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 41
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In May. 1861. the steamer Col. Wright. Leonard White captain, ascended the Columbia, Snake and Clearwater to within twelve miles of the forks of the Clear- water, or forty miles from Pierce City, then the objective point of the gold-hunters. Bancroft says a town was immediately started at this landing, called Slaterville
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after its founder. It contained in May five canvas houses, one a saloon. This primitive plaec of good cheer was roofed with two blankets, one red, the other blue, and on its side the adventurous proprietor wrote the single word, "Whisky," in large charcoal letters. His stock was one barrel of whisky, and two bottles and two glasses constituted the bar furniture.
C. W. Shively of Astoria, one of the 300 passengers who made the pioneer trip on the Colonel Wright, recalls some of the incidents of the voyage:
"Five days had elapsed since leaving Celilo. Shortly before night a large In- dian village was seen. When the boat blew the steamer whistle to make a landing, there was confusion and excitement on shore, as this, in all probability, was the first steamboat ever seen by these Indians. This village was on a large flat, barren of trees. at the point where the Clearwater empties into the Snake. Lawyer, head chief of the Nez Perces, was here on a visit from his home, further up the Clear- water at Lapwai. In the evening some of the Indians came on board to examine the wonderful fireboat."
The Wright was fifty tons burthen, and 125 feet long. John Gurty was engi- neer. Frank Coe purser. and she carried a crew of two firemen, a steward and assis- tant, and six deck hands.
On the second trip of the Wright, Captain Leonard White stopped at the month of the Clearwater; but a messenger from Slater asked him to come on to Slaterville and take his outfit, as he had decided to establish his store at the confluence of the Snake and the Clearwater. The trip was made in safety, and Slater opened the first mercantile establishment in what is now the very substantial and prosperous city of Lewiston.
A few months later Captain W. P. Gray aseended the rivers to Lewiston in a sail boat, ninety-one feet long and twelve feet beam. Captain Gray is a son of W. H. Gray, who, as secular agent of the American Board. came overland to Walla Walla in 1836 with the Whitman-Spalding party. Captain Gray navigated steam- boats on the Columbia and Snake for many years. In the early '80s he took a home- stead at the present site of Pasco, of which flourishing city, until recently. he was mayor.
To accomodate the rush to the interior, the Oregon Steam Navigation company put a larger and better equipped steamer on the river. the Okanogan. with Captain White in command. Ephraim Baughman, who had served under White as pilot of the Colonel Wright, was made Captain of the pioneer steamer. A month later the Tenino, yet larger than the Okanogan, was placed in service. Steamer service was suspended in July by low water.
In July, 1862, Levi Ankeny, Dorsey S. Baker. Captain Baughman and several others put an opposition boat on the river, the Spray. It ran between Celilo and Lewiston till November, and the following winter was sold to the Oregon Steam Navigation company for nearly double its cost.
By July. 1861, about 2.000 men were in the Orofino district. The richest claims were in Rhodes and Canal gulches. The California mining laws were adopted. and three kinds of claims were recognized-creek and gulch claims, ex- tending two hundred feet along the creek or gulch and one hundred fifty feet wide. and hill claims. from the rimrock to the summit of the hill, with two hundred feet frontage. The first laws were enacted in miners meetings held on Sundays. After
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the lapse of a few years Orofino City became a memory, but Pierce City Hourished longer, becoming the county seat of Shoshone county and holding that distinction till the discovery of the Coeur d'Alene mines.
By the end of the summer of 1861 weekly receipts of gold dust at Portland were nearly $100,000. "The Colville and Orofino mines helped Portland greatly," says a manuscript history by Judge Matthew P. Deady, "and in 1861 built up the O. S. N. company. Loaded drays used to stand in line half a mile long, unloading at night freight to go in the morning that involved a fortune."
In Orofino building lots sold for from $100 to $200; with a log house. from $500 to $1,000. Carpenters' wages were $8 to $10, and common labor $3.50 to $6. Lumber was 20 cents a foot and nails 10 cents a pound.
I find a wide discrepaney in estimates of the number of men in the mining dis- tricts of northern Idaho when the placers were in the heyday of their affluence. ranging all the way from 5,000 to 25.000. Bancroft thinks it probable that after the influx from California there were at one time 20,000 in the mines of Clear- water. Salmon, Powder and John Day rivers. Probably a majority of these were in the mines of north Idaho.
