Hubert Howe Bancroft

“ At Jamestown, the largest of their towns and the residence of the chief, the Indians had purchased the land—200 acres—and erected a school-house and church. Their habits were temperate and industrious.
East of the Cascade Mountains the Yakima agency extended over a reservation containing nearly 900,000 acres, with a population of 3,000, which would give to every man, woman, and child belonging to the agency some 250 acres. The actual amount under any kind of improvement was about 5,000. Large herds of cattle and horses roamed over the remainder, all of which was good farming and grazing land. ”

“ In the success of this road the people of Washington saw the realization of their dream of an immigrant highway from the east direct to Puget Sound, the northern location being peculiarly acceptable to them for the reason that it made necessary the completion of a route over the Cascade Mountains. ”

“ Vancouver had a greater number of academies in proportion to its population in 1885 than any other town in Washington. The Sisters' House of Providence, established in 1856, was the oldest academy then in the territory, besides which the methodists and episcopalians had a eminary, and the catholics a boys' school, in addition to the public school. ”

“ Governor Squire had said in a report to the secretary of the interior that among the reasons for the admission of the territory were the "sterling, patriotic, and enterprising character of its citizens; its present and prospective maritime relations with the world; its position as a border state on the confines of the dominion of Canada, the most powerful province of Great Britain; its wealth of natural resources and growing wealth of its people ”

“ Walla Walla organized a library association and free reading-room, which was supported by citizens for the benefit of strangers, and had a literary and lecture society, to which the officers from the garrison gave much time. The literary society was established as early as 1865.
The first printing done in this section was at the missionary station of Lapwai, in what was then Oregon, and was afterward Washington, and finally Idaho. The printer was Edwin O. Hall of the Honolulu mission, subsequently editor of the Polynesian. ”

“ Schools were taught, and about three fourths of the Indians cultivated gardens or farms. The Indian town was built in a triangular form around a flag-staff and crucifix, Neah Bay agency, located in the extreme north-west corner of the county of Clallam, contained 23,000 acres for the use of the Makahs, who numbered between 500 and GOO. The land was chiefly mountainous and heavily timbered, and the Indians, who were a sea-going tribe and lived by seal-hunting and otter-fishing, had not adopted a civilized mode of living to any extent. ”

“ By act of congress approved July 2, 1862, 30,000 acres of land for each senator and representative to which the states were respectively entitled was granted for agricultural colleges. Under the provisions of this act the legislature of 1864-5 passed an act establishing Washington College at or near Vancouver, and vested its government in a board of trustees, of which the governor was ex officio a member. ”

“ These Indians had a methodist teacher. The Queniult agency comprised the Queniults, Queets, Hohs, and Quilleliutes, none of them numerous tribes, and only the first two living upon the reservation, which contained 224,000 acres of heavily timbered land, in- accessible for half the year. Only about twenty acres were cultivated in 1885, but these people, like the Makahs, lived on the products of the ocean fisheries, and were by no means poor, their houses being comfortable and themselves well-fed. Little progress was made in changing their mode of life. ”

“ We are rich and reputable, and do not require anybody to settle our bills. Give us the right to regulate our local affairs, and we will not only pay our own officers, but we will render much service to the union."
In 1888 Miles C. Moore of Walla Walla, republi- can, was appointed governor to succeed Semple, democrat, but only in time to be immersed in the excitement of a change of government forms, for congress, on the 22d of February, 1889 (very appropriately) , passed an enabling act, proposing the terms on which the state of Washington might be admitted to the union. ”

“ Tilton, the surveyor-general appointed for Washington, was directed to join with the surveyor-general of Oregon in starting the sur- vey of his territory, carrying out the work as already begun, and using it as a basis for organizing the Washington surveys in that part of the country where the settlers most required a survey. ”

“ Frequent reference has been made in the narrative of Washington history to the opening of roads to give the Puget Sound region land communication with other parts of the country, and open a way for the mails. In 1852 the only means of access from the Columbia River was by a cattle-trail, while immigrants and their luggage were conveyed in canoes up the Cowlitz River, after which they were compelled to take to the rude trail cut by the immi- grants of 1845. ”

“ Five per centum of the proceeds of the sales of public lands within the state, which should be sold by the United States after its admis- sion, deducting all expenses incident to the same, should be paid to the state to be used as a permanent fund, the interest of which only should be expended for the support of common schools. ”

“ County superintendents were provided for by the law of 1854, to be elected at the annual elections. In 1861 it was enacted that a territorial superintendent should be chosen triennially by the legislature, whose duty it should be to collect such information as might be deemed important, reporting annually to that body, and supervising the expenditure of the school fund. ”

“ The change was, however, adhered to, but the Colville Indians continued to occupy that valley in common with white settlers, the Jesuits taking cliarge of their spiritual affairs, as they had done since 1842. A further grant was made on the west side of the Okana- gan in April 1879, whereby the reservation was extended on the west side of the Okanagan to the Cascade Range, making the reserved land comprise all the country in east Washington west of the Columbia and noith of about 48° 30', containing about 4,000 square miles, or between two and three million acres. ”

“ Fearing government delay in furnish- ing the money for its construction, and wishing to have a road opened for the next immigration to come direct to Puget Sound, the people undertook the work themselves, and endeavored to bring the road to Fort Steiiacoom, thus inviting congressional aid, and securing a terminus near Olympia. A sur- vey was therefore made of the Nachess pass, and the road brought down the valley of White River to the junction of Green River, where it turned south across the Puyallup to Fort Steiiacoom. ”

