USA > Washington > Asotin County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 52
USA > Washington > Columbia County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 52
USA > Washington > Garfield County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 52
USA > Washington > Walla Walla County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 52
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ever known by white men, and according to Indians has not been equaled for many years, possibly several centuries. Nearly the whole of the lower part of Asotin was covered and the road between Asotin and Clarkston was under water in numerous places. So far as destruction from the creek was con- cerned, however, the flood of May 20, 1897, was the most disastrous of any. This was due to a cloud burst covering most of the upper sources of the creek. Since there was but a gentle rain at Asotin there was no conception of what was impending from above, until the roaring of the torrent heralded its approach. For a distance of fifteen miles the bed of the stream was swept clean. All the bridges were carried out and many of the houses, gardens, and other property destroyed.
Mr. Baumeister points out in his beautiful yard, with its stone wall ten fect high on the creek margin, how the water rose high above the top of the wall. Considering the irresistible force of a column of water fifteen or eighteen feet high rushing down that steep descent and considering the destruction of property it seems strange indeed that there were no human lives lost. It seems to have been by a series of fortunate happenings that those in peril were in posi- tions to save themselves. The schoolhouse in the Hopwood District was swept away, but the teacher, hearing the tumult, had led the children to the hillside just in time.
The most notable fires in the history of Asotin Town were on February 3, 1886, in which the Pioneer Hotel belonging to Mrs. Lile was destroyed, and that of March 15, 1893, in which the City Hotel, belonging to Mrs. Myers, was burned. The feature of the second fire which gave it great notoriety was that a man named Frank Sherry perished in the flames. It appeared that Charles E. Myers, the husband of the woman who conducted the hotel, but who had been separated from her, had been found not guilty of killing a man some years before as a result of difficulty about his first wife. The sentiment upon the discovery of the death of Sherry became intense in the town and it was reported to officers that there was a plan for lynching Myers, who had become charged with having fired the hotel in order to punish his wife and a man of whom he was jealous. The Sentinel, in speaking of the event in its issue of March 31st. declares that the reports of purposed lynching are exaggerated and that the people of the place have no other thought than a fair trial. As a matter of fact, Myers was conveyed to Dayton. He was subsequently tried for murder. The case was remarkable in that it was appealed twice to the Supreme Court and on the first appeal was retried. The verdict of guilty was affirmed in both cases. Petitions for pardon were sent to Gov. John H. McGraw, but he declined to stop the course of judicial decision, and Myers, without at any time having confessed the crime, was executed on September 30, 1895, two and a half years after the alleged crime. The execution took place at Pomeroy, and in accordance with the barbarous and horrible law then prevailing was public, and it is stated that hun- dreds of men, women and children were present.
The annals of the county were marked in August, 1896, with the lynching of a half-breed, Viles, for a sexual outrage, and the same kind of punishment for a similar offense with murder was meted out to a boy named Hamilton in the same month of 1903. The old timers in discussing those events express the opinion that though lynch law is to be deplored, and though in the second
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case the criminal was a half-witted degenerate, yet the proof was clear in both cases (for both confessed), and the condign punishment well-merited.
Turning from the miscellaneous events to the constructive industries of the county, we may say that there has been a steady and substantial, though not rapid increase in population, production, and property valuation, year by year from the date of county organization. The original stock industry gave way to grain farming, and in that Asotin County has been, for its area, one of the most productive in the state. It is asserted that Asotin warehouses and plat- forms along the Snake River from which the steamboats gather up the wheat, constitute the greatest initial grain shipping point or series of points on the O .- W. R. and N. R. R. system.
ORCHARDS AND GARDENS
But though the wheat and barley of the prairies constitute already a great production and will in the future constitute a still larger source of revenue, the most interesting and important industry is horticulture and fruit raising. In the area of land devoted to intensive farming under irrigation, Asotin has nearly as much as the other three counties of old Walla Walla put together. This very important productive area, which composes the most distinctive feature of the county, centers at Clarkston. The history of this industry and this place con- stitutes a chapter by itself, unique in the history of the Northwest.