In the judgment of old and experienced miners, some of whom had mined in the bonanza diggings of California, the Florence plaeers were the richest ever un- covered in the United States. In the gulches claims yielded to the rocker from $30 to $250 a day. two men to a rocker. Out of his claim in Baboon gulch Weiser took $6,600 in a single day, and half that amount in another. one pan of dirt yielding $500. The average yield of these placers was not far from $75 a day.
In an article in the Portland Oregonian. August 31. 1861. G. C. Robbins re- ported that 2.500 practical miners were at work on Rhodes creek. Orofino creek, Canal gulch and French creek. and that 1,000 or 3,000 men were making a living in other ways. A few claims were yielding fabulous returns, but most properties paid from $10 to $20 a day to the man. Shaffer & Co. working fourteen men, were taking out $60 a day to the man; Paine & Co .. twenty men. $70: Mortimer & Co., twenty-four men. $70 to $80; wages ranged from $5 to $8.
The Elk City placers were discovered in 1861. In May. a party of fifty-two men left Orofino to prospect the south fork of the Clearwater and tributary streams. Indians protested and half the party turned back, but the others pressed on and discovered gold at the point where the three branches of the south fork come lo- gether -- American and Red rivers and Elk creek. A mining recorder's office was established. with Captain L. B. Monson as recorder. Elk City was laid out that fall, between Elk and American rivers. Joel D. Martin, who went there in the early summer of 1862. found several stores, five saloons and two principal hotels --- Ralph's and the Marsten house. The erest of this camp's prosperity came in 1862. but its yield was greater in 1863 and 1861. when hydraulies had displaced the primi- tive rocker.
Joshua Fockler, one of the earliest settlers in Florence, says that camp was dis- covered in August, 1861, by a party of five that included John Healy. James Ayers and a man named Grigsly, a detachment of a party of nineteen which started from Elk City and the Clearwater to prospect the Salmon river country, traveling via Camas prairie and White Bird creek. When they reached Pioneer guleh a tree that had been uprooted by the wind attracted their attention. They panned the sand
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and gravel in the excavation and found it exceedingly rich. After prospecting the ground in various places, the party started for Elk City. At Buffalo Hump they fell in with fourteen men of the original party of nineteen and revealed to them their good fortune. All returned to Elk City, agreeing not to divulge the news till the following spring, and then return and locate the best ground for them- selves. The agreement was quickly broken, a stampede followed, and by the first of November men were swarming over the ereeks and gulches of the new district. In miners meeting it was decided to lay out a town on Summit flat at the head of Baboon gulch. Dr. Ferber, one of the first arrivals, proposed the name Florence, after his adopted daughter in California. Early merchants in the camp were John Creighton, Ralph Bledsoe, and S. S. or "Three Fingered" Smith.
So fabulous were the easy returns at Florence that men rushed in ahead of sup- plies, and provisions commanded amazing prices: $75 for a 50 pound sack of flour, $50 for gum boots, $30 for a camp kettle, $3'a pound for Bacon. $3 each for tin- eups, $10 to $12 for a frying pan, and $9 a pound for sugar and beans. A winter followed of dire privations. Destitute and desperate men dug down through ten feet of snow, softened with hot water the frozen gravel. and washed out gold to huy precious food. Rheumatism, throat, bronchial and lung diseases caused a high mortality. "By the last of January," says one writer. "nothing to eat could be pur- chased except flour at two dollars a pound." Noble says that in one case of sickness the patient lived for five weeks on flour and tea made by steeping the young needles of the fir. A young man who came from a home of plenty complained of "nothing but a kind of weakness all over. He had lived two weeks on four pounds of flour and the inner bark of the pine tree, with snow water for drink."
And still men pushed their way into the snowy, famine-stricken wilderness. till the trail was completely blocked in February, and Florence lay isolated till May.
The fame of the rich diggings had spread afar. A correspondent of the Port- land Times reported that while he was at these mines in October, 1861, he saw claims yielding $30 to $80 to the pan; that a man named Weiser, for whom an Idaho river was later named, took ont $1.800 in three hours with a rocker; that a single pan of dirt in Baboon gulch yielded $151.50. George W. Smith states that "Three Fingered" Smith, who owned the richest claim in the camp, kept three roekers at work through the winter, and each rocker averaged $1,000 a day. "It was no uncommon thing." says Baneroft, "to see on entering a miner's cabin a gold pan measuring eight quarts full to the brim or half filled with gold dust washed out in one or two weeks. All manner of vessels, such as oyster cans and pickle bottles. were in demand in which to store the precious dust."
