USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. IV > Part 13
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The commissioner immediately began an investigation as to what had occurred, and, on the affidavits of several citizens that the guns of the Shubrick had actually been shotted and turned on the town, with intent to kill, issued warrants for
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the arrest of both the collector and her commander. Both were then known to be on board the cutter, and when her signal lights appeared outside the harbor soon after dark, the marshal was sent to serve them, and place both officers under arrest. But this was not easily done. The cutter . did not enter the harbor, but sent the mail on shore in one of her boats, the return of which she awaited at a distance of a mile or more from shore. Seeing what the intention was, the marshal summoned a posse, and put off in a boat procured for the purpose, to secure his prisoners. But he was not successful. He was not allowed to see the collector at all, and on reading the warrant to Lieutenant Wilson, that officer refused to recognize or obey it in any way. He was obliged to leave the ship empty-handed.
On reporting this to the commissioner, he was directed to return again to the cutter, and remain on board unless forcibly ejected. His second trip, made in pursuance of this order, was by one of the boats belonging to the cutter Joe Lane, then lying in the harbor, but this time he was not allowed to board the Shubrick, or even to come near her, as her paddle wheels were kept sufficiently in motion to make any near approach impossible.
Soon afterward the Shubrick steamed away to Victoria, and two days later returned, very early in the morning, when she took the Joe Lane in tow and bore her away to the new port of entry at Cherburg. The next the governor and his party heard of her, she was passing out to the Pacific, as they supposed to San Francisco.
The collector and his confederate, the commander of the Shubrick, were now declared to be fugitives from justice. Major Patten reported to Adjutant-General Drum, at San Francisco, that the district was now without naval protection,
PORT TOWNSEND IN 1870. From a print in Harper's Magazine.
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the med of ary he's isHat fate of commander. Both - Hồn S board the cutter, and when her moule the harbor soon after dark,
wwwve them, and place both officers
the me hot easily done. The cutter 101Por thos, bo sent the mail on shore in one parte de son ofwhich she awaited at a distance of a mi or mos Gom show. Seciny what the intention marchal sinned a pome, and put off in a boat mmocared for the purpose, to secure nu prisoners. But he Was wor Uccessful. He was not allowed to see the collector At all. and on reading the warran wo Lieutenant Wilson, that officer refused to recognize or obey it in any way. He was bolto I to have the ship empty-handed
Or isportine Thù m de commissioner, he was directed Mater ape with comer, and wemain on board unless In -und trip made in pursuance of of the boat belonging to the cutter mo & the barber, but this time he was not MwBrick areren to come near her. er komt uhrciently in motion to
flie Shuailira& suamed away to Victoria, cod fess ler anumden early in the morning, when J sol de I Love i poe and Its her away to the new ma cos & Chechnya The more the governor and his were held at lon, yo me but to the Pacific, as
Pir collerme and los rodecase, the commander of the Shubrick, wece po w Me Gibitives from justice. Major Partem reported | ought General Drum, at San Uraneisco, that the day \www www without naval protection,
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the Joe Lane having been put out of commission, her officers placed on leave and most of her crew discharged. The district also seemed to be without a collector, for it seems to have been expected at the time that Smith would never return, but in this the people were mistaken.
During all these proceedings the people of Port Townsend had behaved with decorum. They were deeply interested, and much excited, but they made no unseemly demonstra- tions. But it now began to be intimated that if Smith and Wilson ever returned, they would be arrested by an armed posse, and Major Patten regarded the prospect of this so probable that he asked for instructions from headquarters as to what he should do if asked to send troops to enforce the requirements of the law. He was told that if any diffi- culty arose the civil authorities must settle it. A month later, September 12th, Patten reported that Smith and Wilson had arrived at Olympia, where they had submitted themselves to a legal investigation. Smith was afterwards indicted on four counts-for resisting a duly authorized officer; for embezzlement of public funds; for procuring false vouchers; and for assault on the people of Port Townsend.
From this time forward the people whom the collector had offended by his arrogant manner and arbitrary conduct made war upon him without ceasing. Among the officials of the territory who had been appointed by President Lin- coln were several who had known him personally. Among these were John J. McGilvra, the United States attorney, A. A. Denny, register of the land office, Governor Pickering and Secretary Turney, as well as Anson G. Henry, who would later be made surveyor-general. These did not fail to keep the president advised of what was going on. The mails were burdened with letters to the president, to
I
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Secretary Chase and other members of the cabinet, to members of Congress, and other people of influence, and delegations were sent to Washington to protest against Smith's continuance in office. That these letters produced some dis- turbance in the president's official family, we know, though the details of the controversy are not all recorded. But it is not difficult to guess how a peppery postmaster-general like Blair received notice of the interference of an appointee of another department with his mail-carrying contracts, or how a somewhat arbitrary person like Secretary Stanton would regard such a report as Lieutenant Merryman had for- warded.
