USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. III > Part 15
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more promptly and liberally sustained by his company and his government, but he proved himself equal to his oppor- tunity, on every occasion.
During the trying times of the Indian war, when he was frequently under suspicion, and probably unjustly so, and his position was often rendered difficult, and sometimes even dangerous, because of this suspicion, Dr. Tolmie bore him- self with calmness and courage, and so avoided or escaped dangers which under a less tactful management might have led to disaster.
An incident, not heretofore mentioned, occurred in the fall of 1851, and had occasioned a good deal of comment among the settlers who must have looked upon it as furnish- ing evidence that the Hudson's Bay Company was not respecting the authority of the United States. On Novem- ber 10th, only a few days after Collector Moses had arrived and established the headquarters of the new collection district at Olympia, the steamer Beaver, with the brigantine Mary Dare, which also belonged to the Company, in tow, appeared in Budd's Inlet, and dropped anchor about two miles from the town, which was as near as Captain Stuart, of the Beaver, probably felt safe in going. Both vessels were immediately boarded by Deputy Collector Elwood Evans, accompanied by Colonel Ebey and A. J. Simmons, inspectors, one of whom was put in charge of each vessel. The vessels were seized for violating the revenue laws.
The Beaver reported in ballast, although she had no ballast apparently except some coal, but she did have on board, as the inspector reported, about $500 worth of trading goods, such as she was accustomed to use in trade with the Indians along the coast. The Mary Dare had the usual annual supply of goods for Fort Nisqually. Both
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vessels had anchored off the fort for fifteen hours, before coming to Olympia, as the inspector reported, and six passengers, with their baggage, had been landed there with- out a permit. During all the time boats had passed freely between both vessels and the shore. A package of sugar weighing only 230 pounds was found on the brigantine, which was a flagrant "violation of section 103 of the act of Congress, approved March 3, 1799," which provided that refined sugar, in packages weighing less than 600 pounds, should not be brought into any port under penalty of for- feiture of both the sugar and vessel.
The offense charged was not a grievous one, in degree at least, but it was perhaps wise to apprise the Company that the law was to be strictly enforced, now that the machinery for enforcing it had been created and put in order. The Beaver was constantly engaged in trade along the coast as far north as the Russian territory. She was a small vessel and could stop almost anywhere along shore, as she did, to trade with the natives. Her trade was not such as is usually carried on by ships, but was strictly of a retail character. She might have been careful about the boundary line, and not to trade south of it, especially since the seizure of the Cadborough nearly two years before, but there was no certainty that she had been so. There was little to pre- vent, or even to make it dangerous for her to trade at most places along the shore of the Sound on either side, when far enough away from the few settlements to escape observa- tion. She was now to learn that she could not do so in future with impunity.
In making the seizure the new collector had strictly fol- lowed the instructions of the treasury department, and although the offense was scarcely more than a purely
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technical one, it was necessary that the ships should have their day in court. A special term of the district court, for the third district of Oregon, was accordingly convened at Olympia on January 20, 1852, Justice Strong presiding. This was the first session of court held at Olympia, and only one other was held there while it was a part of Oregon. David Logan and Simon B. Mayre, of the Portland bar, had accompanied Judge Strong to Olympia, and in the trial of the causes, Logan acted as district attorney, while Mayre appeared as counsel for the Company. Quincy A. Brooks was clerk of the court and A. M. Poe United States marshal.
On the day following libels were filed against both vessels, the $500 worth of goods on the Beaver, and the package of sugar on the Mary Dare, and the usual process was asked for. The court allowed a warrant to issue for the arrest of Captain Stuart, holding that for violations of the revenue law by the master of a vessel, the master was liable to punish- ment by fine and imprisonment, but the vessel could not be held liable for his act. That night Captain Stuart quietly disappeared, going by canoe to Fort Nisqually, and thence by such conveyance as he found to Victoria, whence he took the precaution not again to return. No answer was made to the charges against the Mary Dare and her cargo, except that Dr. Tolmie gave notice in open court that he had made a petition to the secretary of the treasury to remit the forfeiture. The court then proceeded to take proof, which was certified to the treasury department, with the petition accompanying. The record of these proceedings is as follows: "Trading goods not upon any manifest, to the value of $500, were brought into the district from a foreign port, were seized upon the vessel thus importing them. The court holding the vessel was not liable for such
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acts of the master, discharged her, and the master fled the jurisdiction of the court. The sugar supplied Mary Dare is bonded for $13,000, to await the action of the secretary of the treasury."
