USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. II > Part 3
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Love, too, finds its way into the wilderness as well as into the palace or crowded mart. Even Puget Sound had no shade of pines on all its shores so deep or bay so wide as to prevent the incursions of that tricky, mischievous, all-conquering Cupid. So, on July 6th, 1847, we find Ruth Brock becoming the willing mate of Daniel D. Kinsey, M. T. Simmons, who now seems to have advanced to legal dignity-one of the judges of Vancouver County-officiating. Thus Mrs. Kinsey became the first of the many maidens who have since then worn bridal favors in our good State of Washington. In the same month, though a much more prosaic affair, we learn that Samuel Hancock and A. B. Rabbeson were the first to vary shingle-making by the manu- facturing of brick-these two taking a contract to burn a kiln in July, 1847, on the farm of Simon Plomondon at the Cowlitz.
Recognizing the necessity of easier and more direct communi- cations, we find them, in August of this their second year, blaz- ing out a trail from Tumwater to the claim of Sylvester & Smith, two miles below on the sound, which now began to be called Smithfield, because Levi L. Smith resided there, and because it came to be the head of navigation by the law of the tides.
The autumn of 1847 finds the first shadow creeping over their prospects. Alarmed by the massacre at Waiilatpu and by the prevalence of measles among the Indians, for which the whites well knew these ignorant savages held them responsible, there were few additions to the population.
Two men, Glasgow and Rabbeson, took up a claim and set- tled on Whidby Island in July, but were not permitted to re- main. They had hardly taken possession when a general coun- cil of the tribes of the sound was held on the island, at the insti-
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gation of Patkanim, chief of the Snoqualimichs, to consider the policy of permitting the Americans to remain. Evans describes the meeting, the council, and their doings most graphically. He writes as follows :
" Patkanim exhibited the tact in this instance which marked him as a savage of uncommon intelligence. Parade has a great effect upon the human mind, whether savage or civilized. Pat- kanim gave a great hunt to the assembled chiefs ; a corral was constructed, with wings extending across the island from Penn Grove to Glasgow's claim, and a drive made with dogs, by which more than sixty deer were secured for a grand banquet at the inauguration of the council. Patkanim then opened the confer- ence by a speech, in which he urged if the Americans were allowed to settle among them they would soon become numerous, and would carry off their people in large fire ships to a distant country, on which the sun never shone, where they would be left to perish. He argued that the few now present could easily be exterminated, which would discourage others from coming, and appealed to the cupidity of his race by representing that the death of the Americans in the country would put the Ind- ians in possession of a large amount of property ; but the Ind- ians from the upper part of the sound, who were better acquaint- ed with the white people, did not agree with Patkanim. The chief of the bands about Tumwater, Snohodumtah, called by the Americans Grayhead, resisted the arguments of the Snoquali- mich chief. He reminded the council that previous to the ad- vent of the Americans the tribes from the lower sound often made war upon the weaker tribes of his section of the country, carrying them off for slaves ; but he had found the presence of the Boston men a protection, as they discouraged wars. Pat- kanim, angered at this opposition, created a great excitement, which seemed to threaten a battle between the tribes, and Rabbe- son, becoming alarmed, fled back to the settlements. Two days later Glasgow followed, being assisted to escape by a friendly Indian, but leaving behind him all his property."
Glasgow took up a claim afterward in Pierce County. In July, 1858, he married Ellen Horan, but finally left the Terri- tory.
During the summer Hancock took a claim on the west side of Budd's Inlet, building a warehouse and wharf ; but losing
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money, he finally settled, in 1852, on Whidby Island, the Indian chief, Patkanim, having finally failed in his attempt to drive out or exterminate the Americans. Rabbeson, who seems to have had a very lasting fright from the chief, did not return, but went to work on the wheat fields of the Cowlitz farm, where, with one Ferguson, he taught the Frenchmen how a Yankee saves grain by cradling ; "after which," says Bancroft, "the new method was in high favor and the cradling party in de- mand."