The secretary of the treasury stood stoutly by his man, as his custom was, but finally the controversy became so annoying that President Lincoln could stand it no longer, and on May 8, 1863, he wrote Chase a personal letter in which he said: "My mind is made up to remove Victor Smith as collector of the customs at the Puget Sound district. Yet in doing this, I do not decide that the charges against him are true. I only decide that the degree of dissatisfac- tion with him there is too great for him to be retained. But I believe he is your personal acquaintance and friend, and if you desire it, I will try to find some other place for him."
Chase resented this removal of one of his appointees, and made it the excuse for tendering one of the several resigna- tions which he presented before he finally withdrew from office. Mr. Lincoln easily prevailed upon him to withdraw it, and on May 13th concluded a letter to him on another subject, with a request that he would send him "a commission for Lewis C. Gunn, as you recommended, for collector of customs at Puget Sound." Gunn was appointed, and Smith was subsequently returned to the Sound as a special agent of
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the treasury department, an office of really higher authority than that of collector.
Smith built a commodious building at Port Angeles which he leased to the government for the use of the customs service. It was situated on the bank of one of the streams which rise in the Olympics, and flow down through the foothills and townsite to the straits. This stream failed mysteriously in the summer of 1863, and later it was found that a landslide some distance back of the town had dammed it up, forming a great reservoir in the foothills, which, when the winter rains began, became a lake. On the night of December 16, 1863, the dam which the landslide had formed gave way, and the liberated waters rushed down through the town, in a flood as irresistable as that which years later destroyed the city of Johnstown in Pennsylvania. All the buildings in its path were swept away, including that used for the custom house. Smith's residence, which was close to it, was saved from instant destruction by a jam formed by floating trees and other debris, just above it, though it was flooded, and Mrs. Smith and her four children, together with another woman, saved themselves with the utmost difficulty. Smith was in Washington at the time, and Deputy-Collector J. M. Anderson, and Inspector William B. Goodell, who were standing near the custom house entrance when the wall of water struck it, had been swept away and drowned. While groping about in the darkness, and stand- ing waist deep in the water, in her efforts to find and save her children, Mrs. Smith found the body of a woman, under the water, and held down by a mass of dirt and logs which the flood had brought with it. This woman she managed to rescue, as well as to save her children, and no lives were lost save those of the custom house officers. Their bodies
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were found some distance below the wrecked custom house, and buried under four or five feet of dirt and driftwood.
The furniture, books, papers and other records of the custom house were swept away, and a considerable sum of money with them, but these were mostly recovered and after the flood had spent itself, as it did in a few hours, a new office was secured in another part of the town, and the custom house reestablished. There it remained until 1865, when it was returned to Port Townsend, much to the joy of its people.
Smith was one of the passengers lost on the ill-fated steamer Brother Jonathan in July 1865. Among the other passen- gers who were also lost were: Captain Chaddock formerly of the Joe Lane, and Anson G. Henry, then surveyor-general of the territory, both of whom had been among the collector's most active opponents in the numerous controversies which had characterized his career in the customs service.
There was a superabundance of single men among the early settlers, as has been the case in most new territories. So many young men, who had hoped to make homes for their wives before they married or sought them, had come west, that there were vastly more men than women of marriage- able age in Washington for a score of years or more in its early history. The discrepancy was a matter of frequent remark, and every family arriving, that numbered among its members a grown-up daughter or two, was given a special welcome.
Among the young men who came in the early '6os was Asa S. Mercer, who had only recently graduated from college. He was a brother of Judge Mercer, who was then living in Seattle, through whom he soon became acquainted with the managers of the new territorial university, and was
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employed by them as its first president. He taught its classes but one winter, and during that time it occurred to him that the inequality of the sexes on the western shore of the continent might be corrected if the situation could be fully explained to people on the eastern shore, where there were more women than men, and where the war was then making many widows and orphans. He consulted with some of his acquaintances about the advisability of making a trip east to try and organize a party of women to come to the Sound country, and received some encouragement. He went to Olympia to talk with members of the legislature and Governor Pickering, who like himself was from Illinois, about it, and the governor seemed interested, but explained that the territory had no funds that could be used for such a purpose. Mercer then set to work to raise funds by private subscription, and was so successful that during the following winter he went to Boston, New York and other eastern cities, where he found many people who received what he had to say with favor. Many women expressed a willingness to go west with his proposed party, but when the time to start arrived the hearts of many failed them, and he sailed from New York for Panama in March 1864, with a much smaller party than he had hoped for, but there were eleven marriageable women in it. Some of these were accompanied by their fathers and other members of their families, and nearly all paid their own way.
