History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 34

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 34
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 34
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 34

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

"In November, early in the '70s, Mr. Warren appeared in Yakima City. I chanced to meet him and he told me he had come to swear out a warrant for the arrest of Ingraham and McBride for selling liquor to the Indians. They had had a row among themselves, it seems, and Warren was going to get even. I told him he was taking chances, since he was equally guilty with the other two, but he swore to the information and the warrant was put in the hands of the deputy sheriff who with a small posse soon brought in Ingraham and McBride. E. P. Boyle, a weak man as well as a poor lawyer, was engaged to defend these two scoundrels who, for pure cussedness, could not be excelled anywhere on the border.

"When Hambleton, the prosecuting attorney, read the complaint to the court, as there was no jury, and stated that he could prove all the allegations and plenty besides, with some other remarks not complimentary to the pris- oners, the judge, looking over his spectacles at the two men searchingly, remarked that he believed all the prosecuting attorney said and thought moreover that it was high time to suppress the lawlessness running rampant on the frontier, and adjourned the court till two P. M.

"During all this time, E. P. Boyle, the defendants' attorney, was sitting dazed. The pace had become too swift for his feeble mind.

"Meeting me outside of the courthouse, Mr. Ingraham said, 'Jack, do you believe I could buy off the prosecuting attorney?'

"I told him that I was no go-between, but that the prosecuting attorney was in bad with the saloon, neither having paid a cent nor missed a drink since Adam's time. A little later Ingraham and Hambleton came into Schanno's store, where I happened to be. The latter stepped up to Jo Schanno and asked if he had gold scales. The scales were brought and Hambleton gave orders that Jo should weigh out one hundred and fifty dollars. Ingraham then took from his pocket a buckskin purse and poured the dust into the scales until it balanced the weight Jo had fixed. Hambleton poured the gold from the scale into his own purse and the two left the store.

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"Having witnessed that transaction, Jo and I thought it would be inter- esting to see how he disposed of the case and we were in the courtroom promptly on the hour. Hambleton arose and with a grave and solemn look addressed the court thus :

"'Your Honor, while I am a firm believer in law enforcement, yet as prose- cutor we oft go too far. In our eagerness to convict, we too often overlook justice. I sincerely hope that it will never fall to my lot to convict innocent men. Far be it from me to lend a helping hand to ruin any one. Since the ad- journment of this court for the noon hour, I have learned the true facts in this case. It is appalling to think how near we came to convicting two innocent men. This culprit, Mr. Warren, should not be allowed to remain longer in our midst. The base ingrate has been fed and clothed by these defendants and like the viper he is, seeks to destroy his benefactors. I refuse to be the means of helping this cowering cur in his hellish plot and wish to dismiss the case.'

"The judge, believing the prosecutor, became aroused and calling upon Warren to stand up before the court said : 'By all justice you ought to be hung. Go hence from here and as quickly as possible shake the dust of Yakima from your contaminated feet. Go now and keep going. See to it that you never return, lest this court lose its patience and give you what is coming.'

"Ingram and McBride went back to their trading post and continued to sell liquor to the Indians. Hambleton, a few years later, was lecturing on tem- pearance in Iowa. Warren went over to Walla Walla and there got Ingraham and McBride convicted and sentenced to a year each in the penitentiary."

The second narrative is of the first wedding in Kittitas.

"Fred Bennett, an old German who lived on the other side of Wilson Creek, used to come in pretty often and sample the free bottle that sat on the shelf. I suggested one day that he better go slow or he would not be able to get over the foot log across the creek. 'I chust bet you fife toller,' he said, 'I can trink all in dot bottle and den valk ofer dot log.' It seemed to me a good gamble, for if I won, I would be reimbursed for all the free whiskey he had drunk. He finished the bottle and struck out for home, I following close behind. He was so sure of himself and so happy that he was holding conver- sation with himself thus: 'I haf got Jack dis time; I yust get his visky and his fife toller for noddings.' He came to the log. Straightening up, he set his eyes on the opposite shore and started over. A little way out on the log, he began to reel. A single cry, 'O Gott,' and the sound of splashing water told of Bennett's bath-no doubt his first for many years. I pulled him ont on his own side of the creek and sent him home.

