History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 30

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134

USA > Washington > Benton County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 30
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 30
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 30

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There has been considerable discussion through the columns of the- "Ledger," from time to time, especially in the old settlers' stories, regarding: the execution of the Indian Chief Leschi. To throw additional light on the matter of Leschi's guilt, if not to settle it beyond question, Gen. A. V. Kautz yesterday gave a Ledger reporter a detailed account of his knowledge of the affair. As a preamble to General Kautz's narration, it may be said that he con- ducted the final campaign against Leschi and his followers, and after Leschi's. arrest had charge of him through both trials and until he was finally executed .. Said General Kautz:

"Leschi was the chief of the Nisquallies and the leader of the dissatisfied. Indians of that tribe, in the uprising of '55 and '56. When I came back to the Sound, after an absence of two years to southern Oregon, the war was half over .. This was in the latter part of February, '56. A day or two after my arrival at. Fort Steilacoom, we started out on a campaign against them. Our objective point was Muckleshoot Prairie, which is now an Indian reservation, between White and Cedar rivers. It was regarded as the heart of the country occupied by the hostiles. The troops separated at the Puyallup blockhouse near where Sumner is now. From there I marched on with that portion of the command which went direct to Muckleshoot Prairie. Colonel Casey, who was in command of the other detachment, went by the Lemon Prairie route 10 Muckleshoot. My- command reached the prairie about the last day of February. On that day I received a dispatch from Colonel Casey requesting me to send a detachment to the crossing of White River to meet him. On the next day, the 1st of March, I started out with a command of fifty men. When we arrived at the ford of White River the Indians appeared in our rear and threatened an attack. I at once sent a dispatch to Colonel Casey, telling him that the Indians had made their. appearance and that I would endeavor to hold the ford until he arrived. I made disposition of the men on a bar of the river, among some driftwood, to await the coming of the troops. The Indians worked their way around us on both sides. of the river, but were not able to make any impression on the troops lodged, as they were, behind logs and driftwood.

"At three o'clock in the afternoon, Captain Keys arrived at the ford with. about 100 men. We then moved against the Indians and they retreated. Later,. as we were marching to Muckleshoot Prairie, they gave us a volley from a bluff where they were stationed. They then disappeared and we went into camp. One man had been killed and nine men, including myself, wounded. This was. the last fight the regulars had with the hostiles. Soon after this they scattered and went off into the mountains and foothills. About the 1st of April I was sent out with fifty men into the foothills east of Steilacoom. We returned after an absence of two weeks with about thirty prisoners-men, women and children. We treated the captives kindly and sent some of them out after the rest of the hostiles. These brought all the other hostile Indians in except Leschi. He went over into the Yakima and Klickitat country and remained there until Fall.

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"Leschi had a wife who was around about the post at Fort Steilacoom and to whom he was very much attached. He came to see her, and while there made himself known to Doctor Tolmie of Fort Nisqually. The Doctor advised him to surrender himself, which he did. He was then arraigned by the civil authori- ties for the murder of Miller, Moses and others the year before, the Fall of '55. He was tried at Steilacoom, soon after his arrest, and the jury failed to agree. Subsequently he was tried again at Olympia and was there convicted and sentenced to be hung.

"I had Leschi in charge during all the time of his confinement. He was imprisoned in the guardhouse at Fort Steilacoom. I commanded the guard and took him up to Olympia, and was obliged to be present during the trial. So I was in a position to know all the facts and details of the case. He was con- victed principally on the testimony of A. B. Robinson, who testified that while coming toward Steilacoom from the Naches Pass he met Leschi and some of his people on the edge of Connell's Prairie. Leschi was friendly, and did not make any hostile demonstration. They separated after a short distance, so the testimony ran, Leschi going into the woods and Robinson and his party con- tinuing on the road. At a swamp, about one mile beyond their separation, Leschi and others suddenly arose from ambush and fired upon them.

"This statement could not have been true because the party traveled on the road and Leschi would have had to have traveled through the woods, besides making a detour to have reached the swamp before Robinson and his party, who were on horseback. Robinson claimed there was a shorter trail, which the Indians took, which there was to another point of the prairie, but not to the point where he averred Leschi fired on them. The shortest route was traveled by Robinson and his party, and Leschi could not possibly have arrived at the place mentioned before they did.