But it is needless, even did space permit, to follow farther the first settlement of Puget Sound, destined to be delayed for awhile by the discovery of gold in California, the story of whose buried wealth excited quite as much of greed and astonishment in the cabins of these Far Western settlers as in cities of the Atlantic coast, inducing some to desert their forest clearings to try their fortunes with pick and cradle for quicker gains. Thus for a time was the progress of settlement delayed, but as a stream may be dammed for awhile by some temporary obstacle, yet flow with fiercer intensity when the hindrance is removed, so the " gold fever" proved a blessing in the end, more especially, perhaps, to Southern Oregon, though the region north of the Columbia got its portion of the overflow in the end.
CHAPTER XXIII.
INAUGURATION OF THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT AND SKETCHES OF FEDERAL OFFICERS APPOINTED.
" Well worthy these to fill the place To which appointment calls, With purpose wise each office grace In camp or forum walls ; Careful in speech, in conflict brave, In honor stern and true, The federal power more wisely gave Than then perchance it knew."
1242290
-BREWERTON.
WE are now about to enter upon the history of Washington as a Territory, the embryo of the State yet to be, when, in the fulness of time, she should so advance in population as to justify her in knocking at the congressional portal and ask admission to the sisterhood of States ; at present she stands waiting-an attitude of expectancy in which she is destined to remain for six-and-thirty weary years, during which it will still be her lot to labor and to wait.
Were it within the purpose of our present story to review her past trials, it would be seen that during her twinship with Ore- gon, Washington found progress through no easy pathway. It is difficult for her citizens of to-day to realize the perils and privations endured by their fathers, the old pioneers. It was an act almost of heroism, then, to undertake the long and weari- some transcontinental journey ; it required manhood to make their home in a wilderness practically unbroken, and even higher courage-because that of daily endurance-to meet with firmness and equanimity of mind the continual deprivation not only of accustomed comforts, but absolute danger and want. Yet as the great anchor, the best bower of some massive iron-clad, to which she must trust in stress of tempest upon inhospitable shores, is forged with mighty heat and toil through fiercest fires of the furnace house and thundering blows of ponderous hammer- strokes, so patiently, day by day, did these laborers upon the
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foundations of our sovereign State hew out with unremitting toil, yet beneath the unseen direction of an Almighty supervi- sion, the corner-stones on which we of Washington raise the superstructure of to-day, building far better than they knew.
The Organic Act, which constituted the Territory of Washing- ton, not only located its boundaries, but provided for the ap- pointment by federal authority of the officers necessary to its temporary government. The positions to be thus filled were those of a governor, secretary, chief justice and the associate justices of the Supreme Court, an attorney and marshal. It, moreover, provided for a general assembly, consisting of a council of nine members, and a house of representatives, limited to eighteen, but with the privilege of increase by legislative action to a number not to exceed thirty members. The tenure of office of those chosen at the first election for this council was respectively for one, two, and three years, to be settled by lot, one third of its members retiring at the close of each period. At subsequent elections the term was fixed for each at three years.
The first decade of territorial life found the Land Office of Washington still under the jurisdiction of Oregon's Surveyor- General, but at the end of that period the Donation Law of 1850 was so amended by Congress as to do away with this incon- venience and make Washington Territory a separate land dis- trict. It also created the office of Surveyor-General, and left it to the discretion of the President to appoint a register and re- ceiver. This resulted in the establishment of a land office at the more accessible point of Olympia and the selection of James Til- ton, of Indiana, as the first Surveyor-General, while Henry C. Moseby, of Steilacoom, was appointed Register, with Elias Gulee, of Indiana, as Receiver.
The Organic Act also directed the taking of a census of all inhabitants and qualified voters, to enable the Government to make the proper apportionment and fix the ratio of representa- tion in accordance with the number of their constituents in any district or county. It was within the province of the Executive to set in motion the wheels of legislation by fixing the times and places for holding this first election, and also to convene and designate the place of meeting of the Legislative Assembly. It was directed that at the first session of this body, or as soon
MILL.
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thereafter as deemed expedient, "the Legislature shall locate and proceed to establish the seat of government of the Terri- tory." All persons in office were to continue in the discharge of their official duties until new appointments might be made of persons duly appointed to relieve them. Under this provision Judge Strong-already mentioned-of the Supreme Court of Oregon, retained his judicial office in the Third District, then in- cluded in Washington, until the Governor, by proclamation, created judicial districts and designated the times and places for the holding of courts in the new Territory, cases then pending being legally transferred to the proper court of the district in which the action was brought.