"On the way from Yakima to Kittitas lived Matthias Becker and his jewel of a wife. Mrs. Becker had a heart full of goodness and an ability as cook which could not be equalled in that neck of the woods. I flattered myself that there always awaited me a welcome there, but what was my surprise, one day in November, 1870, to be greeted at the Becker place by a cold stare. In the house sat my friend, John Gillispie and Mrs. Becker's sister, Caroline Gerlick, whom we all called Linnie. I wondered what I had done to lose their friend- ship, but without inquiring, beat a hasty retreat to my horse, where stood my friend Willie, patting him.

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"'Don't go, Mr. Splawn,' said Willie, 'John and Linnie are going to get married and don't want any one to know.'

"That being the case, I returned to the house and sat down, remarking that the unusually chilly atmosphere certainly boded ill for some one; if a catas- trophe were hanging over the premises, I hoped to be near to avert it. Mrs. Becker laughed then and said, 'We can't fool Jack and might just as well tell him. We are waiting for the justice (my friend of the log-walking episode) to marry this couple,' and she pointed to the bashful lovers sitting apart.

"A few moments later the Hon. Frederick Bennett arrived. He had rigged up for the occasion in Ben Burch's old pants, a mite too short, and my best coat, which fitted him likewise, but my shirt with a large striped collar set him off for any social emergency. The ceremony was brief-'Shoin your right hands. By this you signify that you lofe one anuder. Py de laws of our country and de bower in me, I bronounce you vife and vife.' I caught his eye and shook my head. He hastened to correct the mistake with, 'I don't mean dot; I means husband and vife.'

"Thus was performed the first marriage ceremony in the Kittitas Valley."

With these experiences, tragic and humorous, strenuous and easy, accord- ing to the times and seasons, with the lights and shadows of pioneer life, the communities of Yakima emerged from the chrysalis stage and appeared as a full-grown county, and of that part of the life we speak in another chapter.

CHAPTER II COUNTY MAKING AND OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE MOTHER COUNTY OF YAKIMA

AN ACT ESTABLISHING AND ORGANIZING YAKIMA COUNTY-ELECTION OF 1876- ELECTION OF 1884-ELECTION OF 1888-FIRST ELECTION OF UNITED STATES SENATOR-ELECTION OF 1892-ELECTION OF 1912-ELECTION OF 1916- GOVERNORS OF TERRITORY- TERRITORIAL DELEGATES IN CONGRESS-OTHER OFFICIALS UNDER TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT-ADDRESSES BY EX-GOVERNOR MOORE AND GOVERNOR FERRY-FINANCIAL STATEMENT-YAKIMA EXPORT PRODUCTION-SOME CONCLUDING STATISTICS

On March 3, 1853, the Congress of the United States created the Territory of Washington, and soon following the President appointed Isaac I. Stevens governor. A Territorial Legislature met promptly and took the steps neces- sary to set the governmental machinery in motion. Sixteen counties were laid out, fifteen of them west of the Cascade Mountains. The sixteenth was Walla Walla and it was defined as follows: "Commencing its line on the north bank of the Columbia River, opposite the mouth of the Des Chutes River, and run- ning thence north to the forty-ninth parallel of Washington Territory between this line and the Rocky Mountains." That original Walla Walla County never qualified, and since the Indian wars came on the next year, everything was sus- pended, awaiting settled conditions.

In 1858 the Territorial Legislature laid out Spokane County, and that em- braced the larger part of the first Walla Walla County. But that first Spokane County also died "a-bornin," and in 1859, the Legislature brought into existence another county in this uneasy and war-racked territory east of the mountains. This was Klickitat, spelled in the legislative act Clikatat. The county included the entire area between the Columbia River and Cascade Mountains. So mat- ters rested for a time. In 1863 Congress laid out the new Territory of Idaho, thus cutting off a large part of Washington on the east. In that same year the county of Stevens was established to include the remaining area of the Terri- tory of Washington east of the Columbia and north of the Snake. In the same act one more county come into being, which has been lost in the mutations of time and fate, so that not many know that it ever existed. That lost county was Ferguson. By act of the legislature on January 12, 1863, a county with that name was outlined with these boundaries: Simcoe Mountains on the south, Cascade Mountains on the West, Walla Walla and Stevens counties on the east, and the Wenatchee River on the north. Thus it will be seen that Ferguson County covered practically the area of this history. Klickitat was reduced to its present limits.