"Frank Clark was Leschi's counsel, and when I called his attention to this point he recognized the fact that Robinson's testimony was not correct, but it was too late to help Leschi at that time. However, he made an effort to get the sentence suspended, but the prejudice against Leschi among the people was such that the governor would not take any action, and it became necessary to carry out the sentence. The time was too short to communicate with Wash- ington and have the president interfere, so Clark stayed the execution by getting out a warrant for the arrest of the sheriff before the United States commissioner on an accusation of having sold liquor to Indians. His arrest followed, and he was in prison at the time Leschi should have been hung. For this reason it became necessary to resentence Leschi. It was the Spring of the year at that time, and the court was not to meet again until December. The Legislature was in session, however, and they passed a law, authorizing the court to convene. Within a few days the court met and again sentenced hint to be hung by the sheriff of Thurston County. He was hung near Fort Steilacoom.

"On the date of the first hanging a great many people came down from Olympia to witness the execution, and there was considerable indignation ex- pressed by them when the sentence was not carried out. The military at Fort Steilacoom were accused of being implicated in preventing the execution, and

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indignation meetings were held there and at Olympia by the people, expressing their disapprobation.

"Quiemuth, Leschi's brother, came in before Leschi and gave himself up to the governor. Subsequently he was assassinated in the governor's office at Olympia. This had the effect of keeping Leschi out longer than he would have remained unexecuted under other circumstances."

There was one more act in the drama of this year 1856. On September 11th, Governor Stevens met another council of Indians at Walla Walla.

The influence of Kamiakin was so great that most of the chiefs, with the exception of the friendly faction of Nez Perces, remained hostile. Stevens' little force was attacked by a strong force led by Qualchan. Stevens was sup- ported by the Regulars under Col. E. J. Steptoe and the Indians were repulsed with loss and Stevens proceeded to The Dalles.

Thus the Indian War of 1855-56 closed with the virtual defeat of the great schemes of Kamiakin and his followers.

But now there followed a most singular outcome. General Wool seems to have predetermined that the country east of the Cascades should not come into possession of the Whites. His conception of the country is well shown by his approval of a memoir of Capt. T. J. Cram, a United States engineer who professed to be thoroughly familiar with the Northwest. We quote here from T. W. Prosch some extracts from Captain Cram's views (which were practi- cally Wool's) with his own comments.

"The Captain covered all the ground in Washington and Oregon and all the subjects. He was unfavorably impressed with both country and people. Beyond a few Regular army officers and their doings nothing was very good. In view of what has since been done in these two states, what they are now, and what they are going to be and do, he could be glad, if alive, to suppress by fire every copy of his Memoir of one hundred and twenty-three printed pages. He said, for instance, that 'there never will be anything in the interior of this forbidding stretch of country to induce the movement of such a force into the interior should a reasonable show of defense be exhibited by a field force.' It was impossible 'to defend the mouth of the Columbia River with any known practical system of fixed batteries.' Besides, fortifications were not really necessary, as the river 'mouth is always blocked by a mass of oscillating sand,' and 'at high tide a vessel drawing eighteen feet can seldom pass the bar.' So also on Puget Sound land fortifications would be useless, steam floating bat- teries necessarily being the weapons there. 'Sea steamers of ten feet draft,' he said, 'ascend the river to the city of Portland.' Willamette Valley would sustain a population of one hundred and fifty thousand. Portland would con- tinue to be the commercial center of that district, unless it were found that sea steamers could 'at all times ascend to the foot of the Cascades.' The vast region drained by the Columbia River was one which impressed the observer as incapable of sustaining a flourishing civilization. This, said he, 'is the general view to be taken of Oregon from the Pacific to the summit of the Rocky Mountain Range, a region only fit, as a general rule, for the occupancy of the nomadic tribes who now roam over it, and who should be allowed peace-