By a very wise and far-reaching provision, of which the chil- dren of to-day are reaping the result, and whose beneficial effects will extend to generations yet unborn, there was reserved, by an amendatory act creating the office of Surveyor-General of Wash- ington, two sections of land in each township, the proceeds of which should be applied to the building and maintenance of public schools. The sections so reserved were Nos. 16 and 36 in each township. Some of these, though then compara- tively worthless, have since become, especially in the vicin- ity of growing towns and cities, enormously valuable, and if judiciously managed and their proceeds wisely invested should furnish a fund amply sufficient to fill the need of educational demands without other taxation for many years to come.
Franklin Pierce, then newly inaugurated as President of the United States, filled the offices provided by the Organic Act as follows :
Brevet Major Isaac Ingalls Stevens, of Massachusetts, an offi cer of the U. S. Engineers, to be Governor and ex officio Super- intendent of Indian Affairs ; Charles H. Mason, of Rhode Island, Secretary ; John S. Clendenin, of Mississippi, Attorney ; and James Patton Anderson, of Tennessee, Marshal ; Edward Lan- der, of Indiana, Chief Justice ; Victor Monroe, of Kentucky, and Obadiah B. McFadden, of Pennsylvania, Associate Judges of the Supreme Court of Washington Territory. Isaac N. Ebey, an old resident, elsewhere referred to, was appointed Collector of the Customs for the district of Puget Sound, and the port of entry was soon thereafter removed from Olympia to Port Town- send. In the following spring Judge Monroe, after holding a 3
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term of court in several of the river counties, was superseded by Francis A. Chenoweth, an early Oregon pioneer residing in Clark County, now Washington.
Of these appointees, Anderson, Clendenin, Mason, Lander, and Monroe reached the Territory during the summer of 1853. Marshal Anderson at once proceeded to take the census, as directed by law, the result showing a population of 3965 white inhabitants, of whom 1682 were voters. How small this total seems to the reader of to-day ! In connection with this census, it is well to compare it with that taken by order of Governor Lane, of Oregon, in 1849, when the whole population north of the Columbia River only numbered 304, of whom only 189 were citizens, the remaining 115 being all foreigners. The males num- bered 231, the females 73-hardly the population of a single ward of one of our Puget Sound cities. It is, moreover, curious to remark the disproportion of males, nearly half of the whole enumeration being voters, which of course excludes many male children and youth not yet of legal age, thereby showing how greatly the females must have been in the minority.
It is the privilege of the historian to retrospect. Standing as he does upon the vantage ground of the present and looking backward through the mists of years, he views the past with im- partial eye, and is better able to weigh and truly gauge the worth and analyze the character of those who, having played their parts with more or less of public approval, have retired from the theatre of events, whose curtain of death or superannua- tion has finally fallen upon their stage of action.
With such guidance let us at this point take up and briefly comment upon the individuals to whose executive rule and abil- ity the first territorial government of Washington was confided.
First in honor, as in office, comes to the front the shade of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, the Governor. A man of pure and up- right life, of energy and perseverance, clear-headed, and not easily influenced by others, but thinking for himself, looking ever to results, and selecting the best means to gain the end de- sired. Governor Stevens proved himself a faithful, far-seeing, and generally acceptable executive, though not without his ene- mies and political opponents -- a thing to be expected when we consider the vast interests committed to his care and the fre- quency with which the faithful performance of duty brings the
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man of honest purpose into conflict with malcontents. He died -as he had ever been found in life-at his post of duty, falling beneath the flag that he loved while leading a decisive charge against the Confederates. When his body was removed from the ghastly heap of piled-up slain, it was found that the rigid hand still tightly clasped the colors which he himself had taken from the dying grasp of the color-sergeant of his old regiment- the Highlanders.
Considering the important part that he played in the early struggles of territorial Washington, we make no apology for in- serting here an abbreviated record, taken from his biographical sketch as we find it in the " History of the Northwest."
" Born in Andover, Mass., May 18th, 1818, Governor Stevens graduated from West Point in the Class of 1839, standing at its head, and was immediately commissioned Second Lieutenant of Engineers. In 1840 he was promoted to a First Lieutenancy. He served with distinction in Mexico on the staff of General Scott, and was brevetted to the rank of Major for gallant and meritori- ous services in that war. At the capture of the city he received a severe wound, from which he suffered through life. In March of 1853 he resigned his commission in the army, as also his posi- tion as chief clerk in the office of the Coast Survey to accept the first governorship of Washington Territory. In crossing the continent to his new post of duty he explored a route from the headwaters of the Mississippi River to Puget Sound.