The Clarkston project has been practically the work of one of the most noted historic families of the United States, that of the Adams family of Boston. Charles Francis Adams the second, when president of the Union Pacific R. R .. formed the conception of an irrigated tract under ideal conditions upon land which he could see had superior advantages of location, soil, and climate, that is to say the broad flat, with successive benches, on the west side of the junction of the Snake and Clearwater. That location was first called Lewiston. Then in remembrance of the historic name of Concord, Mass., dear to the New Eng- landers who were founding the enterprise, the name Concord was used. Objec- tions on the part of local residents arose, and on April 6, 1900, the name of the voting precinct was changed by the county commissioners to Clarkston, as the fitting mate to Lewiston, recalling the two leaders of the first expedition of discovery. By special petition to the Federal authorities the name of Clarkston was adopted for the name of the town.
The enterprise at Clarkston was in reality, it should be observed, a second thought on the part of Mr. Adams, for his first plan was the development of what is now known as the Indian Cache Ranch, formerly known as the Adams Ranch, on the north side of the Clearwater, a short distance above Lewiston. That splendid property was the first undertaking of Mr. Adams.
The first organization of the project at Clarkston was effected in 1896 under the name of the Lewiston Water and Power Co., of which Henry Adams the Second, son of Charles Francis Adams, became the head. This company ulti- mately had a capital of $2,000,000. In1 1900 the company acquired the property of the Lewiston Light Company which had been formed in 1899 to provide electric light and power for the City of Lewiston. In 1904 the Asotin Land and Water Company's holdings were acquired and the projects were all blended in the
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Lewiston-Clarkston Company, and that in turn was reorganized in 1910 as the Lewiston-Clarkston Improvement Company. Henry Adams, with members of his family, retained the majority of the stock. At the present time, the properties are segregated into two distinct divisions. The Lewiston-Clarkston Improve- ment Company conducts the land business, while the utility work, the light and power business, is conducted under the name of the Washington-Idaho Water, Light and Power Co. Such is a bare outline of the general plan and changes effected by reorganization of this remarkable enterprise. Entering a little more into detail, it is of interest to note that the initial incorporators of the lewiston Water and Power Company were E. H. Libby, formerly of Yakima, C. C. Van Arsdil and Dr. J. B. Morris of Lewiston, and G. W. Bailey and Wm. Farrish of Asotin. This incorporation acquired 2,500 acres at low figures, ranging from ten to twenty-five dollars per acre, largely from the original entrymen, Edward Pearcy, E. J. Warner, Wm. Caldwell, S. Wildenthaler, Joseph Alexander, Chris Weisenberger, D. S. Dent, John Aubin, together with a tract that had been secured by the New England Mortgage Security Company. E. H. Libby became president of the company. Land secured, water was the next requisite. The Asotin Creek had already been filed on and in 1896, July 18th, water actually reached Vineland. Mr. Libby acted as manager, with intermissions, until April 7, 1911. Mr. Libby, with W. G. Clark, engineered the reorganization of the Lewiston-Clarkston Company, which in 1910 became the Lewiston-Clarkston Improvement Company. At that time Spencer Trask & Company of New York, took $600,000 bonds of the new company and acquired an interest in the common stock. H. L. Powers, now of Lewiston, became vice president and manager in 1911, with Henry Adams as president, and retained the position till 1912, when he removed to Lewiston. He continued to act as vice president of the Lewiston Land & Water Company. Robert A. Foster, who had come in 1910 as engineer, became in 1912 the vice president and general manager of the Improvement Company, and in 1914, its president.
Land and water secured, the next necessity was a bridge across Snake River. Clarkston was so logically connected with Lewiston, though in another state, that a direct connection by a bridge was vital. The City of Lewiston granted to Mr. Libby a charter for the construction of a bridge in May, 1896. It was com- pleted and opened for traffic June 24, 1899. This was a great bridge, 1,450 feet long, lifted so high above the river as to allow steamers to pass under. The first articles of incorporation of the bridge first known as the Lewiston-Concord Bridge, were dated November 26, 1897, and the incorporators were E. H. Libby and George W. Bailey. The incorporation was practically identical with the Lewiston Water and Power Company. Being across a navigable river the plans had to be approved by the secretary of war, and a permit granted by Congress. These necessities were duly accomplished in 1898. The contract for the con- struction called for $110,000. In 1914 the bridge became the joint property of the two states, for $80,000.
