USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. III > Part 11
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William Utter, Oct. 1, 1854.
James Morrison, Feb. 1, 1853.
J. B. Hedge, June 1, 1853. Henry Roeder, June 14, 1853.
C. C. Vail, Nov. 27, 1853.
D. J. Harris, May 28, 1854. Edmond Eldridge, June 21, 1854. M. O'Connor, Sept. 1, 1854.
J. W. Lyle, Dec. 13, 1854.
CAPTAIN HENRY ROEDER.
This pioneer settler on Bellingham Bay was born in Germany, July 4, 1824. His father was a soldier in Napoleon's army and fought at Waterloo. He arrived in Whatcom County, December 14, 1852, and took a donation claim, which is now a part of the site of Bellingham.
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
ЯНАДОЯ УЯЛАН ЛІАТЧАЈ
old, and with the aid of another man named
miod asw vsa medgrilled no ol9a 9noig aidT Whose acquaintance they had made in Toibloe s asw ionist' afH wright . ASOI ++ wml (asmi90 m
$281 tfindthe eastHormon after, hHeyswere joined dt fo tisq, E won ai didw mislo noitsnob s Hoot bas
Roberts, J. W. Lyle ang&Honitisa wo thers. They wed the Indian name Whatcom as the name of their wnalement .*
Ir was while getting out logs for the mill in the summer any x853, on land that Roeder and Peaboly had once selected for their claims, but subsequently abandoned for another piece that had better timber on it, that Hewitt and Brown made their coal discovery. A tall fir tree, which stood Immediately over the vein, had been blown down, and its poots had torn up the earth so as to expose the coal. They mbiequently sold the claim to the Bellingham Bay Coal Company, of San Francisco, for $18,000.
de early as March 1852, B. J. Madison, an Indian trader, vad eben a claim on the south shore of de Fuca's Strait neat New Dungeness. Soon afterwards he was joined by General Daniel F. Brownfield, who had stopped for a time nw the Cowlitz, and been elected a representative from Lewis County in the Oregon legislature. Later Thomas Abernethy, J. J. Barrows, J. C. Brown, J. W. Donnell,
* Dove who took donation emnew in this neighborhood were the Kallawing some of whom arrived will suffer thao lar sons given would to indicate:
D V Peabody, Dec. 16, 1852 W. Pattels, April 18, 1853. J June 1, 1853.
Feb. 1, 1853.
Barnes, June 13, 1853.
H r, June 14, 1853.
C. C. Vail, Nov. 27, 1853.
1 M Pre Sept. 17, 1853. Fitz Hugh, Feb. 23, 1854. Page, June 1, 1854. Mberts, July 10, 1854.
D. J Harris, May 28, 1854. Edmond Eldridge, June 21, 1854.
M. O'Connor, Sept. 1, 1854.
Ter Oct. 1, 1854. J W. Lyle, Dec. 13, 1854.
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
C. M. Bradshaw, G. H. Gerish, Samuel L. Jurwin and Hoseah Lowrey arrived, and took claims in the neighbor- hood, while John E. Burns settled somewhat farther south at the head of Port Discovery. All these except Brown and Bradshaw made their filings before the end of 1853.
A considerable number of those who came with the first trains up the Yakima River and over the new road which the settlers were making through the Nachess Pass, settled in the Puyallup Valley, after they had first examined the prairie in the neighborhood of Steilacoom and Fort Nis- qually. Among these earliest settlers were Willis Boatman, John Carson, George Haywood, Isaac Lemon, A.S. Perham, Abiel Morrison, James Williamson, A. H. and Isaac Woolery, Wm. M. Kincaid, and their families, while Michael Connell and A. S. Porter took claims further east on what were after- wards famous as Connell's and Porter's prairies.
There were not many other new settlements started while Washington remained a part of Oregon. Charles F. White and P. Charles had taken claims on Boisfort Prairie, in September 1852, and John Hogue, William Murphy, S. W. Buchanan, Thompson W. Newland and H. R. Stillman settled in the same neighborhood during the following year.
Corydon F. Porter and J. L. Scammon were on the Che- halis, near where Montesano now is, and C. W. Stuart on the north shore of Gray's Harbor near the townsite of Hoquiam.