Thereupon, on the 24th day of January, the court adjourned sine die. That day Dr. Tolmie paid the duties on the cargo of the Mary Dare, and she was towed out of the barbor by the Beaver. At the succeeding term, held in April 1853, the case of the United States vs. Charles E. Stuart, captain of the Beaver, was, on motion of the district attorney, stricken from the docket. The forfeiture in the matter of the Mary Dare was remitted by the secretary of the treasury, and so the matter ended.
And so, now, for a period of nearly forty years, from the time of the betrayal of Mr. Astor's interests into the hands of the old Northwest Company, the Company and its old- time competitor, of which it subsequently became a part, under the name and style of Hudson's Bay Company, as it was most commonly called, having ruled in the country with absolute authority for many years, having and some- times exercising the power of life and death, and being vested with authority to make war or peace with any country not Christian, had now come upon times where conditions were so completely changed that it was to be henceforth subject to another power, which was to hold it in all things to strict accountability.
CHAPTER XLI. THE TERRITORY ORGANIZED.
T HE SETTLERS north of the Columbia had scarcely begun to be accustomed to the territorial government of Oregon, before they began to think of having one of their own. It was well that they determined to make application for it thus early, for if they had delayed matters, even for a few months, they might have been compelled to wait for many years.
A territorial government had been granted to Oregon in 1848, at the end of a long and bitter controversy. The slavery question then obtruded itself into every national measure of importance, and perverted and distorted all our political affairs. It was naturally inseparable from all things pertaining to the unorganized territory of the country. The admission of Texas had greatly increased and intensi- fied public interest in it, and now that Texas was safely in the Union, Oregon was next to rouse the rancorous discus- sion.
In communicating the boundary treaty of 1846 to Congress, President Polk had taken occasion to suggest that a terri- torial government would soon be required for the vast region which had been so long in dispute, but to which our title was now confirmed. In response to this suggestion the House passed a bill for such a government, but it failed in the Senate for want of time. In his next annual message, in December of that year, the president had renewed his recommendation. The House again took prompt and favor- able action, but the Senate rejected the bill. At the opening of the next session the president once more renewed his recommendation, and the Senate proceeded reluctantly to consider the matter, but it was not until Special Messenger Joe Meek had arrived with news of the Whitman massacre, and bearing the urgent appeal of the provisional government
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for assistance, that consideration of it was begun in earnest. The president communicated the news he had received, in a special message addressed to both houses, on May 29th, in which he said: "The facts set forth in the accom- panying memorial and papers, show that the dangers to which our fellow citizens are exposed are so imminent, that I deem it to be my duty to again impress on Congress the strong claim which the inhabitants of that distant country have to the benefit of our laws and the protection of our government." The message closed with an urgent appeal for prompt action, so that the relief so urgently needed might be sent forward "before the severity of the winter will inter- pose obstacles in crossing the Rocky Mountains."
But notwithstanding his appeal, and the evident urgency of the case, the bill was not finally passed and approved until August 14th. The Mexican war had just ended, though news of that fact was not received in Washington until some days after the president's message was sent to Congress. The Wilmot proviso, which involved the very essence of the slavery issue, had been proposed as an amendment to one of the earlier measures for its support, and reoffered and debated in connection with many other measures during its continuance. Mr. Lincoln, who was then serving his only term in Congress, said afterwards that he "supposed he had voted for it at least fifty times."
While there was no prospect that slaves would ever be held in Oregon, or that slaveowners would ever even wish to take them there; while the laws already existing there prohibited slavery, this was not enough for the friends of freedom. They insisted that the territorial bill should contain a provision that "neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the
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party shall have been duly convicted, shall ever exist in the territory," and to this the advocates of slavery would not consent. The bill was debated at great length, and with much bitterness, at times almost with fierceness. All the great senators of the time took part in it-Webster and Calhoun, Douglas of Illinois, Clayton of Delaware, Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, Jefferson Davis and Foote of Missis- sippi, Berrien of Georgia, John P. Hale of New Hamp- shire, Phelps of Vermont, Dickinson of New York, Under- wood of Kentucky, Bright of Indiana and Butler of South Carolina, as well as many others. Twice while the bill was under consideration the Senate sat through the whole night, and once far into Sunday morning. One of the most eloquent, vehement and impassioned speeches of the debate was by Thomas Corwin of Ohio. Both the friends and enemies of slavery listened to it with bated breath and pale lips, and at its close some of the former openly said that a few more such speeches would dissolve the Union.
But all this passion and excitement was allayed, and apparently ended, by the compromises of 1850. It was to break out again in 1854, following the introduction of the famous Kansas-Nebraska bill, and was to rage with ever in- creasing fierceness and bitterness, until the language which it had been proposed to write into the Oregon bill only, should be made a part of the Constitution of the nation, at a cost of a million of lives, and more than a thousand millions in money. But meantime, in 1853, Washington became a territory.