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fully to remain in its possession.' Speaking more particularly of Washington this sagacious military engineer, historian, and author declared that 'the whole Yakima country should be left to the quiet possession of the Yakima and Klickitat Indians.' Also this: 'In the acquisition of this strip of territory it is certainly not to be denied by any sensible man who has examined it carefully that the United States realized from Great Britian but very little that is at all valuable or useful to civilized man. For the Indians, but for the presence of the Whites, it would ever have remained well adapted.' The document was replete with utterances of a disparaging, belittling, slanderous, false and absurd character, concerning the people, officials, soil, timber, waters and future possi- bilities, of the Oregon country given out with high military approval, published by the Government, circulated broadcast, accepted in many places as fair and right, and with no redress to the country and people maligned, except that afforded in the lapse of time, long time, and the unconcern and forgetfulness of the great general public. Fortunately all the army officers were not like Wool and Cram. Many of them saw things here under more pleasant lights, and they bore to the end of their lives recollections of grateful character con- cerning the days they spent and the people they met in Oregon and Washing- ton territories."

With such a conception of the situation and the country the reader may not be surprised to learn that in October Wood issued orders to Colonel Wright and Colonel Steptoe (the latter commanding at Walla Walla), that Whites, with the exception of missionaries and Hudson's Bay Company employes, should be forbidden to enter the country east of the Cascade Mountains. In other words, the war now having been won, mainly by the Volunteer forces, General Wool proposed to surrender the entire country to the defeated party and deny the settlers and Volunteers the fruits of their hard-won victory. Governor Stevens protested vigorously against so imbecile an outcome. He pointed out the fact that while the Catholic missionaries had beneficent aims- they were attempting an impossible task and their influence in the upper country had "latterly been most baneful and pernicious." He further pointed out that the whole interest of the Hudson's Bay Company was necessarily to join with- the Indians in causing the abandonment of the country.

A NEW ORDER OF THINGS

During the year 1857 the condition of quasi-peace continued, Indians in possession, settlers excluded, and Regulars inactive at the forts.

But the War Department and the Government at Washiington had analyzed the situation with the result that Wool's policy was tried and found wanting. He was removed and Gen. N. S. Clarke was appointed in his stead.

The new commander reversed the former policy, the gates were thrown open, and the impatient army of explorers, prospectors, cattlemen, and settlers began to pour in. This state of affairs precipitated the campaigns of 1858. Colonel Wright at Vancouver and Colonel Steptoe at Walla Walla, though having formerly adhered to Wool's policy, had experienced a change of heart. Kamiakin meanwhile was reorganizing in preparation of renewed hostilities ..

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Going to the Spokane and Couer d' Alene tribes he urged that the recent peace between Colonel Wright and certain Indians was not binding on them and that they should keep the country closed to Whites.

As a result, probably, of these machinations on Kamiakin's part, miners on the way to Colville were waylaid and murdered. Also a large amount of stock was driven from Fort Walla Walla.

STEPTOE'S DEFEAT

As a result Colonel Steptoe entered upon his disastrous expedition against the Colvilles. Although Steptoe seems to have been an accomplished officer, he appears to have had no conception of the power of these Indians or of the gen- eral ability of their commanders. He had a small force, only 136 mounted dragoons, besides packers and officers. The fatal mistake was made, however, by leaving out a large part of the ammunition for the sake of lightening the packs! This, as the author has been told by those present at the time, was done by an inebriated quartermaster.

Meanwhile the Indians were marshalling their forces under the leadership of the most capable and valorous chieftains. This was destined to be their greatest victory, but their last. This was emphatically~Kamiakin's-battle. . The time was May 18th and the place the present location of Rosalia, though like most Indian battlefields it was strung out over a number of miles. The com- mand suffered severely and among the lost were the gallant Gaston and Taylor, whose heroic defense in command of the rear guard saved the retreating com- mand from utter destruction. Those two brave men are said to have been singled out for death by Kamiakin's special orders when he saw their efficiency in the rear guard action. The broken command halted with nightfall near the foot of Steptoe Butte, known to the Indians as Tehotami (and it is a great pity that the name was changed). Kamiakin made every effort to induce his Indians to be ready for an instant attack, for he realized that the Whites would attempt a night retreat. But sustained effort is irksome to an Indian, and the warriors wanted to lie down and rest. Their chance for a sweeping victory was gone, never to return. For Timothy, the Nez Perce chief, was with Step- toe and he knew a trail down a canyon on Tehotami. Taking advantage of a dark and drizzly night he led the command out of its deadly position, and by morning light they were half way to Snake River.