Farther south along the Willapa, and on or near the north shore of Shoalwater Bay, there was a considerable settle- ment, rivaling that at the southern end and along the Colum- bia. John Vail had settled on the river in 1852, and James G. Swan had taken a claim near him only a few months
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
later, although he had been a resident in the neighborhood for nearly a year before his claim was taken .*
Most of the settlers arriving during these years chose claims on the Columbia, along the Cowlitz or in the neigh- borhood of Olympia and Fort Nisqually, where those who had preceded them had decided to make their homes, and were already beginning to regard themselves as old settlers. The north bank of the Columbia, from Washougal, where the Simmons party had spent their first winter, to and beyond the mouth of the Lewis River, was beginning to be fairly well peopled, though the settlements at no place extended very far back from the river. Both banks of the Cowlitz for a distance of ten miles north of the Columbia were fairly well taken up, and on the western side claims had been taken six or seven miles from the river. Still farther north John R. Jackson, the original settler, now had several neighbors, and there was another colony in the neighbor- hood of Warbassport, where most of the new arrivals landed from the batteaux and canoes by which they had come up from the Columbia, put their wagons together, reloaded them with their goods and families, yoked up their oxen once more and took the trail through the woods to the Sound. Some of these found places that suited them near the hospitable homes of Judge Ford and Joseph Borst on the Chehalis, or of that of George Wanch on the Skookum
* The other claims in this neighborhood were taken in the following order:
J. H. Whitcom, January 1853. J. Bullard, March 1853.
J. L. Brown, April 1853. Mark W. Bullard, April 1853. Almaran Smith, May 1853.
Hiram Paulding, Sept. 1853.
Charles Brady, October 1853.
J. R. Johnson, April 1853.
V. Riddell, May 1853.
G. W. Wilson, May 1853.
A. S. Laavitt, October 1853.
W. H. Cushing, January 1854.
LAFAYETTE BALCH.
This enterprising merchant, town-builder, mill- owner and mariner, came to the coast from Maine in 1850, and founded the town of Steilacoom. He was one of the most enterprising men in the territory during his time, and was as active in public as in private affairs. He was a member of the first legislature. He died in San Francisco, in 1862
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
hrngt.f.gibt neighborhood ni omel mont befordr hus adasmoment birs houwo
H moco Gote to quot oft helpHod biff ge&years chose Sts /rw ni ze ilds, mi ovito res zel Bly tontr alf the neigh- it-dewitt sdb to ad onne, asi HH, where those who their homes, and
as old settlers. ugal, where d bevond
seth bank of 5
moons party had spent the Ard-
the mwiith of the Lewis River, was beren
le bidy
wol peopled, though the settlements at no place extended Hit far hart Gom the river. Both banks of the Cowlitz for I duetoce of ten miles north of the Columbia were fairly - IWen up, and on the western side claims had been Hiro six or seven miles From the river. Still farther north John R. Jackson, the wriginal settler, now had several neighbors, and there was another colony in the weighbor- hood of Warbassport, where most of the new arovale landed frum the hatteaux and cannes by which they had emme up from the Columbia, por alreir wagons together, reloaded them with their goods and families, yoked up their oxen once more and took the ttwil through the woods to the Sound. Some of these found places that suited them near the hospitable homes of Judge Ford and Joseph Forst on the Chehalis, or of that of Geny Wwwh wo wo Sinokum
. The other claims in this in the following
0. Whitcom January 125x L Wwwww. April 1853. Bullard, April 1853. op Smith, May 1853 Y'allling, S.pt. 1853. y.October 1853.
J & March 1853. TR Jecon, April 1853. V Anlamll May 1853.
G W. Wilson, May 1853
A. S. Laavitt, October 18++
W. H. Cushing, January 1:54.
26
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
Chuck, though most kept on to Olympia, which was the destination for which all set out from Portland. Arrived there they found that an animated rivalry had sprung up between this, the earliest settlement in the territory, and the newer town of Steilacoom, where the enterprising Balch, · shipowner, merchant and general State-building sort of man in every way, had platted a town, and in the intervals between his trips to San Francisco and other points along the coast, in command of one or the other of his ships, the George Emery or the Demaris Cove, was playing the part of real estate dealer with his accustomed activity. Soon after he had chosen his claim, in January 1851, and deter- mined to start a town of his own, to be called Port Steila- coom, John B. Chapman, a lawyer from Indiana, who had first tried to start a city on Gray's Harbor, arrived accom- panied by his son John M. Chapman, and the two had taken claims adjoining that of Balch. The elder Chapman appears to have been a real estate boomer of the modern kind. He immediately laid out a town on the claim of his son, and named it Steilacoom City. The competition between the two townsite owners for the patronage of the arriving settlers became sharp, and grew sharper as time passed. The rival towns grew rapidly and soon became to all appear- ances one, as they in effect were. From rivaling each other they in time began to be the rival of Olympia. As many buildings were going up there, as many people were seen in its streets, as much business was done by its merchants, and as many ships were seen in its harbor, and at the session of the first territorial legislature, in the winter of 1853-4, it gave the older town a sharp race in the contest for the capital.