The first suggestion that the settlers north of the Columbia should take steps to secure a territorial government, separate from that of Oregon, seems to have been made by John B. Chapman at the Fourth of July celebration held at Olympia
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in 1851, of which so little is now remembered. It probably did not receive much or very serious attention at the time. There was no newspaper north of the river to make note of it, or keep it in the public mind. The settlers were not feeling the need of government very seriously, nor had they yet much fault to find with that which the authorities at Oregon City were supposed to be furnishing them, although they rarely realized that it was furnishing any.
But in time they began to find reason enough. One of the earliest found was of a very trivial nature. When the time for holding the regular term of court in October 1851 arrived, the jurors were summoned to meet at Jackson's place on the Cowlitz, instead of at Judge Ford's place on the Chehalis, where it had been supposed court would be held. This would take the jurors living in the northern part of the district some fifteen or twenty miles farther from home than they expected, and they were not pleased with the prospect. They also took exception to the form of the summons, which "commanded" them "to appear, and fail not under penalty," in the usual form. This they resented. They were not serfs, they said, to be commanded by any- body, and some of them threatened to disregard the summons entirely, while others thought that nothing less than impeach- ment would be a proper rebuke to a judge who had presumed so far upon the rights and privileges of free American citizens. But the matter seems to have ended, so far as jurors and citizens were concerned, with these expressions of their sovereign displeasure.
As time passed other and more serious grievances began to be complained of. The territorial officers were blamed for not paying as much attention to the wants of settlers north of the Columbia as they thought they were entitled
A FAMOUS PIONEER HOME.
The house of John R. Jackson at Highlands in Lewis County. It was long remembered with affection by most of the early settlers. The first court for the trial of civil cases, held in the territory, was convened there. An early convention to memorialize Congress to divide the territory was also held there.
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ЯМОН ЯЗАКОН ЗУОМАНА
aivod ni abreidgiH ts noedos [remitoil torsabod ItTprobably
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Aa vime patent motor and more serio grievances began To be complained of The territorial officers were blamed for not paying al muro wwention to the wants of settlers worth of the Colorolos a drey thought they were entitled
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to. The surveyor general did nothing for them; not a section of land had been surveyed north of the river. They were put to no end of trouble to reach his office, which was in Oregon City, to file notifications of their claims. The superintendent of Indian affairs for the territory had sent a special deputy, Edmund A. Starling, to the north side of the river, but he had done nothing but make a census of the Indians, from such information as he could gather from their chiefs, and it was of doubtful value. They got no assistance from any source to open the roads which were so much desired and so sadly needed. Their mail service was not improved, and, although the territorial authorities were in no way responsible for this, a feeling seems to have prevailed that they might help to get them made better than they were if they were inclined to do so.
Most of all, the settlers north of the river felt that they were not allowed a fair share of representation in the terri- torial legislature. Together with Clatsop County, south of the river, they had but one member of the Council, and two in the lower house. The population of the territory was now scattered over a very wide, or more exactly over a very long, area, extending from the Umpqua on the south, along the valley of the Willamette and Cowlitz, and thence to Puget Sound, and Whidby Island and Port Townsend on the north, with thriving settlements on both sides of the Columbia near its mouth. The portion south of the river had been settled much earlier than that on the north side, and was undoubtedly entitled to the larger representation, and this the settlers on the north side realized, and they would doubtless have been content with things as they were for some time longer, had not a curious circumstance deprived them for one whole session of any representation at all,
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except by the member from Clatsop and Pacific counties, who happened that year to reside on the south side of the river.
Just before its adjournment in February 1851, the legis- lature had passed an act removing the capital of the terri- tory from Oregon City to the new town of Salem, a few miles further up the Willamette. It also provided for the location of a penitentiary at Portland, for the location of the uni- versity at Marysville, now Corvalis, and for the sale of the university lands. It had been vigorously opposed, and long debated, but was finally passed near the close of the session. Governor Gaines was opposed to it, and asked the United States district attorney for an opinion in regard to its validity. He pronounced it invalid because the organic act creating the territory provided that "every law shall embrace but one subject, and that shall be expressed in its title." During the summer the attorney general of the United States expressed a similar opinion, the matter having been referred to him by the president. Still later two of the three judges of the supreme court of the territory united in an opinion to the same effect. The third judge dissented.