" On September 29th, 1853, he entered the Territory and as- sumed the performance of his gubernatorial duties. He issued his proclamation to that effect on the above date from the cross- ing of the dividing ridge on the summit of the Rocky Mountains.
" During the years 1854-55, as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, he concluded treaties with the native tribes within the Territory, by which the so-called Indian title to an area of land including one hundred thousand square miles was extinguished. In the latter year he also served as a member of the joint com- mission to effect peace between the tribes divided by the Rocky Mountains-viz., the Blackfeet and other nations in the buffalo country east of the mountains and those upon the western side, whose necessities obliged them to invade their eastern buffalo range, then their principal source of supply, whether for raiment or food. During his absence at the Blackfeet council the Indian
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War of 1855-56 had been inaugurated. Upon his return to Olympia he called out one thousand volunteers, assumed general direction as commander-in-chief, and prosecuted the war with vigor until peace was restored in the fall of 1856. At the elec- tion in July, 1857, he was chosen delegate to Congress, and served with distinction to himself and benefit to his Territory for two terms, ending March 3d, 1861.
" On the breaking out of the Rebellion he hastened East and offered his services to the Government. They were accepted, and he was appointed Colonel of the Seventy-ninth New York Volunteers (the Highlanders). Eight companies of that regi- ment, unwilling to endure the rigid rule of a West Pointer, muti- nied ; but his resolute courage and energetic conduct restored discipline, and he soon became the idol of his regiment. Dis- tinguishing himself in many engagements, he was promoted July 4th, 1862, to be a Major-General of Volunteers.
" On the morning of September 1st, 1862, his division encoun- tered the enemy near Chantilly, Va. Major-General Stevens, with his characteristic dash, seized the colors of his old regi- ment, the Highlanders (their color-sergeant had just fallen, and the line was wavering). On foot, at the head of that regiment, bearing aloft those colors with his own hands, and while cheer- ing his old comrades, his gallantry animating the whole divi- sion, he was shot through the head and instantly killed, and when his body was found among the piles of slain, in his death grip was clinched the flag-staff he had so gallantly borne in the very face of the foe. He died not in vain, for that charge checked the Confederate advance, gave time to put the national capital in a state of defence, and saved the country from the humiliation of seeing it fall into the hands of the enemy."
The next of these officials destined, from a variety of circum- stances, to play almost as important a part in the history of ter- ritorial Washington as Governor Stevens himself, is Secretary Charles H. Mason, who was often called at critical periods to fill the office and perform the duties of her absent Chief Executive. We again avail ourselves of the valuable biographical sketches which furnished us with the data for facts in the life of Gov- ernor Stevens, and abridge from it as follows :
" Mr. Mason was born at Fort Washington, on the Potomac, in 1830. At the age of seven, with his widowed mother, he re-
Ost-Clark
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moved to Providence, R. I. In 1850 he graduated with distin- guished honors at Brown University, and was admitted to the Bar of Rhode Island in 1857. He was recommended to Presi- dent Pierce by the Bar of his adopted State for the office of United States District Attorney. He was appointed Secretary of Washington Territory in September of 1853, and reached his post in October, continuing in office till his death.
"It was, however, as Acting Governor of the Territory through several critical periods that he distinguished himself and became endeared to its people. His first gubernatorial ser- vices were from March 26th, 1854, to December 1st of that year. Again, during Governor Stevens' absence at the Blackfeet coun- cil at Fort Benton, from May 12th, 1855, he acted as Governor until January 19th, 1856. It was during this time that the Ind- ian War was inaugurated, and his administration during this trying period was marked with energy, decision, and wisdom. Calling for volunteers, he promptly separated the friendly native from the hostile, treating with humanity all who were not actu- ally in arms. He proclaimed the country from Olympia to the Snohomish River, on the eastern side of the sound, war ground, and established the friendlies upon islands and those of the western shore on reservations under charge of agents. The same policy of separation was pursued in other parts of the Territory. Any Indian found on the war ground after due notice was to be regarded as a foe, and so treated. He conciliated the simply disaffected, but waged war against those openly hostile.