Even at this early day a few bold spirits had ventured to make claims in eastern Washington. In October 1852
134 RISE AND PROGRESS OF AN AMERICAN STATE
Lewis Dawney had made a location not far from Whit- man's station at Waiilatpu, and in the September following Narcisse Raymond took a neighboring claim. Still earlier than either of these Lewis Raboin had settled on the Tucan- non, near the eastern boundary of Columbia County. In 1853 Stevens found about twenty-five old Hudson's Bay employees living with their Indian wives near the old fort, and Brooke, Bumford and Noble had an extensive cattle ranch on the Walla Walla. In September 1855 Ransom Clark, a native of Maine, who had come to Oregon with Fremont in 1843, and settled in Yamhill County, chose a claim near those of Dawney and Raymond. The Indian war was then beginning and he was ordered to leave, and did not return until the fall of 1858. He died in Portland a year later at the age of forty-nine.
CHAPTER XXXIX. PROGRESS OF EVENTS.
.
C ONGRESS created the collection district of Puget Sound by an act approved February 14, 1851, by which the headquarters of the district were fixed at Olympia. In May President Fillmore appointed Simpson P. Moses collector of the new district, and General William W. Miller of Illinois surveyor at the port of Nisqually. General Miller came overland to the territory, arriving before the collector, who came by way of Nicaragua. He reached San Francisco in September, and came north early in November in the George Emery, arriv- ing in the neighborhood of Port Townsend November 10th, where he took the oath of office before Henry C. Wilson, a justice of the peace for Lewis County, and continued his journey to Olympia.
Before he arrived the report had reached the Sound that gold had been discovered on Queen Charlotte's Island. It had also reached Portland and the Exact, with her com- pany of goldhunters, and most of the founders of Seattle, was already on her way up from the Columbia. The news had been carried to Olympia by the captain of the sloop Georgianna, who had recently crossed from Australia to Victoria, and had learned it at the latter place. He at once advertised for passengers, and was so successful that he sailed north with a party of twenty-two, in time to meet the George Emery, with the new collector and his party on board, near Cape Flattery. The ubiquitous Balch was fortunately in the same neighborhood, in command of his Demaris Cove, and after visiting both the Emery and the Georgianna, he promised the goldhunters to follow them as soon as he could make arrangements for the purpose.
The Georgianna was blown ashore and wrecked on the east side of Queen Charlotte's Island soon after her arrival,
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
and all her passengers, together with her officers and crew, were immediately made prisoners by the warlike Haidah Indians, who inhabited that neighborhood. They were stripped of their blankets and most of their clothing, and the ship was looted. The weather was cold and rainy and the prisoners suffered terribly, their captors giving them but little to eat, and compelling them to provide wood and water for their own camp, and perform such other slavish services as their cruel fancy suggested. They would doubt- less have murdered them outright, but for the hope that they might be ransomed by their friends. This hope the captives managed to encourage, so far as they could make themselves understood by signs.
For eighteen days the condition of these captives was most miserable indeed. They were housed in a building about seventy by forty feet in size and twelve feet high, built of slabs split from cedar trees, and inhabited also by ten Indian families of five to eight persons each, together with their dogs and their inseparable accompaniment of fleas. This building furnished them only indifferent protection from the wind and the rain. They were always hungry and, as most of their clothing had been taken away from them, they were never warm. Their only hope of rescue was that Balch might follow them, as he had promised, or that they might get word to the Hudson's Bay post at Fort Simpson, which they knew was a long distance northward.
They importuned the Indians to send them, or some of them, to this fort, in order that they might procure means to ransom themselves, but, although their captors manifested some inclination to do this, the weather continued stormy and the water along the unprotected shore so rough that they could not be prevailed upon to attempt the journey.