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The legislative act named a set of officials for Ferguson County, only one of whom, F. Mortimer Thorp, was an actual settler. At that time there were not a hundred people living in the whole vast area, and they felt no need of the incumbrance of a county government. Hence the appointees never qualified and Ferguson, too, died "a-bornin."

Just two years after the creation of Ferguson County, another act was passed repealing the first and establishing another to be known as Yakima County. This was practically the same as Ferguson County, but the eastern boundary was defined differently. The act named Charles Splawn, J. H. Wilbur and William Parker as commissioners, Gilbert Pell as sheriff, William Wright as auditor, and F. M. Thorp as treasurer. The house of William Wright at Fort Simcoe was designated as the official seat. J. H. Wilbur at that time had begun his long and useful career as Indian agent for the Yakima Reserva- tion. The general inclination of the settlers was averse to a county organiza- tion even yet, and especially were they disinclined to have the county head- quarters tied up to the reservation. Hence the county program languished an- other two years. In 1867 Governor Marshall F. Moore became insistent that an organization be effected. He designated as the official headquarters the home of F. M. Thorp in Moxee and appointed the following list of officers: C. P. Cooke, F. M. Thorp and Alfred Henson for commissioners; Charles A. Splawn for sheriff, J. W. Grant for auditor, and E. W. Lyen tor treasurer. Thus Yakima County came into official existence.

For permanent reference the act of January 21, 1865, creating the county should appear in full, and we insert it at this point.

An Act Establishing and Organizing the County of Yakima.

Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Washington : Section 1. That the territory heretofore embraced in the county of Ferguson, lying and being south of a line running due west from a point two miles above the lower steamboat landing at Priest's Rapids, on the Columbia River, to the summit of the Cascade Mountains, be, and the same is hereby, constituted and organized into a separate county, to be known as and called Yakima County. Section 2. That said territory shall compose a county for civil and military purposes, and be subject to all the laws relating to counties, and be entitled to elect the same officers as other counties are entitled to elect.

Section 3. That, until the next general election, William Parker, J. H. Wilbur and Charles Splawn be and are hereby appointed county commissioners ; that William Wright be and is hereby appointed county auditor ; that [F. M.] Thorp be and is hereby appointed county treasurer, and Gilbert Pell be and is hereby appointed sheriff, who shall, before entering upon the discharge of the duties of their respective offices, qualify in the manner as is now required by law for county officers.

Section 4. The county seat of said county of Yakima is temporarily located at the house of William Wright.

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Section 5. That the said county of Yakima is attached for judicial pur- poses and for the election of members of the Legislative Assembly, to the county of Stevens.

Section 6. This act to take effect and be in force from and after its passage.

Approved January 21, 1865.

A. J. Splawn was deputized to assess the property of the new county in 1868. In his own account of it he says that he had no disputes with the people. "If they were poor, I passed them up; if well-to-do, they set their own valuation. We needed but little and wanted no surplus." The result of the election of 1868, the first in Yakima, was as follows: Alfred Henson, G. W. Allen and Thomas Goodwin, commissioners; Charles A. Splawn, sheriff ; John Lindsey, assessor; E. W. Lyen, treasurer; S. C. Taylor, school superintendent ; Henry Davis, coroner.

The county seat was maintained at Mr. Thorp's house till his departure for Kittitas in 1869. After having been at C. P. Cooke's house a short time, the county seat became located at a building on a block given by Barker Broth- ers, the first storekeepers at Yakima City. That first courthouse was a story and a half structure, the upstairs being used for a courtroom and recorder's office, while the sheriff's office and the jail were located below. In 1880 the second "old courthouse" was built, but it was burned on March 31, 1882. Then the third "old courthouse" came into being, and was moved to North Yakima in 1887.

At the time of the establishment of the county there had been no survey, and the settlers were obliged to stake out their own claims. In 1864 Charles A. White had run out the third standard parallel, but there were no subdivisions surveyed. That work was undertaken in 1866 by L. P. Beach. He is said by A. J. Splawn to have been an Olympia politician with all the qualifications of that tribe. A few townships which he surveyed in Selah, Cowiche, Naches and Ahtanum were found incorrectly laid out.