Asotin Creek has a mean annual discharge of 39,410 acre feet. The system makes provision for a domestic and municipal consumption for 10,000 people, and irrigation supply for 6,000 acres. The main pipe line is eleven miles long, and is from thirty-two to forty-eight inches in diameter, made of wooden staves,
ONE VIEW OF THE PARTIALLY COMPLETED TWENTY MILLION GALLON POMEROY GULCH RESERVOIR, A LINK IN THE PRESSURE WATER SERVICE FOR THE IRRIGATION AND DOMESTIC SUPPLY OF CLARKSTON-VINELAND
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except where it crosses Maguire Gulch, a very high pressure steel pipe, four feet in diameter is used.
The Pomeroy Reservoir has a capacity of 20,000,000 cubic feet or 460 acre feet.
The major part of what has generally been known as Clarkston-Vineland has been sold by the company and is cultivated in small tracts, beautifully laid out and developed, trees, flowers, shrubbery, and lawns, a continuous village, thus fulfilling the noble ideal of the projectors as being a model irrigation project. . The company has, however, retained possession of the larger part of the mag- nificent Clarkston Heights and is handling that property as a unit. It is a dis- trict hard to match among the irrigated tracts of the Northwest. It has every conceivable advantage of soil, climate, scenery, water supply, and when ulti- mately sold will be one of the rare home lands of the world. The company still owns about one-third of the town-site of Clarkston and about five thousand acres of land, of which 927.98 acres are in apple trees in a solid body. The apple trees are divided as follows in percentages : Winesap, 40 per cent ; Yellow New- towns, 15; Spitzenberg, 15; Jonathan, 10; Rome Beauty, 10; assorted varieties, 10. The average holding on the tract is only 31/2 acres, making this the most densely populated irrigation district in the United States.
The electric power and light properties of the company, under another organization, as stated, constitute a system by themselves. The power plant comprises the Asotin power station, the Pomeroy power station, the Clarkston auxiliary steam plant, and the Lewiston sub station ; a total of 3,200 horse power. There is also a power development on the Grande Ronde River, 21/2 miles above the mouth and 281/2 miles from Clarkston, with a minimum of 6,900 horse power, and a pack load capacity of 10,000 horse power. Through these plants the company supplies with power and light the towns of Asotin, Clarkston, Lewiston and Lapwai, having a population of about fifteen thousand.
One of the most important recent enterprises in the development of this section is the electric railway from Lewiston across the interstate bridge to Clarkston and Vineland, a total amount of four miles of street railway. This work was completed in the summer of 1916. It is owned by the Lewiston- Clarkston Transit Company. Contrary to the recent experience of some of the "Twin City" trolley enterprises, which have been seriously affected by jitney competition, this undertaking is said to be amply rewarded by financial results. There is so much transit during the fruit picking and packing season and there is so much general activity of movement to and from Lewiston, that the cars are almost constantly well filled. There was a total of 2,000,000 passenger crossings over the bridge during the year ended at this writing.
The Clarkston-Vineland region has none of the first pioneer settlers left. There are, however, a number of what may be called the second wave of immi- gration, prior to the inauguration of the Improvement Company. Mr. and Mrs. F. G. Morrison are said to be the earliest comers now living in the town. They came in 1878, though not to the place where they are now living. At the time of their coming the ferry was maintained by Ed Pearcy. E. J. Warner had a claim in what is now the business part of Clarkston. "Johnnie" Greenfield, an old bachelor, was then living on the "flat." He was a landscape gardener of much ability, having been employed to lay out Woodward's Gardens in San
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Francisco. There was a family named Pearsall living a little west of the present home of Mr. Morrison, having four sons, Jerry, Jake, William, and Ed.