A number were lost on the way, but the main command, with the aid of Timothy and his squaws, got safely across Snake River, then running high with the Spring flood. Had it not been for Timothy the towering height of Tehotami would without doubt have witnessed a Custer massacre. As it was it was the greatest Indian victory in the Northwest.

END OF THE WAR

When Steptoe's broken army reached Walla Walla and the crestfallen ·commander reported the results to Colonel Wright the latter perceived that the time for "fooling" had passed, and that they must now act with promptness and energy sufficient to make an end of the whole matter. Accordingly Wright

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organized two expeditions. One under command of Maj. R. S. Garnett, com- mandant at Fort Simcoe, made an expedition through the Yakima Valley, as a result of which, though with no definite encounters, the strength of the Indians was dissipated and several alleged murderers captured and hung. Lieut. J. K. Allen was killed upon the Teanaway, much lamented for his admirable quali- ties. One point of special note is that in Garnett's command was Lieutenant Cook, later a general in the Civil war, and still later one of the most distin- guished Indian fighters in eastern Oregon, Arizona, and Montana.

From the upper Yakima Garnett went to the Okanogan. A few days after Garnett started on his Yakima expedition, Wright set forth for Spokane with a well equipped and determined force. At the battle of Four Lakes on Sep- tember 1st, the Indians were routed. On September 9th, at a point a few miles east of the present city of Spokane Wright captured 800 horses, a con- siderable part of the war supply of the Indians.

Realizing that the loss of these horses would paralyze further operations by the Indians, Wright ordered the wholesale destruction of the horses. He was correct. The natives were now powerless and made an abject surrender.

From this decisive victory at Spokane Wright went westward. Owhi, having learned of the collapse of the Spokane allies, determined to throw him- self upon the mercy of the conquerors. Wright was then camped at the mouth of Hangman Creek in the present city of Spokane. Mr. Splawn gives a spir- ited account of the events which followed. Qualchan and Owhi both perished as a result. Kamiakin, finding that all was lost, went to British Columbia, and thence made his way to the country of the Crows. In 1861 he appeared unher- alded at the Coeur d' Alene Mission. Subsequently he settled at Rock Lake, and there the remainder of his life was spent. Mr. Splawn gives a graphic ac- count of seeing the Yakima Hannibal in 1865. He lived fifteen years longer, thus reaching a good old age.

Almost all the great chiefs who participated in that series of wars died or were killed during the period. Three of the most notable, however, outlived their comrades many years. These were Kamiakin, Sulktalthscosum (Moses), and Halhaltlossot (Lawyer).

With the announcement by General Clarke that the long struggle was over, the long arrested tide of population poured in. Mines were opened, droves of cattle were driven in, towns began to bud and blossom, and all the phenomena of state building, so familiar to successive generations of Ameri- cans, began at the strategic points of the Columbia Basin.

For twenty years peace was the accepted order in the Inland Empire, and no thought of Indian warfare disturbed the minds of the builders of the new communities. Suddenly like a clap ont of a clear sky came the Nez Perce War.

NEZ PERCE WAR IN THE WALLOWA IN 1877

This was the aftermath of conditions growing out of understandings which the Joseph branch of the Nez Perces seemed to have formed at the Walla Walla treaty in 1855. We have already spoken of the formation of those impressions. The hero of this Wallowa War was Young Joseph, Hallakallakeen (Eagle Wing). General Howard pays a great tribute to the skill and nobility of his

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foe. Defeat was inevitable and with it warfare ceased so far as any of the great tribes of well known Indians were concerned. But the very next year came the Bannock War, the scene of which was mainly Umatilla County in Oregon and the region of the Columbia River, north. This war brought another echo to the Yakima Valley, then just in the first beginnings of development. Mr. Splawn gives a very clear account of the genesis of this war in the mind of Buffalo Horn, the Bannock chief, upon whose untimely (from the Indian viewpoint ) death the leadership fell to Eagan of the Piutes. He proved to be an incapable leader and the whole great undertaking fizzled out within a few months. It produced intense excitement, especially at Pendleton. At the moment of greatest apparent force the Indians undertook to cross the Columbia at Blalock Island, then called Long Island.