The mail service began in the primitive manner usual in the frontier. In 1867 the settlers arranged to take turns in going to Umatilla for mail. A year later a bargain was made with a man named Parson to carry mail for the set- tlers. Not till 1870 was there any government service. In 1875 a memorial was addressed to the postmaster-general by the legislature of the Territory asking for improved service. That memorial bears in an interesting way on the conditions in Yakima in 1875. It sets forth that there were over 2,000 people in the Yakima Valley and that the population was increasing very rapidly by reason of gold discoveries, as well as by the rich agricultural and grazing lands, that a large part of the inhabitants were destitute of any mail facilities and that whatever service there was took very circuitous routes ; viz., by way of Wallula and Umatilla over the foot hills of the Blue Mountains and via the Columbia River to Puget Sound. The legislature therefore prayed that a route be estab- lished from Seattle via the Snoqualmie Pass to Ellensburgh, thence to Yakima City, thence to Smith Barnum's at the mouth of the Yakima, and thence to Wallula.

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In connection with this enlarged mail service it is worthy of record that in that same year of 1875 the settlers in the Yakima got together and made a road over the Simcoe Mountains by way of Satus Creek, which met on the sum- mit another road constructed from Goldendale by the Klickitat people. The meeting of these two roads was almost as big an event to the settlers as the meeting of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific with the driving of the golden spike. A. J. Splawn speaks in picturesque language of the romantic history of that road. Over it passed the first stage coaches and mails. Along its course were strung the freight wagons and thousands of cattle. At the summit Al Lillie kept a station where the best of meals were served, and where the "angel face of Mrs. Lillie," as Mr. Splawn says, gave a beaming welcome to the hungry traveller. The writer of this can testify to both ineals and angel face from the experience of a solitary journey of his own in 1880. The keen appe- tite of a healthy youth found ample satisfaction in the abundant viands at the Lillie roadhouse on the airy heights of the Simcoes. That famous road almost fell into disuse for some time after the railroad came to Yakima, but it is inter- esting to note that it is, in some of its extent, born again for automobile traffic in the present new era of transportation.

The political history of Yakima County has been, like that of the other counties of the Territory and State, colored by the general questions of national and state politics, with local considerations of its own. As the county was founded during the period of the Civil War, there was naturally intense feeling on that subject. It is rather curious that in Yakima, as also in Walla Walla, the early settlers were mainly democrats, and there were a good many actual southern sympathizers. We say curious, for the reason that both Yakima and Walla Walla became later on overwhelmingly republican. Yet there was noth- ing curious about it, after all. The early population of Oregon and Washing- ton came largely from Missouri. While that great state remained with the Union, and the fact that it did was one of the great factors in saving the Union, yet Missouri had been a slave state and the people had largely the prejudices against negroes engendered by the era of slavery. They were disposed there- fore to look askance at "abolitionists and Black republicans," and during the era just before the war were more inclined to follow Douglas than Lincoln as a political guide. But as the war went on the great issues became more clear. One of the most significant developments of American history is that the great rank and file of the pioneer stock of Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and of the free states adjoining them on the north, have been democratic in all the social relations of life, and nationalist in politics. It could not in fact be otherwise. The so-called Democracy of the Old South was not Democracy. Calhoun and Davis never were real democrats at all. The name Democracy applied to the element which led the South into secession was the greatest misnomer in our national history. The South was an aristocracy, a feudalism, based on slavery and social and political inequality. As the war progressed, the eyes of the Western and Southwestern people, largely the offspring of the "Poor White" class of the older South, became opened. They began to see the shallow oppor- tunism of Douglas and the lofty nationalism and humanity of Lincoln. Prob- ably the most effective stroke of statesmanship of all those great strokes which

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have placed Lincoln in the forefront of the world's statesmen, was that series of statements in his messages in 1861 and 1862, by which he convinced the great body of the "plain people," as he liked to call them, that the attempt to disrupt the Union was an attack on free labor, that slavery and disunion were based on the postulate that labor was inferior to capital, that black slavery involved white slavery also, that the whole animus of the Secession movement was to sus- tain the old dogma of "the divine right of kings against the common rights of humanity." The Missourians and other western immigrants to Oregon and Washington were, unlike the slave-holders and secessionists of the old South, real democrats. When they got a really distinct view of that bogus Democracy of the secession movement and of the servitors among the "dough-face" northern politicians, their transition to the support of Lincoln's nationalistic and emanci- pation policies became rapid and decisive. It was that class of people that helped the great President save the Union. Instead of being Douglas democrats they became Lincoln republicans. That last category contained, be it observed, the genuine democrats; i. e., those who believed in "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