We referred earlier in this chapter to O. F. Canfield. He is a man of unique interest, both by reason of keen intellect, many adventures in the wildest regions of the Pacific Coast, and his peculiarly marked pioneer traits. He came as a ten year old boy with his father. W. D. Canfield, and the family from Iowa across the plains in 1847. Being late in reaching Oregon, the father decided to accept the urgent invitation of Dr. Whitman that he remain at Waiilatpu ( Mr. Canfield says that the Indians sounded that historic name more as Wai- . ilatipsu) for the winter. They had been there but about a month when the dreadful Whitman massacre of November 29, 1847, occurred. The father of the family was shot by the Indians, but by reason of a glancing bullet was not seriously, though painfully wounded. In the general excitement he evaded observation and remaining in hiding till night managed to communicate with Mrs. Canfield and the children. Thinking from all the indications that the Indians were not going to murder the women and children, Mr. Canfield decided to try to reach Spalding's station at Lapwai where he hoped that he might find rescuers for the captives at Waiilatpu. Though bleeding from his wound. and having but scanty food or clothing in the freezing weather of winter he set out and with terrible suffering reached Lapwai. The son, now a white haired man of seventy-eight, tells us that his father would never have reached Lapwai, had not old Timothy, the Nez Perce chief of the Alpowa, succored him and carried him across the river. Being on the north side of the river he was com- paratively safe and reached Lapwai. Years after, so Mr. Canfield tells us, he saw Timothy, then very old and destitute. Telling him that he was the son of the man whom he saved at that momentous time, he told the old Indian that he wanted to pay him for saving his father. But Timothy would not take any- thing. He said, striking his breast, that he had "hyas close tumtum." It was "halo chickamon." Finally Mr. Canfield induced the old man to accept some tobacco and an overcoat as presents, but not as pay.
Mr. Canfield told another Indian story of very different character, worthy of preservation. When Howlish Wampoo, the famous Umatilla chief, was the ruler of his tribe he had many horses, some fine racing animals. There was a great horse racer at that time named Joe Crabbe, living in Portland. Crabbe had known of Howlish Wampoo's fast horses and was anxious to get up some races and incidentally clean up some big bets. Going to Umatilla he finally engineered a big meet with the Indians. The crowning event was to be between Crabbe's champion and anything that the Indian chief could bring on. Howlish Wampoo was very crafty. He might have been a Teuton diplomat of the present. He brought out and made a great parade of a spotted horse which he said he was going to run, and then innocently put the horse in a corral very handy to the white men. Crabbe's hostlers took the horse out in the night, no Indians being in sight, and tried him. They found that he was nothing extra fast, and so they made all their plans in the light of that discovery. The next day came the great race. Everything was excitement, and betting went to a great pitch. Crabbe finally put up $1.500 on his horse and at last even his silver mounted saddle and spurs. Howlish Wampoo accepted the bets with seeming reluctance and Indian stoicism. When the horses were brought out Crabbe saw with some
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suspicion that the spotted Indian racer looked a little different and stepped a little different from what he did the day before. As he told Canfield in relating his experience he "felt a sort of cold chill go down his back." But it was too late to back out. Off they went, a four mile race, two miles to a stake, around it and back again. The Indian horse was evidently not the same horse. He went like a shot out of a gun and reached the goal post so much ahead that his rider turned back to run again with Crabbe's champion, and then beat him into camp. The Indians made an awful clean up on the white men's bets. Howlish Wampoo, with just a faint suspicion of an inward grin on his mahogany counte- nance, told Crabbe that he might have his saddle and spurs back again, and enough money to get home on.
Afterwards Crabbe made great offers to the Indian for the spotted racer, wishing to take him East or even to Europe, for he was satisfied that he could beat the world in a four mile race. But Howlish Wampoo would never sell the pet racer.
Mr. Canfield remembers the events of the Whitman massacre with intensity and narrates them with vividness. He considers the fundamental cause to have been the fear by the Indians that the whites were going to dispossess them of their lands, and that their fears in that respect were fostered by Tom Hill, a renegade Delaware Indian, who had drifted. across the continent, having come considerable part of the way with the Canfields. Jo Lewis, a half-breed, who had been greatly befriended by the Whitmans, was another inciting cause. Both of them were bad men and grossly betrayed their benefactors. The fatal scourge of measles and the death of some of Whitman's patients was an occasion for the outbreak, but the fear of white occupation was, in Mr. Canfield's judgment, the real cause. He says that he knows that Tamsucky was the leader in the mas- sacre and that it was he who buried his tomahawk in Whitman's head. There was reason to believe that Tamsucky afterwards greatly regretted his act. There were four Indian chiefs, Isticcas, Moolipool, Tinsinmitsal, and Beardy, who were steadfast friends of the whites. This assertion of Mr. Canfield is the more interesting by reason of the fact that Miles Cannon in his recent book, "Wai- ilatpu," asserts that Isticcas was a traitor and participated in the massacre. Mr. Canfield is confident that that is an error. Mrs. Jacobs (well known in Walla Walla, now living in Portland, an eight year old child at the time of the mas- sacre, a member of the Osborne family, who were present at the tragedy), sup- ports Mr. Canfield's statement, declaring that old timers asserted that if there were any Christians in the country, Isticcas was one. Mr. Cannon in his book also expresses the opinion that Mr. Rogers basely asserted to the Indians that Doctor Whitman was poisoning them, hoping thereby to save his own life. Mrs. Jacobs declares that this statement is absolutely false and that Mr. Rogers, like the rest of the victims, died like a hero and a Christian.