A steamboat patrolling the river fired on them and kept the majority from crossing. A considerable number, however, effected the crossing of the river and among them some of the worst desperadoes in the whole Indian country. Going north across what is now known as the Horse Heaven country, this band crossed the Yakima River near the site of Prosser and struck across the Rattle- snake hills to the northward. On their way they perpetrated the atrocious. Perkins murder.

THE PERKINS MURDER

This was one of the cruelest events in all the long and cruel history of Indian warfare. It produced a profound horror in the minds of people living in Yakima at the time, for both Mr. Perkins and his wife (Blanche Bunting). were well known and greatly loved by the people of pioneer Yakima. They were murdered at a point called Rattlesnake Springs without the slightest prov- ocation and in a manner that illustrated those traits of Indian character which: seem to justify the intense hatred felt by frontiersmen for the "red devils." This murder occurred on July 9, 1878.

In an article by Mrs. Elizabeth Ann Coone in the "Washington Historical Quarterly" for January, 1917, there is a statement that Mr. and Mrs. Perkins. were living in the Coone house at Ringold bar and that they had been to Yakima City and were on their return. It appears, however, from other statements that they were on the way to Yakima when they met their distressing fate.

In Chapter XXXIX of Mr. Splawn's book there is a detailed account of this atrocity and of numerous encounters with the same band of Indians. We have space to refer to only two events connected with it. One is the question of the complicity of Moses, the big chief of the tribes from Wenatsha and up the Columbia from that point. Many held and still believe that Moses was the animating agency in that whole series of troubles, after the crossing of the Columbia. ' There was one very singular event in connection with Moses. The agent at Fort Simcoe at the time was James H. Wilbur, a truly great man. True to his usual methods, Agent Wilbur desired to get and to exhibit the facts first hand and hence he requested Moses to go to the fort and see him.

Rather strange to say, the chief complied with the request. As a result both the agent and the chief went to Yakima City and held a council with the- citizens.

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Moses disclaimed all complicity in the crime or in shielding or concealing the murderers. He declared that he believed the murderers were hiding in the lava beds of Crab Creek, and he offered to assist in locating them. As a result, a force of twenty-two volunteers, most of them well-known in Yakima,- with William Splawn as captain, together with ten Indian policemen detailed by Agent Wilbur and Head Chief Eneas, set forth to chase down the miscreants. The singular details of their experience and the enigmatical conduct of Moses, as detailed by Mr. Splawn, transcend our limits and we must refer our readers to Mr. Splawn's book. Mr. Splawn was in a position to know the facts, as well as any one could, and his final judgment was that Moses was not guilty of any .connection with the crime or of shielding the criminals.

The murderers, or some of them, were captured at various times and duly tried and five were found guilty and sentenced to be hung. Mr. Splawn was interpreter at the trial and says that they confessed the murder. By a most ·extraordinary succession of escapes, the sentence was deferred. There were three escapes, a most extraordinary commentary on the guards or guardhouses .of Yakima City at that time. As a result two only of the murderers expiated their crime on the gallows. Two were killed in attempting to escape. The fifth is said to have been killed two years later by a brother of Mrs. Perkins. There is some evidence that it was not the Indian wanted, but a woman, his sister, who received the bullet. This statement is that she was severely wounded but recovered.

A magazine article by Mrs. Louise Heiler Cary gives a vivid view of the Perkins murder.

STORY OF EARLY DAYS

.A TALE OF THE TERRIBLE TIMES OF LONG AGO, SHOWING CHIEF MOSES IN HIS TRUE LIGHT

Mrs. Louise Heiler Cary

Just twenty years ago the peaceful Yakima Valley was thrown into a state ·of uneasiness by rumors of Indian depredations and murders committed all around us. One day in the early Spring of 1878 the mail carrier brought word to the little town of Yakima that the hostile Indians were trying to cross the Columbia River over to the Yakima side. This greatly increased the anxiety, for it was generally believed that if they succeeded the little handful of settlers would be wiped out.

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History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 30

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920 Publication date: 1919 Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke Number of Pages: 1134

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134