USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 22
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"I should have mentioned, in its proper place, that in Colville valley there is a line of settlements twenty-eight miles long. The settlers are persons formerly con- nected with the Hudson's Bay company, and they are anxious to become naturalized. and have the lands they now occupy transferred to themselves. I informed them that I could only express my hopes that their case would be met by the passage of a special act. They are extensive farmers and raise a great deal of wheat."
Governor Stevens and Captain MeClellan, guided by Chief Garry. went on to Spokane House the following morning. Garry's family they found occupying a comfortable lodge, and Garry informed them that he always had on hand flour. sugar and coffee, with which he could make his friends comfortable. "We then went to our new camp south of the Spokane, which had been established while we were visiting Garry's place. From the Chemakane mission the train left the river, and passing through a rolling country covered with open pine woods, in five miles reached the Spokane, and crossing it by a good and winding ford, ascended the plain, and in six miles, the first two of which was through open pine, reached Camp Washington."
To Secretary W. H. Gilstrap of the State Historical society I am indebted for interesting details regarding the location, after a lapse of fifty years, of the site of
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Camp Washington. A distant relative of the secretary, Owen B. Gilstrap, informed him that in plowing he had unearthed an old musket, a rusted sword and other warlike implements, and expressed a belief that his homestead, near Four Mound prairie, had been the seene of an Indian battle. Secretary Gilstrap replied that while the find was a most interesting one. it could hardly mark a battleground, for the site lay north of Wright's line of fighting in the war of 1858, and history afforded no evidence of any other engagement between whites and Indians in that vieinity.
Secretary Gilstrap surmised that the relics might have connection with Gov- ernor Stevens' movements in this section, and a rereading of the official reports seemed to confirm his belief. He discovered in the governor's reports a detailed deseription of his operations in the Spokane country in 1853, and learned that the party. after leaving the Spokane House. at the junetion of the Spokane and Little Spokane rivers, had traveled six miles and halted at a spot which afforded good grass and water. The old route was followed, and at a distance of six miles a glade was found in the pine woods; in it a spring which formed a little lake of two aeres, and surrounded by a small meadow. No other spot in the vicinity met the deseription, but Mr. Gilstrap, in the true spirit of historical re- search, was careful not to jump at a conclusion, and induced "Curly Jim," an aged Spokane who was a youth when Stevens entered this country, to accompany him to the scene. The aged Indian retained a keen recollection of the incidents de- seribed by Stevens, and pointed out the exact site of historic Camp Washington.
"I believe the people of Spokane county ean justly make the claim that within their borders was consummated the organization of the new commonwealth," said Mr. Gilstrap in a recent conversation with the author: "and in a sense this historie site of Camp Washington was the first capital of the territory. For here Governor Stevens relinquished his duties as explorer and searcher out of routes for future railroads, and entered upon his duties under the president's commission as governor."
Mr. Gilstrap has also an interesting explanation of the origin of the name "Four Mound." At a point not distant from Stevens' camp four large natural stone monu- ments stand out against the surrounding landseape, and on the largest of these Indian hands ereeted nearly a century ago four eairns of broken rock. These remain today. Aged Indians preserve a tradition that Camp Washington was a rendezvous for trappers and traders prior to the coming of Governor Stevens. From time imme- morial the place had been a natural gathering place by reason of the advantages which prompted Stevens to choose it for his eamp-its abundance of grass and water : and while it was six miles distant from the trading post at Spokane House. it appears that the traders frequently transported a part of their wares there and exchanged them for furs brought in by Indian hunters. Even today the old Indian trails, worn deep in places by the passing of many feet, are still in evi- denee, having survived the winter snows and summer rains of more than half a century.