They arrived on the Sound in May, and were given a generous welcome. Every community in the western part of the territory had learned of their coming, and was anxious to secure some members of the party among its permanent residents. Mercer and his enterprise had been so much talked about during his absence, that he had come to be
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regarded as available political material, and on his arrival found that he had been nominated by King and Kitsap counties as their joint member of the Council. In due time he was elected and served through the session, ending in the last days of January 1865.
He was still resolved to try another venture at inducing women to come to the coast. He could carry back with him assurances from the members of his first party that they had been well treated on the voyage out, and agreeably received on their arrival. Many, perhaps most, of them could have testified, also, that they were already well and happily married, for all but two of their number did marry, and some of them found husbands who were well-to-do if not wealthy for that day. His plan was to call on President Lincoln, whom he personally knew, explain to him what he hoped to accomplish, and ask him to provide "a ship coaled and manned for the voyage to Seattle." As his purpose was to bring women who had been made widows or orphans by the war, to a new country, where they were sure to be wel- come, and almost equally sure to find happy homes, he felt confident of enlisting the president's sympathies. "Know- ing the goodness of his heart," Mr. Mercer says in a letter written a little later, "not a shadow of doubt existed in my mind as to the outcome."
But he arrived in New York too late to find Mr. Lincoln alive. On the very evening of the day of his arrival, he was assassinated. His main dependence was therefore gone, but he did not yet despair of success. He went to Massa- chusetts and had a talk with Governor Andrew, and was by him introduced to Edward Everett Hale and others who entered more or less heartily into his plans and gave him much assistance. Then he went to Washington, where he
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saw the president and many other officials, but did not suc- ceed in securing a ship. Then the newspapers denounced his undertaking, declaring that all men in the Puget Sound country were a debauched and profligate lot, and advised all self-respecting women not to go there-at least not with Mercer. These attacks discouraged many who had already made preparations for the journey, and Mercer found that at most he could not hope to start with a party of more than two hundred persons, and these must pay regular rates for their transportation to San Francisco. Finally, after many discouragements, his party took passage by the steamer Continental, which Ben. Holliday had recently purchased from the government.
The party as finally made up consisted largely of families, but of families in which the female members predominated. There were some women who were not accompanied by male relatives. Some had been schoolteachers, some had worked in mills, factories or families, and some had been employed in the government offices in Washington. All were of good character, and were a welcome addition to the population of the territory, as their predecessors had been.
They made the trip by way of the Strait of Magellan, very pleasantly, to San Francisco, where some of them were surprised to find people who had been requested by their friends in the East to meet them, waiting to rescue them in case they should by this time have found that they were not to be taken among respectable people. These and others urged them to remain in California, and told them most discouraging stories about the country northward, as a means of inducing them to do so. But few if any of them were led to change their destination, although their means of reaching it for a time seemed doubtful. Mercer's means
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were exhausted. He had but $3 left, and he spent $2.50 of that for a telegram to Governor Pickering, asking for money, and did not get it. He managed, however, to send his party northward by tens, twenties and forties, in lumber ships, and in due time they reached the Sound in safety.
Previous to their arrival an appeal had been made to the several towns to make arrangements for their reception, and it was answered as generously as those who made it could have hoped. The travelers were received into the homes of the settlers, and given as many attentions as they would have received among their own friends or acquaint- ances. Few if any of them ever had cause to regret the long journey they had made, or that they had undertaken it under such peculiar circumstances.
At the expiration of Flander's term as delegate, he was appointed governor of the territory, succeeding Marshal F. Moore, and he entered upon the discharge of his new duties in 1869. By this time the removals and appointments made by President Johnson, and the differences of opinion among Republicans in regard to the reconstruction acts, had com- pletely demoralized political parties in the territory, and given rise to much bitterness of feeling. Although General Grant had now become president, nothing had yet been done to improve the political situation in the territory. On the contrary, local and personal issues had begun to cause new dissensions, and the situation promised to be most embarrassing for the new governor, as indeed it proved to be.
Captain Christopher C. Hewitt, who had commanded the first company of volunteers raised in Seattle during the Indian war, had been appointed chief justice of the territory
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in 1861, succeeding Justice McFadden, who had been Lan- der's successor, for a term of two years. Although a fair lawyer, Hewitt was not popular among members of the bar. Possibly they did not like the means by which his advance- ment had come to him.
During the earlier years of his residence in the territory, when clients were few and fees small, he had not hesitated to accept any honorable employment, however humble, to gain a livelihood and avoid getting into debt, and had arranged with Meigs, who was then manager of the Port Madison Mill Company, to make ox yokes for his logging camps. The yokes were made with his own hands, and were so well and honestly made, that Meigs employed him as attorney for his company in a suit which was famous in its time, and was finally taken to the supreme court of the United States. With the aid of Hon. Joseph S. Smith, who was also employed in the case, Hewitt prepared a brief which commended itself so strongly to the attention of Chief Justice Taney, that he recommended Hewitt to Mr. Lincoln for appointment as chief justice of the territory .* He was appointed, but efforts to secure his removal began almost as soon as he had taken his seat on the bench. He successfully resisted these, and at the end of four years was able to secure a reappointment, and to retain his position till the close of his second term.