Notwithstanding these adverse opinions, when the time appointed for the next meeting of the legislature arrived, a majority of its members repaired to Salem, organized both houses and proceeded to business. The dissenting judge also went there to hold a term of court, but the other two met as before at Oregon City. There also appeared Colum- bia Lancaster, the sole member of the Council, and Daniel F. Brownfield, the sole representative from the north side of the river, and three other members of the lower house, and proceeded to organize a minority legislature, so far as such a body could be organized. Judge Lancaster being
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the only member of the Council present, easily elected him- self president of that body, and the four members of the House elected Mr. Matlock speaker pro tem. Then for seventeen days, Sundays excepted, these two minority houses gravely met and as gravely adjourned for want of quorum. Then the two presiding officers as gravely adopted a memorial to Congress, to which they affixed their official signatures, and adjourned without day.
This memorial opened with a glowing and high-sounding preamble, reciting among other things how "the Columbia River, like the principles of civil and religious liberty," had burst through the Cascades and coast ranges and "shattered into fragments the basaltic formation," and closed with a prayer that the Territorial Council might be increased from nine to fifteen, and that various other things might be done that would be appreciated by the people of Oregon, last but not least of which was that $10,000 might be appropriated to purchase a library for the State university.
This minority legislature was then, and long after, spoken of as the "one-horse council," and Judge Lancaster, who was by most people supposed to have been the author of that eloquent memorial, was forever afterwards known as "old Basaltic Formation," an evidence that a little nonsense now and then is relished by pioneers as well as others.
Before the time arrived for the next meeting of the legis- lature Judge Lancaster resigned his place, and Governor Gaines, in November 1852, called a special election to choose his successor. His proclamation was at first published only in the Portland papers, from which the" Columbian" copied it in its issue of November 20th, just as the convention at Monticello was about to assemble. In doing so it sharply criticised the governor for not sending it for publication in
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the part of the territory where the people lived who were alone interested in what was to be done, and pronounced this another evidence of the disregard of the rights and interests of those living in the northern part of the territory, by the territorial officials. "They do not let a dime of any government appropriation be spent north of the Columbia," it said, and for the time there seemed to be sufficient cause for the assertion.
The resignation, or at least the proclamation calling an election, came so late that there was not time to hold the election and get returns from the scattered communities interested, in time for the member chosen to be present at the session of 1852-53. Nevertheless such preparation as was possible was made and the election held. A letter signed "Many Friends," was published in the "Columbian," proposing A. A. Denny as a candidate for the place, and another signed "Many Voters" suggested D. R. Bigelow. Mr. Bigelow declined to run, and Seth Catlin became a candidate. When the returns were all in Mr. Catlin was found to have been elected, but the fact was not ascertained in time to enable him to be of any service, and Colonel Ebey, who was then in the lower house, was left to represent northern Oregon alone at that session.
Thus for two successive sessions the settlers in northern Oregon were deprived of the services of nearly all of the few representatives allotted to them, and it is not surprising that they should feel that their interests were neglected, or that they should early begin to agitate for a legislature, all of which should be their own. Colonel John B. Chapman claimed to have first suggested the name Columbia for the new territory, in his speech at that first Fourth of July celebration in Olympia, but Elwood Evans, who knew him
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well, thinks his pretentions to that distinction were not materially strengthened by that fact. But however that may be, the name Columbia was, from the beginning, unani- mously accepted as most appropriate, and every suggestion that action should be taken for hastening the creation of the new territory had coupled with it the name Columbia.
At the second celebration in Olympia, on July 4, 1852, a much larger number of settlers were present, and after the regular exercises had been concluded an informal meeting was held, at which the separation question was discussed with some enthusiasm. Before the meeting adjourned resolutions were adopted recommending that a general convention be held at Cowlitz Landing on August 29th. The agitation of the matter thus started spread rapidly and meetings were held in several of the settlements at which separation was considered with approval. One of these meetings, held at the house of John R. Jackson, was attended by settlers from Olympia and other points equally distant. A committee to arrange for the August conven- tion was appointed, and also a committee on correspondence, charged with the duty of securing as large an attendance as possible.
On the appointed day twenty-six delegates assembled at Cowlitz, all of whom were from points in Lewis and Thurston counties. The settlers in Clarke and Pacific counties, living for the most part along the river, were nearer the territorial capital, and therefore were not so much interested in separation. Their nonattendance was regretted but it was easily understood.
The twenty-six delegates proceeded to prepare a memorial to Congress asking for the division of the territory; also for a military road from some point on the Sound to Walla
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Walla, and another from the Sound to the Columbian River. They also indicated the boundaries of twelve counties of which the new territory would consist, and asked that the benefits of the donation law might be extended to it when created. They then adjourned to meet again in the follow- ing May, when, if the prayer of their memorial was not granted, they proposed to proceed to the preparation of a constitution, after the manner of California, and ask for admission as a State. As the territory did not then contain more than twenty-five hundred or three thousand inhabi- tants, the action might by some be considered a little pre- sumptuous .*
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