When Governor Stevens entered the new territory of Washington. the Hudson's Bay company still maintained trading posts at Colville, Walla Walla, Vancouver and Steilaeoom, near Tacoma, but its oldtime antoeratie sway was tottering to a fall. It still asserted extensive though ill defined rights, and its officers were most Vol. 1-11
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anxious to cultivate the friendship and good will of the first governor. With far- seeing political vision, Stevens anticipated the seductive influences that would be extended towards himself and other members of the expedition, and in his instruc- tions to Captain Mcclellan and others was explicit and emphatic:
"I am exceedingly desirous (he wrote) that no exertion should be spared to have means of our own for our expedition, and shall much prefer to be in condition to extend aid than to be obliged to receive aid from others. Whilst we will gratefully receive aid from the company in case of necessity. let it be our determination to have within ourselves the means of the most complete efficacy. I am more and more convinced that in our operations we should be self-dependent, and whilst we ex- change courtesies and hospitalities with the Hudson's Bay company, the people and the Indians of the Territory should see that we have all the elements of success in our hands. The Indians must look to us for protection and counsel. They must see that we are their true friends. and be taught not to look, as they have been accustomed to, to the Hudson's Bay company. I am so impressed with this fact that I wish no Indian presents to be procured from British posts. I am determined, in my intercourse with the Indians, to break up the ascendency of the Hudson's Bay company, and permit no authority or sanction to come between the Indians and the officers of this government."
For five days the expedition remained in Camp Washington, making arrange- ments to move westward. Lieutenant Donelson came in with his detachment on the 28th, "and soon we all sat down to a fine supper prepared for the occasion," wrote Governor Stevens. "All the members of the expedition were in fine spirits; our table was spread under a canopy, and upon it a great variety of dishes ap- peared-roasted beef, bouilli, steaks, and abundance of hot bread, coffee, sugar, and our friend McDonald's good cheer." Probably so great a feast had not been spread in the country since the regale days of forty years agone, when trader, trapper and voyageur cheered their hearts with creature comforts on some great feast day of the church of Rome.
"But the best dish," adds Stevens, "was a beef's head cooked by friend Minter in Texas fashion. It was placed in a hole in the ground. on a layer of hot stones, with moss and leaves around it to protect it from the dirt. and then covered np. There it remained for some five or six hours, when removing it from the place where it was deposited, the skin eame off without difficulty, and it presented a very tempt- ing dish, and was enjoyed by every member of the party."
The question now confronting Governor Stevens was, were the animals in fit condition for severe work in the Cascade mountains? He was deeply concerned with the importance of running a survey through the Snoqualmie pass (Sno-qual- moo he wrote it in his reports), but "was unwilling. after so much labor and fatigue, to assign the gentlemen to duty, when they did not have confidence in their means, unless it was a case of imperative necessity."
Accordingly he resolved to leave the matter to their judgment. and while both MeClellan and Donelson "were ready cheerfully to conform to any direction. they did not desire to go upon the duty ; and accordingly, somewhat reluctantly, I deter- mined to send the whole party to the Walla Walla, thence to The Dalles and Van- couver, and thence to Olympia, making carefully a survey of the country on the route.
"I will here observe," says Stevens in mild criticism. "that all the gentlemen
FALLS OF SPOKANE AS SKETCHED BY AN ARTIST WITH GOVERNOR STEVENS, 1-53
SPOKANE FALLS IN THE EARLY 'SOS-L. W. RIMA IN THE FOREGROUND
UPPER SPOKANE FALLS, 11
THE NEW LIFE PUBLIC LIBRARY
TIENEN FOUNDATIONS
THE V/ 1 1 K PUBLIC LIBRARY
ADINA LLEVA TILVEN POVALAL JAS
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were too much influeneed in their judgment by the belief that snows would fall early and deep in the Sno-qual-moo pass, and on the route from the Coeur d'Alene, under the base of the Bitter Root, to the Walla Walla. The little fall of snow which I have mentioned-although in snow countries it is simply an incident of the fall, having nothing to do with betokening the approach of winter, but rather indi- cating, if anything, a late winter-had not been appreciated, and was thought to indicate that winter was already upon us. The necessary instructions were sent accordingly. 1 sent word by an Indian expressman to Lieutenant Arnold at Col- ville, informing him of the arrangements, and also letters to Lieutenant Mullan and Mr. Tinkham, at Fort Owen; for I was now satisfied, from what I had gath- ered upon the route, that Mr. Tinkham would find great difficulty in moving over the southern Nez Perce trail to Fort Walla Walla in December. The fall of snow varies exceedingly at short distances apart on the Bitter Root mountains, as I then had reason to believe, and as was afterwards demonstrated. I still desired that Lientenant Donelson should go up the Coeur d'Alene, although all the other parties went on the direct route, but he did not desire to do this. And I will again observe, that had I possessed at Camp Washington information which I gained in six days afterwards at Walla Walla, I should have pushed the party over the Cascades in the present condition of the animals; but Captain Mcclellan was entitled to weight in his judgment of the route, it being upon the special field of his examination."