By midsummer, 1862, prospectors were scouting far and wide in the search for new eldorados. In July, 1862, James Warren, a college graduate, Matt Bledsoe and a few others, left on an exploring tour of the Salmon river country, and discovered Warren's eamp, where as high as sixty ounces a day to the rocker were taken out. Judge J. W. Poe, who was engaged in the mercantile business at Florence with Joseph Haines, and S. S. Smith, says when news came of this discovery, thousands deserted Florence for the new mines. The trail led from Florence down the Sal- mon river, aeross that stream, several miles up a mountain. past Marshall lake and over a divide to Warren ereek. His firm dispatched Haines with a stoek of goods, the first to enter with a mereantile train. September 8. 1862. Miners helped Haines
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to build a log cabin, and before night the first store in the new district was stand- ing at the mouth of Slaughter creek. "The settlement which sprang up around it was named Richmond, after the Confederate capital, and the Unionists. not to be outdone, established another settlement a mile below, to which they gave the name Washington. Richmond did not long survive the Confederate cause. for by t866 it was abandoned by nearly all its inhabitants. Early in the fall of 1862 a miners' meeting was held at Richmond, at which I was elected by acclamation to the office of district recorder. For recording a claim I received a fee of $1.50, and some times I recorded as many as 100 a day. When the law reduced this fee to $1, I resigned, not earing to bother with such work and believing that I could make more in the mines."
Several thousand men rushed into the Warren district but by the fall of 1862 the population fell to 1,000. It increased in 1863 to 1.500, and so late as 1867 was at least 1,200.
Bancroft says that Warren was "a shiftless individual. a petty gambler, miner and prospector. Unlike the Florence mines, the Warren diggings were rich as well as deep. This proved to be one of the most valuable discoveries made. The dig- gings outlasted the Florence mines, and when the placers were exhausted on the creek bottoms, still yielded by hydraulie treatment returns nearly as rich as the placers. Notwithstanding the uncanny reputation of the discoverer. Warren's dig- gings were worked chiefly by practieal miners and men of good character, many of whom remained there long in business. In November 100 men were mining at War- ren's, taking ont an average of $14 to $20 daily. When the mines had been worked for ten years they were sold to Chinese miners, some of whom became wealthy." Chinese followed white miners into all the placer camps of this country.
Estimates as high as $140,000,000 have been made of the output of the northern Idaho placers in the decade lying between 1860 and 1870. Probably half that sun would be nearer the mark. Treasure shipments from Portland to San Francisco in the six months between June 25 and December 5 aggregated $2,393,656. Ex- ports of treasure by Wells-Fargo were $6.200.000 in 1861, $5,800.000 in 1865. $5,400,000 in 1866, and $1.001,000 in 1867. and at this period the cream of the richer placers had been skimmed.
The old Oregon Steam Navigation company, predecessor of the O. R. & N., drew enormous profits from the mines. Fare. Portland to Lewiston, was $60 in gold. with meals and berths a dollar each. The freight charge between Portland and Lewiston was $10 a ton, measurement basis. On a single up trip the Tenino col- lected over $18,000 for freight, fares, berths and meals. Extras and the bar privi- lege produced $1,200 a month.
Hundreds of reckless, lawless and desperate characters were drawn by the lure of easy money to these rich camps. Men mined by day, and dissipated their golden gains at the gambling table at night. Every other shack or tent was a saloon. dance hall or gambling house. Passions ran high, and men fought at the drop of a hat. The roads and trails between Lewiston and the eldorado camps were infested by highwaymen, called in the vernacular of the times, "road agents." From the files of newspapers of the day, Bancroft compiled a significant though only partial list of criminal deeds :
Robert Upercek shot at Orofino by a Frenchman in September, 1861.
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Hyppolite, owner of a large pack train and $500 in gold, murdered on the road in October, 1861.
Ned Meany killed in a quarrel at Jackson's Ferry, near Lewiston, November, 1861.
Two masked men entered a house in Lewiston in December, and in spite of re- sistance earried off $500, shooting fatally one of the inmates.
Matt Bledsoe killed James H. Harmon at Slate creek, Salmon river, over a game of eards, December, 1861.
Four murders were committed within two weeks at Lewiston in the fall of 1861.
Three murders in Mareh, 1862, at Florence.
William Kirby killed John Maples, in July, 1863.
William H. Tower, while threatening others, was shot and killed at Florenee, February 23, 1863.