“ Wiley died March 30, 1860, at the age of 40, the victim of intemperate drinking. He was born in Ohio, was possessed of brilliant talents, and impressed his mind and energy upon the history of his adopted country, but fell by a power mightier than himself. Pioneer and Dem., March 30, 1860. In November 1860 Furste sold the paper to James Lodge, who found the change in public sentiment against the democratic antecedents of this journal, which lost precedence, and was discontinued not long after. Historically, the Pioneer and Democrat is of more importance than any other journal or journals. ”

“ The constitution should be republican in form, make no distinction in civil or political rights on account of race or color, except as to Indians not taxed, and not be repugnant to the constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence. ”

“ That widows immigrating to and settling in the territory should be allowed to take the same amount of land as unmarried men, by compliance with the law. 6. That all persons who should have located claims under the provis- ions of the donation law prior to the 1st of Jan., 1852, should be entitled to their patents as soon as the land should have been surveyed, and they have obtained a certificate from the surveyor-general. ”

“ The legislature of 1854 also required their delegates in congress to endeavor to procure an appropriation of $50,000, and a section of land in each township along the different territorial roads, to be located by the road commissioners, to aid in the construction of these highways and the necessary bridges. It asked, moreover, for $30,000 to be expended in opening a practicable wagon-road from Vancouver to Steilacoom; for $25,000 for a military road from The Dalles to Vancouver ”

“ In lieu of the grant of land for purposes of internal improvement made to new states by the act of September 4, 1841, and in lieu of any claim or demand by the state under the act of September 28, 1850, and section 2479 of the Revised Statutes, granting swamp and overflowed lands to certain states, and in lieu of any grant of saline lands, there was granted to the state of Washington, for the establishment and maintenance of a scientific school, one hundred thousand acres, the same amount for state normal schools ”

“ Portland West Shore, July 1877. of the national legislature was called was a change in the land law, to effect which congress was memorialized to grant them a surveyor-general of their own, and a land system "separate from, and wholly disconnected with, that of Oregon territory."^^
By comparing the demands with the memorials of the Oregon legislature from time to time, it will be perceived that the earth hunger was not all confined to the people south of the Columbia. ”

“ The trail then turned directly toward the head waters of the middle fork of the Yakima, and thence down the mountains towards the Columbia. This ap- pears to have been the first survey of the Yakima pass by citizens of the U. S. A portion of this route was an old Indian trail which could then have been traversed by pack-trains without serious inconvenience. Lansdale, who resided on Whidbey Island, proposed to begin the construction of a road over this route in the follov/ing spring, which would have brought the immigration to the lower portion of. the Sound. ”

“ Seattle had six, Port Townsend three, and the whole number for western Washington was about thirty. The whole number in eastern Washington was given at nineteen, seven of these being at Walla Walla, namely, the methodist, Cumberland presbyterian, episcopal, congregational, catholic, seventh-day adventists, and united brethren.
A school was opened in Olympia, Nov. 22, 1852, by A. W. Moore, first teacher and postmaster on Puget Sound after its settlement by American colonists. Moore died in 1875, aged 55 years, having always labored for the best interests of society. ”

“ In 1853 he, in company with his brother Henry and Alonzo Leland, published the Portland Democratic Standard. In 1859 he was one of the proprietors of the San Francisco Evening Journal, but sold his interest in 1860, and the following year removed to Walla Walla. He died in Feb. 1863 of consumption, at the age of 27 years. Olympia Wash. Standard, Feb. 28, 1863.
The Golden Age was first published at Lewiston, then in Washington territory, August 11, 1862, by A. S. Gould, who had been connected with a Portland paper, and was subsequently engaged in journalism in Utah. ”

“ Then there was the Tacoma News; also the Bellingham Bay Mail, edited and published by James Powers, republican in politics; the Vancouver Independent, W. Byron Daniels editor; the Spirit of the West, Walla Walla, B. M. Washburne editor, independent in politics; Olympia Northwest Farmer; the Dayton News, founded in 1874 by A. J. Cain; the Waitsburg Times; and Columbia Chronicle, of eastern Washington; and the weekly Puget Sound Express, Steilacoom, Julius Dickens editor. ”

“ The legislature, at its first session, en- acted laws for the location of territorial roads from Steilacoom to Seattle, from Steilacoom to Vancouver, from Seattle to Bellingham Bay, from Olym- pia to Shoalwater Bay, from Cathlamet to the house of Sidney S. Ford in Thurston county, from Shoalwater Bay to Gray Harbor, and thence to inter- sect the road to Olympia, from Puget Sound to the mouth of the Columbia, from Seattle to intersect the immigrant road, and from Olympia to Monti- cello. ”

“ The taxable property was given at $84,621,182, or a gain of $65,698,260 in ten years, which being taken from the assessment roll was considered conservative enough for the minimum; for as the governor quaintly remarked: "Whatever else an average American citizen may neglect, he never forgets to beat down the assessor." ”

“ By act of congress approved Feb. 5, 1855, $30,000 was appropriated, at the recommendation of Stevens and others connected with the Northern Pacific railroad survey, for the construction of a military road from the great falls of the Missouri to Fort Walla Walla, a distance not far short of 700 miles, John Mullan being the officer assigned to the survey. ”

“ Ebey's Journal, MS., 8, 77. The first minister settled in eastern Washington, not of the Roman church, was P. B. Chamberlain, who in the spring of 1864 purchased a building known as Ryan's Hall and fitted it up as a church, where he made war on wickedness with a singleness of purpose rare in modern times. Chamberlain founded the first congregational church in Washington. Nine years afterward a church of this denomination was organized at Olympia, which purchased the lot and building formerly owned by the catholic church on Main street for a few hundred dollars, and in Sept. ”