Leaving Camp Washington, the expedition traveled in a southerly direction through the Palouse country. They came, on the second day, to a chain of small akes, abounding in wild fowl. "We saw in one of these lakes," wrote Stevens, "surrounded by dueks and geese, a pair of white swans, which remained to challenge our admiration after their companions had been frightened away by our approach."
"Garry assures us," added the governor, "that there is a remarkable lake called En-chush-chesh-she-luxum, or Never Freezing Water, about thirty miles to the east of this place. It is much larger than any of the lakes just mentioned, and so com- pletely surrounded by high and precipitous rocks that it is impossible to descend to the water. It is said never to freeze, even in the most severe winters. The In- ( ians believe that it is inhabited by buffalo, elk, deer and all other kinds of game, which they say may be seen in the clear, transparent clement."
Garry also narrated a superstition respeeting a point of painted rock in Pend d'Oreille lake. near a place then occupied by Michael Ogden. He assured Governor Stevens that the Indians never dared to venture by the mystic point, ",prebending that such aet of saerilege, as related in their legends, would be re- sented by the Great Spirit, who would cause a terrific commotion in the waters and cause them to be swallowed up in frightful waves. The painted rocks were said to be very high, and to "contain effigies of men and beasts, and other characters, made, as the Indians believe, by a raee of men who preceded them as inhabitants of the land." Similar painted rocks exist at the upper end of lake Chelan.
On the afternoon of November 1 the expedition arrived at the junction of the Palouse and the Snake. and crossing Snake river, pitched camp on its southern bank. Chief Wi-ti-my-hoy-she, of a band of Palouse Indians encamped near the mouth of the Palouse, exhibited a medal of Thomas Jefferson, dated 1801, given to his grandfather, he said, by Captains Lewis and Clark when they passed through the country in 1805.
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Governor Stevens was unable to visit the falls of the Palouse, but inserted in his official report, the following description, supplied him by Stanley, the artist, who had seen them in 1817:
"The Palouse river (Stevens spelled it Peluse) flows over three steppes, each of which is estimated to have an ascent of a thousand feet. The falls descend from the middle of the lower of these steppes. There is no timber along the course of this stream, and but few willow or other bushes; yet the soil is fertile and the grass nutritious and abundant even in winter. The fall of water, which is about thirty feet wide, can not be seen from any distant point, for flowing through a fissure in the basaltic roeks, portions of which tower above in jagged pinnacles. it suddenly descends some 125 feet into a narrow basin, and thence flows rapidly away through a deep canyon. The distance from the falls to Snake river is about nine miles. The valley widens considerably for about half a mile from the mouth of the Palouse. The home of the Palouse Indians is near this junetion, where they devote much of their time to salmon fishing. The salmon ascend to the falls, but these Indians have a legend which tells of the wickedness of the Indians higher up the country, and how the Great Spirit, in his displeasure, placed the falls as a barrier to the further ascent of the salmon."
From the crossing of Snake river the governor pushed rapidly to old Fort Walla Walla. on the Columbia. The country between the Snake and Walla Walla rivers he described as "high rolling prairies. On the road I traveled," he added, "the grass was uniformly good, but on leaving the Snake the first water was the Touchet, twenty-seven and one half miles distant. This was the longest march we had accomplished without water after leaving Fort Benton, perhaps the longest between the Mississippi and the Columbia. Captain MeClellan, by a slight change of direc- tion, striking the Touchet higher up, and crossing the Walla Walla valley by a more central line, found good water and camps at less than twenty miles apart."
At Fort Walla Walla the governor was the guest of Factor Pembrum of the Hudson's Bay company. He remained in the Walla Walla country till November S, and on the fourth and fifth rode through the valley.