It is again one of the most significant movements in our political history that when in the judgment of that same class of people, those who think for themselves, the republican party of twenty or thirty years later became the tool of monopolistic interests in tariff and monetary measures, much as the old democratic party had been the tool of slavery, they repudiated it also, and became progressives and democrats, new democrats, and elected Woodrow Wilson pres- ident. Wilson and Lincoln, with simple changes of party names, have had a marvelous similarity of support, and to a marvelous degree have been the re- vealers of similar stages of political evolution.

The settlers of Yakima and Walla Walla, like those of other parts of the Northwest, went through those stages of political evolution ; democrats, repub- licans, and democrats again ; all the time genuine Americans, liberty-loving, free-souled, independent, thinking for themselves, not likely to be the cat's-paws of political shysters, and hence offering poor material for the manipulations of party bosses. Yakima County and the counties carved from it have been active in supporting those measures, initiative, referendum and recall, which have liberated the people from the wire-pullers, as well as woman suffrage and pro- hibition and allied measures, which have liberated the people from the preda- tory classes. Of some of these movements we shall speak later.

Perhaps the greatest local questions in the political field have been poli- cies pertaining to irrigation, to railroads and to county division. To these topics we shall give space in later chapters.

We have named in preceding pages the official appointees in 1867, and the results of the first election held in 1868. It may be noted here that all of those first county officers were democrats. The vote in that election was very small. For delegate to Congress, Frank Clark, democrat, received 25, to 19 for Alvin Flanders, republican.

It is of interest to note the vote cast in 1870 for county seat. The results were: Yakima City or "Mount Ottawa," 89 votes ; Flint's Store, 20 votes ; Selah, 18; Kittitas Valley, 3. A vote of the same time is recorded on the question of

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a constitutional convention for a new state. The vote was overwhelmingly negative, being 97 to 5. It is curious in looking over early political records to see how persistently a certain small number of restless politicians kept agitating the question of statehood, and how emphatically they were turned down for so long a period. For twenty years that agitation was carried on. The election of 1870 resulted thus: Delegate to Congress, James D. Mix, demo- crat, 71, Selucius Garfielde, republican, 60; attorney, N. T. Caton, democrat, 69; joint councilman with Skamania, Clark and Klickitat, S. B. Curtis, republican, 64, E. S. Joslyn, democrat, 56; joint representative with Klickitat, H. V. Harper, democrat, 69, H. D. Cock, republican, 55; probate judge, Alfred Henson, demo- crat, 65, A. M. Miller, republican, 57; commissioners, John Beck, George Tay- lor and C. P. Cooke, democrats, chosen over Purdy Flint, A. W. Bull and J. B. Nelson, republicans; auditor H. M. Benton, republican, chosen over G. W. Parrish, democrat; sheriff, Thomas Pierce, republican, chosen over G. W. Goodwin, democrat; treasurer, E. W. Lyen, democrat, chosen over J. P. Mattoon, republican ; assessor, William Lindsey, democrat, chosen over Charles Harper, republican; surveyor, C. S. Irby; school superintendent, C. P. Cooke, democrat, over Charles Reed, republican ; coroner, W. P. Crosno, democrat, over David Heaton, republican.

The election returns of 1872 are not found in full. The vote for delegate to Congress was 129 for Selucius Garfielde, republican, to 122 for O. B. McFad- den, democrat. R. O. Dunbar, republican, was chosen joint councilman over B. F. Shaw, democrat, by 154 to 74. C. P. Cooke, democrat, was chosen joint representative over R. Whitney, republican, by 170 to 73. T. J. Anders, repub- lican, for joint attorney with Walla Walla received 139 to 108 for J. D. Mix. It should be observed that there were three joint officers. Councilman in the leg- islature was joint with Klickitat, Skamania and Clarke counties. Representa- tive was joint with Klickitat. Attorney was joint with Walla Walla and Klickitat.

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History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 34

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