Morrissey, a desperado, was killed at Elk City about the same time.
George Reed was shot by Isaac Warwick in a quarrel about a elaim in April, 1863.
Frank Gallagher was murdered by Berryman, with whom he was traveling.
At a ball in Florence on New Year's eve, an immoral woman was ejeeted from the daneing room, whereupon Henry J. Talbotte (Cherokee Bob) and William Willoughby armed themselves for vengeance. Later they were both killed in an attempt to get it.
One Bull, living near Elk City, kindly entertained one night two men who asked for shelter. In the morning the men and five horses were missing. Bull followed them for twenty days, eoming up with them at a camp on Gold ereck, 265 miles from home. On seeing him one of the men sprang on a horse and fled; the other, William Arnett, was shot. A party pursuing the fleeing robber brought him baek and hanged him.
Enoeh Fruit was a chief of road agents ; James Robinson, a mere boy, was one of his assistants. In the autumn of 1862 they were prominent among the "knights of the road" between Florenee and Lewiston. Both met violent deaths.
James Crow, Michael Mulkie and Jaek MeCoy robbed three travelers between Orofino and Lewiston. William Rowland and George Law were a couple of horse thieves operating on Camas prairie.
George A. Noble of Oregon City was robbed of 100 pounds of gold dust between Florence and Orofino in Deeember, 1862.
Two horse thieves, for stealing from a government train, were shot dead.
Joel D. Martin and James Witt, eye witnesses, gave a writer in the History of North Idaho an account of the first determined resistance to erime, made at Elk City in the summer of 1862. James Maguire and one Finnigan, after fighting sev- eral rounds, agreed to settle their difficulties amicably and the bargain was sealed over the bar. Between drinks protestations of friendship were made again and again, but one party to the compact of amity was a traitor. In keeping with the unenviable reputation for treachery he sustained in California, Maguire stealthily seized the handle of Finnigan's knife and unsheathed the weapon with intent to bury its blade in its owner's bosom. But bystanders saw the movement, threw themselves up on the aggressor and prevented the consummation of the atroeious deed.
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Later the two men met again. Finnigan fired five shots, wounding Maguire in the leg and neck. Friends carried the injured man to a room over Maltby's saloon and there left him, expecting to return in the morning. During the night Finnigan returned and slipping up stairs, killed his foe in a most atrocious manner, leaving the cruel bowie knife in Maguire's throat. Had Finnigan killed Maguire in a fair fight the spirit of the times would have condoned him; but cowardice and treachery were unpardonable.
Finnigan was arrested and put on trial before a popular tribunal. He admitted the crime but claimed in extenuation that he had to kill Maguire to save his own life. A newly elected justice of the peace presided as judge, and Colonel Johnson, a lawyer recently from California, acted as defendant's council. The testimony elicited some expressions of sympathy for the prisoner, but the jury nevertheless rendered a verdiet of guilty.
The following afternoon, a man named Powers, who was acting as sheriff, led Finnigan to the gallows. Brackett, a shoemaker, tied the hangman's knot and when all was ready the Irishman was launched into space. But the knot failed to hold and Finnigan fell to the ground. soon recovered from the shock. gained his feet, and accompanied by Moses Hart and Joseph Ritchie, two of his friends ran away from the scene. The crowd was so dumbfounded that for a short time not a man moved. Then Josh. Phipps started in pursuit and overtaking the fugitives covered them with his rifle and demanded that they halt. Phipps expected that others would come to his assistance, but as none came he lowered his gun and told Finnigan to go, a command which the latter was quick to obey. It is said that he was later seen in San Francisco by- one who knew him in Idaho and that the tell tale mark of the rope was still on his neck.
The next assumption of judicial functions by the populace says the writer of the foregoing, was in Lewiston in the fall of 1862. The occasion was the robbery of the Berry brothers, while on their way from Florence to Lewiston with a pack train. When near Rocky canyon, each of the men was confronted by a masked high- wayman armed with a shot gun and ordered to throw up his hands. The men were relieved of between $1,100 and $1,400 in gold dust.
When Berry arrived in Lewiston he found that the robbers had gone on to Walla Walla. Then commenced the pursuit. The Berrys had recognized the voices of the two men, Bill Peoples and Dave English, who held them up (for both were well known to them personally ). They later ascertained that Charley Scott was also in the plot.
