John E. Rees

“ The Colonel was overjoyed at the assured passage of the bill, which he had in charge and his friends who had assembled at his rooms joined with him in conferring, upon me the high privilege of naming the new territory. I answered, 'Well, if I am to name it, the territory shall be called Idaho, for my little niece, who was bom near Colorado Springs, whose name is Idaho, from an Indian chief's daughter of that name, so called for her beauty, meaning the *Gem of the Mountains.' Dr. Anson G. Henry, the surveyor-general of Washington territory, then on a visit to Washington City, was in the room. ”

“ The effect which day and night might have had upon the habits of primitive man is a subject within the province of the anthropologist. However, we are informed that civilized man is ofttimes influenced by custom survivals and will, long after the necessary fact for a certain action has ceased, continue to act as if it were still in existence. Whatever might have been the reason, in times past, we know and realize that the expression, "It's sun up," has a meaning to the majority of mankind of an influence which the rising sun has upon his actions. ”

“ Quite a delegation was present at Washington city who favored the division of Washington territory, which then included all of Idaho and Montana west of the Rocky mountains, extending as far south as the northern line of California and Nevada. ”

“ The people in- habiting this section of the country were so far from Olympia, the capital, and had for some time agitated a division of the eastern part of Washington territory; so through the solici- tation and request of these people each of these candidates agreed that whoever was elected would favor this division and every one agreed that "Idaho" should be the name of the new territory. That this agreement was carried out is proven by the fact that Mr. Wallace, the successful candidate, at once had introduced in Congress a bill creating the new territory of Idaho. ”

“ In the morning they were awakened by the Indians calling 'I-da-ho' and pointing to the rising sun just coming over the mountain, hence the term *The Rising Sun/ Another is that the name was taken from a steamboat built by the late Col. ”