" Early after Governor Stevens' return (January 19th, 1856), Governor Mason repaired to Washington City to secure congres- sional aid. Co-operating with Colonel Anderson (Washington's delegate) and General Lane (Oregon's delegate), an appropriation of $300,000 was secured to restore and maintain peace among the Indians of the Pacific coast. This enabled the territorial authori- ties to feed the Indians, and, so long as the rations lasted, secure their friendship. As the fund was sufficient to outlast the war, this timely appropriation greatly lessened the number of our enemies in the field.
" Upon Governor Stevens' election, in 1857, as delegate, Sec- retary Mason again acted as Governor until the arrival of Gov- ernor McMullan." We interpolate here a thought of our own : Why was it, and is it, that the Executive at Washington per-
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sistently appoints men to fields of official labor where they have not the slightest knowledge of the people or their necessities, and that, too, when (as in the case of Governor Mason) there were those upon the ground amply filled by previous experience and full knowledge of the surroundings to satisfactorily perform the work ? It is possible that we answer our own question in suggesting that political influence is supposed to confer not only the power to secure but the grace to perform the duties of the solicited employment.
" Upon the return of Governor McMullan to the States in August, 1858, he was again the occupant of the gubernatorial chair till the arrival of Governor Gholson (July 5th, 1859). He died, after a brief illness, at Olympia, on the 22d of the same month. Brilliant talents, learning, and distinguished adminis- trative abilities entitled him to popular regard ; but those who were admitted to his personal friendship," says his biographer, " will treasure him in memory for genuine and uniform amia- bility and evenness of temper, loyalty to friends, generosity and childlike frankness, genial social qualities, and his perfect acces- sibility to all, regardless of rank and condition in life."
Most fortunate is that man of whom so much can be said and spoken truthfully.
Next upon our list is the name of John S. Clendenin, the At- torney, of whom after-history makes no particular mention.
We come now to James Patton Anderson, the Marshal and taker of the first census in Washington Territory. His record, always brilliant, is of a mixed character, patriotic in its begin- nings, but marred and shadowed toward its close by desertion of the flag he bravely followed in Mexico in 1846 to espouse the Confederate cause in the disunion days of 1861. " He was a native of Tennessee, born in 1822, a lawyer by profession, a lieu- tenant-colonel of a Mississippi cavalry regiment for service in Mexico in 1861. Appointed Marshal for Washington Territory in 1853, he settled in Olympia, where he practised law with dis- tinction. He was elected delegate to Congress in 1855, serving till March 4th, 1857, but did not return to the Territory. A Southerner by birth and an ardent Confederate, he was commis- sioned a Brigadier-General in their army, was present at Shiloh and Stone River, promoted to Major-General, and placed in com- mand of the district of Florida, but finally transferred to Polk's
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division in Tennessee. He lost an arm in this service and died of yellow fever at Memphis in 1873."
The next of these appointees to attract our attention is Chief Justice Edward Lander. He was born in Salem, Mass .; gradu- ated at Harvard, and soon after entered the law school at Cam- bridge. His first practice was in Essex County, but he soon re- moved to Indiana, from which State, after being appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, he was selected to fill the office of Chief Justice of Washington Territory. As a member of the commission to formulate a code for the government of ter- ritorial Washington he was so eminently successful that it re- mained substantially unaltered till her admission as a State. By reassignment of the Legislature, he was transferred to the judicial charge of the Second District, comprising the counties of Lewis, Chehalis, Thurston, and Sawamish (Mason). His original district was the Third. In January, 1856, we find him reversing the classic declaration " arma cedant togæ" and act- ing as aide-de-camp to Governor Mason, with the rank of lieu- tenant-colonel, in an expedition against a band of hostile Indians, which, as the party were unable to land, proved bloodless. In a similar capacity he appears on the muster-roll of the First Regi- ment of Washington Volunteers as Captain of Company A, num- bering fifty-three men ; this company had been previously formed to resist a very bold Indian attack upon Seattle, made January 26th, 1856, an account of which will appear in its proper order. In May following he was a candidate for delegate in the Demo- cratic convention, but was beaten by Colonel Anderson, his being the next highest in the number of votes.
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