His opponents were not all lawyers. Members of the legislature, and other people more or less interested in politi- cal matters, took up the fight against him, and not being able to secure his removal, the legislature, in January 1868,
*Address by Judge C. H. Hanford at the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the separation of Washington Territory from Oregon, held. at Olympia, March 2, 1903.
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rearranged the judicial districts of the territory and assigned Hewitt to Stevens County, requiring him to live at Fort Colvile. Judge Wyche was given all the river counties from Walla Walla to Pacific, with Lewis, Thurston, Mason and Chehalis in addition, while C. B. Darwin, the newest appointee on the bench, was assigned all the counties in the Sound country. The absurdity of this arrangement was so easily apparent, that Congress refused to confirm it, and Hewitt was again triumphant.
Although Darwin, the new judge, had not been long in the territory, having been appointed to succeed Oliphant in 1867, he was already unpopular. He was fairly well learned in the law, and a linguist of some celebrity. It is said that when a prisoner of foreign birth, who had been convicted in his court, was asked if he had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon him, his attorney answered that his client did not speak English well and would require an interpreter, and the judge replied: "Let him use his own language; the court will understand him."
But in spite of his learning, Darwin was not popular. His moral character was not above reproach-at least not above suspicion, and as Hewitt's second term had now expired most of the opposition seemed to have been transferred to him. Early in President Grant's term, an entire new bench was appointed. B. F. Dennison became chief justice, and Orange Jacobs and James K. Kennedy associates, and two years later Judge Jacobs became chief justice, with Kennedy and Roger S. Greene as associates.
But there were other troubles than those which caused this opposition to members of the supreme court, to make dissension among members of the legislature of 1869. When they assembled in October, as they did under a new law
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changing the date of meeting, they found that the appropria- tion made by Congress for their salaries and expenses would not be available until December. Naturally, this was a most vexatious discovery. Several seats in the House were contested, and the determination of these contests led to new vexations. But the troubles in the House were as nothing compared to those of the Council. This body was still composed of only nine members, and two of the Republicans in it refused to act with their party, or with the Democrats, so that no party in it could be sure of passing any measure. The printing contract for the session was the cause of much bitterness. The amount of work to be done was unusually large, and the printer's profits would be increased in propor- tion. There was a triangular fight over this and other matters during the whole session. In addition to the intensely partisan spirit existing, there were long-standing personal feuds between some of the members, and altercations in the lobby and on the floor were frequent. One day the sergeant-at-arms had to interfere to prevent a rough-and- tumble fight, during the session, between one of the leading Democrats and an equally prominent Republican. Reso- lutions of censure were passed upon these combatants next day, but the matter was far from ending there.
For a long time preceding, the need for a codification of the laws of the territory had been urgent. Several governors had called attention to it in their messages, but one legisla- ture after another had neglected to do anything about it. The printed acts of the legislature, adopted at the fourteen sessions already held, existed only in pamphlet copies of the session laws. These the lawyers used when they had or could obtain them, but those for some years were now rare and very difficult to obtain. A few copies were offered
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at from $3 to $5 each. Some lawyers had only incomplete sets, and these they guarded with most jealous care. Even the territorial officers and members of the legislature had difficulty about getting and keeping them. But the preceding legislature had provided for a codification commission, and J. H. Lassater, Elwood Evans and B. F. Dennison had been appointed to do the work. Their report, chiefly the work of Mr. Evans, was presented to the legislature, and referred to a select committee, composed of the lawyers in both houses, for review, and for such amendments as should seem desirable. The committee reported from time to time. The changes it suggested were, for the most part, merely verbal, but to make them in legal form the acts in which they occurred were reenacted. This made it necessary, or at least permissible, to have them reprinted for the use of the legislature, and thus greatly to increase the work and profits of the public printer. To this the governor objected, and vetoed the amended measures in batches. His messages announcing these vetoes were very much alike, differing only in the enumeration of titles of the measures vetoed. The reasons given were always the same. The bills were simply reenact- ments of laws as they already stood on the statute books; the object of reenactment was simply to have them printed, as laws of the present session; their publication would cost the government a large sum without any corresponding benefit; possibly the territory would have the bill to pay. But whether the cost should be paid by the national or territorial government, the expenditure was unwarranted, especially in view of the hasty and imperfect manner in which the code, of which the bills were to be a part, had been acted upon, for the governor thought it doubtful whether one of them had been read in either house during the session.
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