Doctor Whitman, according to Mr. Canfield's recollection, while one of the noblest and bravest of men, was not a "fighting man," submitting rather tamely, as he thought, to insults by the Indians. Nor was he so large and powerful a man physically as some have described him. The most valuable testimony about Whitman is found in the statement by Mr. Canfield that he heard him several times discussing the future of this region with the elder Canfield. He urged him to remain in the Walla Walla Valley, pointing out that since it had become Vol. 1-27
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American territory it offered greater inducements to settlement than any other part of Oregon. He thought it better than the Willamette Valley. He declared that it was the best sheep country in the world, that during the eleven winters since he came to Walla Walla there were only two in which sheep could not have grazed the year round. He proposed that Mr. Canfield locate near Waiilatpu, and the next year join with himself in an organized drive of a large band of sheep into the country and the inauguration of a permanent wool industry. Ile figured that they could work their wool down to The Dalles and there reach regular boat connections and from the Lower Columbia ship by sailing vessels to New York, Boston, and Europe. It was certainly a great conception and demonstrates anew the practical judgment and far vision of the martyr of Waiilatpu.
THE TOWNS OF ASOTIN COUNTY
Asotin and Clarkston are the only organized towns in Asotin County.
As stated earlier there was a double location, Assotin City and Asotin, for what has now become one town under the latter name. The former place was laid out by Alexander Sumpter in May, 1878. On July 22, 1880, the dedication was made by Mr. and Mrs. Sumpter, and at the same time a postoffice was located there. The next year Mr. Sumpter erected a warehouse. The ferry across Snake River was established by J. J. Kanawyer in October, 1881.
A flour mill was put up in 1883 by 1 .. O. Stimson at a point about two-thirds of a mile up the creek from its mouth. That mill was run for a time by John Dill, then by Curtis and Braden, who bought out Stimson. A little later than Mr. Sumpter's location, Mr. Schank employed A. T. Beall to survey his land near the mouth of the creek for a town site. The plot of this location was filed November 10, 1881, by T. M. E. Schank, W. H. Reed, Louise D. Reed, and Alexander Reed. Various additions have been made to the original site. Mr. S. J. Sergeant tells us that when he came to Asotin in 1879, there was nothing except Schank's cabin. During the next year Mr. Schank and Mr. Reed set out in earnest to start their town. In the issue of the Sentinel of April 24, 1885, we find an advertisement that would do credit to a Spokane real estate dealer setting forth the desirability of the location for business, loans or investment. Lots are announced at from thirty to one hundred and fifty dollars, and "sure to advance."
In the Asotin Spirit, beginning October 19, 1883, succeeded by the Sentinel, June 24, 1885, we find other interesting ads, of that day. In the first number of the Spirit Pettyjohn and McAlpin advertise their general store. F. E. Scott of Theon announces that he will sell wines, whiskeys, oysters, candies, medi- cines, and toilet articles. The ferry of J. J. and P. Kanawyer appears and it is asserted that the road to Lewiston by that crossing is far better than any other. The Assotin Flour Mills of Curtis and Braden have good space, and they an- nounce that they will give thirty-five pounds of flour and six pounds of bran for a bushel of wheat.
In the Sentinel of various issues in 1885, we find the advantages of the Pearcy ferry displayed. The Lile House of J. D. Lile appears. In the Sentinel of June 24, 1885, is a flaming prospectus of a "Grand Social Hop" to occur in
MAIN STREET, LOOKING SOUTH. CLARKSTON
CLARKSTON
PUBLIC LIBRARY, CLARKSTON
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