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
Finally on December 6th they provided a canoe with seven paddlers, and Samuel D. Howe, accompanied by McEwen, the mate of the wrecked sloop, one sailor and the Kanaka cook, started on their perilous trip. They were five days in reaching the fort, and were not received there with the welcome they had hoped for. Captain McNeil, who had commanded the Beaver when Wilkes was at Nisqually, was in charge, and although he provided them with food and clothing, he seemed in no hurry to send for their suffer- ing companions. He promised to send, but made no seeming attempt to do so. The Indians in the neighborhood of the fort were threatening to make war on the Haidahs, and he seemed to be more anxious for his own safety than to relieve those who were in more imminent danger, although they were people of his own kind. Four weeks elapsed before he was ready to send to their relief, and meantime he required his visitors to stand guard at night in compen- sation for the relief already furnished them.
Fortunately for these wretched captives, Captain Balch sailed for the island as he had promised to do. He learned of the wreck but was unable to render the sufferers any assistance, and returned immediately to Olympia, where he appealed to Collector Moses to take prompt and effective measures for their rescue. There was no revenue cutter, or other government vessel then in the Sound. The collec- tor was without authority to incur any expense for an under- taking of this kind. He went to Fort Steilacoom, where he conferred with Captain Hill, and at Nisqually he for- tunately found John Work, the old-time factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had been in command at Fort Simpson for several years, and knew the Indians in that locality well. He thought it probable that the captives
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
would not be able to prevail on the Indians to take them to the fort at that season, when the weather was so stormy and the water so rough. He did not think the fort could send them any assistance. If they were to be rescued at all it must be done by assistance sent from the Sound.
The collector accordingly chartered the Demaris Cove and sent her north in command of Balch himself. Lieu- tenant Dement, with a corporal and five men, was also sent along, and he was given a letter of credit to enable him to purchase blankets and whatever else might be needed, at Fort Simpson, to procure the release of the prisoners. This relief party sailed on December 9th and returned to Olympia January 31st, having rescued the entire party .*
Collector Moses did not receive the commendation he was perhaps entitled to expect for doing thus promptly and without authority what Congress would undoubtedly
* The ransom was arranged without much difficulty, except in the case of one member of the party who, as the story is told by Colonel E. J. Allen, had lived for a considerable time in the Bowery in New York. He could sing and dance and do many other things for which the Bowery boys of that day were noted, and early in the captivity of the party had done so much to entertain the Indians that they had treated him with more consideration than any of the others, and some of his companions believed that they were all treated more leniently than they otherwise would have been, on his account. But his abilities as an entertainer were so much appreciated that he finally began to wish he had never exhibited them, for the Indians kept him singing and dancing during most of the day and a large part of the night. To add to his miseries a very ancient squaw adopted him as her son, and became so assiduous in her attentions to him that she insisted in masticating his food before she permitted him to swallow it. All the Indians wished to have him exempted from the general ransom, and the old squaw was particularly unwilling to part with him. For a long time after his return his com- panions in captivity and others used to remind him of the devotion of this venerable admirer, particularly when they thought it would be most annoying. Naturally the reminder was never very agreeable, and his invariable and only response to it was, "D-n her." E. J. Allen MS.
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have authorized him to do if it could have been consulted. The discipline of official routine in those days was thought to call for reproof rather than compliment, or compensation, and the secretary of the treasury accordingly wrote him that "the department does not, nor has it the power to recognize an act by which you constituted yourself the representative of the government of the United States, in such an emergency; and whatever may have been the motives which prompted the formation of such a military expedition, it cannot be sanctioned by the payment of the expense referred to in your letter."
By this ruling of the secretary the collector was left to pay the entire cost which had been incurred in the rescue of these unfortunate castaways. But the matter was so left only until Congress could be informed as to the facts in the case. Balch was a member of the first territorial council, in the winter of 1853-54, and Samuel D. Howe, the member of the rescued party who had made the trip of a hundred and sixty miles in an open canoe, through a wintry sea, to Fort Simpson, was a member of the lower house. An earnest memorial was, upon their representations, prepared and sent to Congress, praying that the collector might be reimbursed for the expense he had incurred, and on the 4th of August following $15,000, "or so much thereof as might be necessary," was appropriated for the purpose.