In company with Gus Meamber, a Frenchman, and others who joined him at Lewiston, the merchant proceeded post haste to Walla Walla, traveling with a four horse team and breaking the record for fast time. They arrived just behind the highwaymen. Berry met Peoples in a saloon, disarmed him and took him into custody. Meamber found and arrested Scott. Dave English had not stopped in Walla Walla but had gone to Wallula. His arrest was made by Sheriff James Buck- ley, his deputy and a saloon keeper named Vaneise. It is said that an attempt was made to seeure for the prisoners a civil trial in the Walla Walla courts, which failed : also that the roughs of the city attempted the resene of their captured confreres. But the captors escaped with their prisoners to Lewiston. Here the outlaws were confined in a little log building.
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The people of Lewiston were thoroughly aroused over this erime. The victims of the robbery were well known and liked; furthermore there was a general feeling that the rule of the roughs must be brought to its termination, and accordingly efficient means were provided for the safe guarding of the prisoners. The men were confined in a little building situated on the point formed by the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake rivers. Two men. thoroughly armed, guarded them day and night and these were to bring to their assistance the entire populace in case of an attempted reseue, by ringing a large triangle near at hand. A plot for their release was led by an unele of Peoples, named Marshall, but the raid was defeated by Jonas Whaley, of the guard, a shot from whose Kentucky rifle served the double purpose of temporarily disabling Marshall and alarming the citizens.
Eventually a trial was given the accused men in George H. Sandy's store, at the corner of D and Second streets, which ended in their conviction. That night the guards were notified that their services were no longer needed. The next morning those who went over to the jail to see the prisoners found the three men hanging by their neeks from the rafters.
The date of this summary execution, according to a notation in the old Luna hotel register, now in the possesion of Charles F. Leland. was November 9, 1862. It marked the deeline of lawlessness in the vieinity of the Clearwater, for the villain- ous element departed one by one and in small squads to points in the interior and in Montana, where most of them ended their careers as such men usually do, either at the hands of their kind during quarrels or by the merciless ropes of vigilance committees. Among those to depart this life by the latter route was Henry Plum- mer himself, the reputed leader of the largest band, and the known author of many murders, homieides and robberies.
Lewiston first, then Orofino and finally Florence had been eenters of opera- tion for these hands of criminals. 'In Florence a vigilanee committee had been formed. Its members met after the death of "Cherokee Bob" and Willoughby and instructed their executive committee to warn all suspicious characters to leave the town forthwith. The most notorious characters had. however, taken refuge in flight.
A. J. Miner organized a pack train in 1857 and carried provisions from Walla Walla to the Wild Horse placer mines in British Columbia. On his first trip he passed over the present site of Spokane. "I saw 300 Indians drying fish in the sun in the woods where the city hall now stands. at Howard and Front," said Mr. Miner. "This was a great fishing place for the Indians in those days. The squaws took the fish in dipnets, and after they eleaned them the bueks would dry them in the sun. I built a store in Elk City in 1861, and ran it for years. Sugar was $1.25 a pound. boots $10 a pair. The only house of any kind within miles of Spokane was a small store built by Charles Kendall at Spokane Bridge. east of here in 1862. At that time there were only three women in the Inland Empire. My wife was one of them."
CHAPTER XXXIV
IMMIGRATION OF THE EARLY SEVENTIES
ARRIVAL OF OLDTIME CALIFORNIA AND IDAHO MINERS-THOMAS NEWLON ESTABLISHIES A FERRY NEAR TRENT-WILLIAM SPANGLE'S STAGE STATION-FIRST SETTLER AT MEDICAL LAKE-M. M. COWLEY LOCATES IN SPOKANE VALLEY-D. F. PERCIVAL IN ROCK CREEK REGION-COPLEN FAMILY AT LATAHI-WORLD'S LARGEST MASTODON DISCOVERED-SPOKANE'S FIRST BRASS BAND.
T YPICAL of the pioneers who came into the Spokane country in the '60s is Maxime Mulouin, who after a life of danger and hardship settled down in 1871 to peaceful pursuits on a farm on the present site of Mica. Born in Canada in 1840, he came overland to California in 1861. He shifted north in 1864, and for a year followed mining when the rush was on to the old Wild Horse placers on the upper Kootenai river, and then became a paeker between those mines and Walla Walla. As early as 1864 he traveled with his pack train over the place he subsequently took as a homestead, and in 1871 bought out the rights of a prior settler there named Knight. By thrift and industry Mr. Mulouin subsequently en- larged his holdings to 1,800 aeres.
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