November 1 .- We started on the trip through this valley, riding upon our horses. Arriving at the Hudson Bay farm. we exchanged them for fresh ones, send- ing back to Walla Walla (on the Columbia) the old ones by an Indian. This farm is eighteen miles from Walla Walla, and is a fine tract of land. well adapted to grazing or cultivation. It is naturally bounded by streams, and is equivalent to a mile square. There is the richest grass we have seen since leaving St. Mary's. Two herders tend their animals, and a small house is erected for their accommodation. From this we went to MeBane's house, a retired factor of the company. from whence we had a fine view of the southern portion of the valley, which is watered by many tributaries from the Blue mountains. The land here is very fertile. MeBane was in charge of Fort Walla Walla during the Cayuse difficulties. Thirty miles from Walla Walla, and near MeBane's, lives Father Chirouse, a missionary of the Catholic order, who, with two laymen, exercises his influence among the surrounding tribes. A party of immigrants, who had lost nearly all their animals, are shel- tered here at this time. From Chirouse and MeBane I learned that the immigrants frequently cast wishful eyes upon the valley, but having made no arrangements with the Indians, they are unable to settle there.
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November 5 .- We remained with Mr. MeBane over night, and returned to the fort by way of the Whitman mission, now occupied by Bumford and Brooke. They were harvesting, and I saw as fine potatoes as ever I beheld-many weighing two pounds. and one weighing five and a half. Their carrots and beets, too. were of extraordinary size. Mr. Whitman must have done a great deal of good for the Indians. His mission is situated upon a fine tract of land, and he had ereeted a saw and grist mill. It is said that his death was brought about by the false reports of a troublesome half-breed, who reported having heard Mrs. Whitman say to her husband. when speaking of the Indians: "We will get rid of them some day." From Bumford's to the month of the Touchet are many farms, mostly ocenpied by the retired employes of the Hudson's Bay company. On our return we met Pu-pu- mox-mox, the Walla Walla chief, known and respected far and wide. He possesses not so much intelligence and energy as Garry, but he has some gifts of which the latter is deprived. He is of dignified manner and well qualified to manage men. He owns over 2,000 horses, besides many cattle, and has a farm near that of the Hudson's Bay company. On the occurrence of the Cayuse war he was invited to join them, but steadily refused. After their destruction of the mission he was asked to share the spoils. and again refused. They then taunted him with being afraid of the whites, to which he replied: "I am not afraid of the whites, nor am I afraid of the Cayuse. I defy your whole band. I will plant my three lodges on the border of my own territory, at the mouth of the Touchet, and there Iwill meet you if you dare to attack me." He accordingly moved his lodges to this point and remained there three or four weeks. Stanley (the artist) was on his way from Walker and Eells' mission to Whitman's mission, and, indeed, was actually within three miles of the mission when he learned of the terrible tragedy which had been enacted there, and the information was brought to him by an Indian of Pu-Pu-mox-mox's band. Pu-pu-mox-mox has saved up a large amount of money (probably as much as $5.000). still he is generous, and frequently gives an ox and other articles of value to his neighbors. Some of his people having made a contraet to ferry the immi- grants aeross the river who erossed the Cascades this year, and then having refused to execute it, he compelled them to carry it out faithfully, and. mounting his horse, he thrashed them until they complied. He has the air of a substantial farmer.
From the Walla Walla valley Governor Stevens continued down the Columbia in a canoe. carefully examining the principal rapids between the month of the Walla Walla and the Caseades. and from the best examination which he was able to make, "became at once convineed that the river was probably navigable for steamers, or at all events worthy of being experimentally tested."
The night of November 11 he passed at the Cascades, meeting there "several gentlemen men who had crossed the plains, and who had made farms in several states and in Oregon or Washington-who had carefully examined the Yakima coun- try for new locations, and who impressed me with the importance of it as an agricultural and grazing country." The new governor's faith, sympathy and even affection for the pioneers stand out in clear expression in his official reports and private correspondenee. Of them he said in one of his reports:
"They have crossed the mountains, and made the long distance from the valley of the Mississippi to their homes on the Pacific; they have done so frequently, hav- ing to ent out roads as they went, and knowing little of the difficulties before them.
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They are therefore men of observation, of experience, of enterprise, and men who at home had, by industry and frugality, seeured a competenee and the respeet of their neighbors; for it must be known that our immigrants travel in parties, and those go together who were acquaintances at home, because they mutually confide in each other. I was struck with the high qualities of the frontier people, and soon learned how to confide in them and gather information from them."