The settlers on the north bank of the Columbia near its mouth, and on the shores of Shoalwater Bay, appear to have been the first to feel the need of a county organization of their own. Pacific County was accordingly organized for their accommodation by act of the Oregon legislature of February 4, 1851. Previous to that time all the settlers north of the river had got along very well with such county government
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
as Clarke and Lewis counties furnished them. This govern- ment was not very thoroughly organized, but it served for the time being, and was not oppressively expensive. For a time, as we have already seen, John R. Jackson was sheriff and assessor and collector for both counties, and a memorandum in Dr. Tolmie's carefully kept Journal of Occurrences indicates that his custom was to assess and collect at a single visit, thereby limiting the cost of traveling expenses to a minimum, and making bookkeeping almost unnecessary. But things soon began to be done in a more elaborate and systematic and expensive manner. A report by Richard White, clerk of the board for Lewis County for the period between July 7, 1851, and July 5, 1852,* shows that there was received from all sources during that time $2,135.15, and expended $2,335.35, so that the settlers even thus early were beginning to be acquainted with deficits and public debts.
The boundaries of Pacific County, as defined in the act creating it, began at Cape Disappointment and extended north along the coast for twenty-five miles, thence east thirty miles, and then south to the river. With Clatsop County south of the river it formed a representative district, and this district together with the one composed of Lewis and Clarke counties was entitled to one member of the council.
On January 12, 1852, Thurston County was organized. Its boundary began on the shore of the Pacific, at the north line of Pacific County, ran thence east to the top of the Cascades, and included all of the territory north of that line. Olympia was fixed as the county seat. As the act creating it was first drawn, the new county was to be named
* The "Columbian," Sept. 18, 1852.
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
Simmons, for its earliest settler, but Delegate Thurston had died on his way home from Washington early in the pre- ceding year, and the people of the territory had not yet learned of the things he had done, while the donation act was pending, that they would try with some humiliation to undo in succeeding years, and the new county was named in his honor, instead of that of the man who was best entitled to claim it.
In the succeeding winter Colonel Ebey was the only representative from the whole region north of the Columbia in the Oregon legislature, and he distinguished himself by his activity. Among other things he secured the creation of four new counties out of the territory so recently assigned to Thurston County. Two of these were named for the recently elected president and vice-president, Franklin Pierce and William R. King, who were not yet inaugurated; the other two were Island and Jefferson. The boundaries of Pierce County were fixed approximately as they still remain. King County included all the territory north of Pierce and Thurston, from the ocean to the summit of the Cascades, its northern boundary being a line drawn due east and west through Pilot Cove, on the west side of Admiralty Inlet, where the pilot Wilkes had sent to Fort Nisqually for had found him. Jefferson County included all of the peninsula west of the inlet north of that line, and Island all on the east side north of the same line, including all the islands which now compose both Island and San Juan counties. The county seat of Pierce was fixed at Steila- coom, on the donation claim of John M. Chapman, that of King on the donation claim of Dr. Maynard, that of Island on the claim of Dr. R. H. Lansdale at Coveland, and that of Jefferson on the claim of A. A. Plummer at Port Townsend.
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
The first post offices north of the Columbia were estab- lished at "Vancouver, Vancouver County," and "Nisqually, Lewis County," on January 8, 1850. Moses H. Kellogg was named as postmaster at the former, and Michael T. Simmons at the latter. The name of the Vancouver office was subsequently changed to Vancouver, Clarke County, and then to Columbia City, Clarke County, and finally to Vancouver again, the last named change being made on December 10, 1855. R. H. Lansdale succeeded Moses Kellogg as postmaster on December 12, 1850. Henry C. Morse was his successor, being appointed on June 16, 1854. The "Nisqually" office was changed to Olympia on August 28, 1850. Simmons served as postmaster until May 26, 1853, when Andrew W. Moon was appointed. A post office was established at Port Townsend on September 28, 1852, and F. W. Pettygrove was named as postmaster. A few days later, on October 12th, an office was established at Seattle and Arthur A. Denny was appointed postmaster. The next office in the territory appears to have been established at Whatcom on March 19, 1857, when Russel V. Peabody was made postmaster.
Mail was received at these offices, for several years, very irregularly and at long intervals, and there was a good deal of complaint among the settlers in consequence. But it was a long way, as they all well knew, from the Eastern States, from which most of their letters came, and arrange- ments for their mails were at that time established with some difficulty.
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