cer- tificate the world over.
Of the widely renowned fisheries it is needful to say but a word ; they are too well advertised to need description. There is but one fear to be suggested in regard to them in the absence of proper protection -- we do not mean legal, for there is usually a superabundance of game laws, all or most of which are in every new county practically a dead letter ; and that is the possi- bility, as is too much to be dreaded in the case of the seal, of their absolute destruction and final disappearance. This is no idle fancy. The buffalo, which the writer has seen in 1848 crowd- ing the great prairies far as the eye could reach, is but a memory to-day ; the beaver is hard to find ; the deer and bear are disappear- ing ; and already we begin to hear that the " salmon run" is not what it was in localities where they used to abound. The deep- sea fisheries of the coast, in which prey might be taken by the thousands, are as yet almost undisturbed by the net and line of the fisherman. We venture to predict that Eastern capital will yet be more heavily and profitably employed in this pursuit than ever before, even in the palmy days of Gloucester and Nantucket. Were we to attempt a roll-call of the finny tribes -- sound, stream, and sea dwellers-we should exhaust the patience which Adam must have exercised ere he concluded his christening of the ani- mals of the first great unexhibited and uncaged menagerie. The salmon, of course the staple of the "Big Fish Eaters," is king. Of this fish, or, rather, its total of capture we shall speak again when we come to our feast of tables-the mathematical ones- which, after all, are but figures of speech. It is a business run- ning into the millions, and just now needs protection-to the raw material rather than the stimulus of encouragement. There are salmon good and bad, the Chinook or Quinat standing at the head of the list, red, fat and juicy, but so rich that he palls upon the appetite and fully explains, if long indulged in, why, in the early days of Maine, it was a clause of every far- seeing apprentice's indentures that he was not to be fed on
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salmon more than three days in the week ; then comes the steel- head, who will not depart this life under two blows of the club, and thereby gains a name from the hardness of his skull ; the blue-back, a smaller brother, and the hook-nose ; fall and dog salmon, smaller and poorer in every way, but through that very poverty gaining a free passage, when salted, to those warmer cli- mates where their richer brethren, the Chinooks, would be unac- ceptable. In size, the largest are caught in the Columbia ; then follow those of the Frazer, the Sacramento, Puget Sound, and the smaller streams of the coast. The maternal instinct of the salmon must indeed be strong when we remember that their nurseries are far distant from the sea, requiring, as in the case of those of the Columbia, a literally up-hill river journey of over a thousand miles ere they reach their spawning grounds. Among other fish the halibut grows grandly, and rivals his brother of the Newfoundland banks both in size and flavor. His haunt is the Strait de Fuca and more distant outside waters. Forty thousand pounds in three days to one vessel is no uncommon catch. Cod abound, but, unlike the halibut, must acknowledge their inferiority to their kindred of the Atlantic seas. The moonlight-loving herring, the rock cod, and the smelt are also finny brethren in good and regular standing in the waters and rivers of the coast. Of the fish of the inland lakes and streams there are already too many disciples of " the gentle art" ever ready to sing their praises for us to join the chorus here.
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