As an example in contrast. we offer an extraet from a letter from Captain George B. MeClellan to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, of date September 18, 1853:
"But the result of my short experience in this country has been that not the slightest faith or confidence is to be placed in information derived from the inhabi- tants of the territory; in every instance when I have aeted upon information thus obtained, I have been altogether deceived and misled."
From the Caseades Governor Stevens continued his canoe voyage to Vancouver, where he remained from the seventeenth to the nineteenth as the guest of Captain Bonneville, made famous by the genius of Washington Irving, and where he also became acquainted with the officers of the Hudson's Bay company.
CHAPTER XVIII
OLYMPIA, THE BACKWOODS CAPITAL, IN 1853.
FIVE DAYS' HARD TRAVEL FROM VANCOUVER-GOVERNOR DRENCHED IN AN INDIAN CANOE-HEARTY PIONEER GREETING- MRS. STEVENS' GRAPHIC PICTURE OF THE SQUALID LITTLE CAPITAL-" WHAT A PROSPECT !"-SHE BREAKS DOWN AND CRIES- LATER LEARNED TO LOVE THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE- HORSEBACK ACROSS THE LOVELY PRAIRIES- PLEASING PICTURE OF FATHER RICARD'S MISSION-COLUMBIA LANCASTER ELECTED TO CONGRESS-BUSY DAYS FOR THE GOVERNOR-MENACED BY POLITICAL RUIN-PEREMPTORY ORDER FROM JEFFERSON DAVIS-STEVENS GOES BY SEA TO NATIONAL CAPITAL-HIS ENEMIES ROUTED.
"Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans make a state; but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, there are cities and walls."
-Attributed to Alcaeus by Aristides.
F IVE days of the hardest sort of travel it took the first governor of Washing- ton to go from Vancouver to Olympia, cramped up for the greater part of the time in an Indian 'canoe, and drenched by the cold November rains; but Stevens facetiously dismisses the ineident by "advising voyageurs in the interior, when they get suddenly into the rains west of the Caseades, to take off their buck- skin underelothing." He neglected the precaution, "and among the many agree- abilities of this trip up the Cowlitz was to have the underclothing of bnekskin wet entirely through." And buekskin possesses a strong retentive affinity for moisture.
But a warm and hearty pioneer greeting awaited him at Olympia, and when, a few days later, he delivered a leeture descriptive of his long overland journey and the feasibility of building a railroad from St. Paul to Puget Sound, the whole town turned out and greeted enthusiastically his confident predictions that they would live to hear the locomotive's whistle echoing amid the wooded hills of that primeval wil- derness.
Looking backward over the vista of sixty years, one marvels that congress pos- sessed the prescience then to found an embryo commonwealth in this remote and sparsely settled region. There were fewer than 5,000 inhabitants in all the terri- tory's wide expanse, from the Paeifie to the summits of the Rocky mountains. Olympia, the capital, was a dreary, rain-drenched mudhole, and the future eities of Spokane, Seattle, Taeoma, Walla Walla and Yakima had either no existence on the map, or were, at best, a few shacks and cabins hastily thrown up against the win- ter's rains and snows. Mrs. Stevens, who came to Olympia two years after, and,
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who, as wife of the governor was the social leader of her husband's vast political do- main, has recorded graphically her impressions of the squalid little capital :
"At night we were told. on ascending a hill, "There is Olympia!' Below us, in the deep mud. were a few low. wooden houses, at the head of Puget Sound. My heart sank, for the first time in my life, at the prospect. After ploughing through the ind. we stopped at the principal hotel, to stay until our house was ready for us. As we went upstairs there were a number of people standing about to see the gover- nor and his family. I was very much annoyed at their staring and their remarks, which they made audibly, and hastened to get in some private room, where I could make myself better prepared for an inspection. Being out in rains for many days had not improved our appearance or clothes. But there seemed no rest for the weary. Upon being ushered into the publie parlor. I found people from far and near had been invited to inspect us. The room was full. The siek child was eross and took no notice of anything that was said to her. One of the women saying aloud, "What a cross brat that is,' I could stand it no longer, but opened a door and went into a large dancing hall. and soon after, when the governor eame to look me up. I was breaking my heart over the forlorn situation I found myself in- cold, wet. un- comfortable, no fire, shaking with chills. What a prospeet !"
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