William Denison Lyman

“ As we contemplate the beauty and grandeur of Old Oregon, which includes Washington and Idaho and a part of Montana, and the pathos, heroism and nobility of its history, and as we see the pitiful remnant of the Indians, we cannot fail to be touched with the quaint, the pathetic, and the suggestive myths and legends that are passing with them into the twilight. ”

“ To fail to give us good laws will be to "sin against light." "Unto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required." The eyes of all the people are upon you. It is hoped and confidently expected you will bring to the discharge of your duties wisdom, industry and lofty patriotism; that when your work is done it will be found to have been well done; that capital and labor will here have equal recognition and absolute protection; that here will arise an ideal commonwealth, the home of a race to match our mountains, worthy to wear the name of Washington. ”

“ LEADING HOTELS OF WALLA WALLA
[17]
"'You all know well my father was killed by the enemy, when you all deserted him like cowards; and, while the Great Master of Life spares me, no hostile foot shall again be set on our lands. I know you all; and I know that those who are afraid of their bodies in battle are thieves when they are out of it: but the warrior of the strong arm and the great heart will never rob a friend.' After a short pause, he resumed: 'My friends, the white men are brave and belong to a great nation. ”

“ A land of scenic charm, of physical interest, of fertile soil and ample resources, of climate in which living is a delight, of two great rivers and many impetuous tributaries, of mountain chains with rich and varied hues and contours of stately majesty,—such is the imperial domain included in that portion of the State of Washington lying east of the Columbia River and south of the Snake. While this region has distinctive physical features, it yet has a sufficient family resemblance to the other parts of Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington to indicate a common origin. ”

“ REMINISCENCES OF MEDICAL PRACTICE IN GARFIELD COUNTY, WASHINGTON, IN PIONEER TIMES
Forty years as a measure of the earth's geological changes, or of the history of the world, are as but a moment—as the lightning's flash or the fall of a meteor. The same lapse of time in the life of a physician, during the early settlement of the Inland Empire, seems long when viewed in retrospection. A sketch of those forty years would be a vitagraph of the most active period of his life and also the panorama of the building of an empire. ”

“ In this time of crime and insanity in Europe, due primarily to the mutual petty jealousies of races and boundaries, it is consolation to see vision and rationality enough in our own country to disregard petty lines and join in enterprises which encourage us in the hope of a rational future for humanity. It is a lesson in the get-together spirit. Every farm, every community, every town, every city from the top of the Rocky Mountains and from the northern boundary to Astoria shakes hands with every other this day. ”

“ Perhaps more than to wrong by either party, it has been due to that great, unexplained and unexplainable tragedy of human history, the inability of either party to comprehend the viewpoint of the other. And yet, most of all, it has been due to that inevitable and remorseless evolution of all life by which one race of plants, animals, and human beings progresses by the extermination of others. ”

“ It is all an exhibition of the evolution of nationalism, to which free labor is essential. And in that evolution, the West has borne the larger part. The sentiment of state pride, the local prejudices and narrow vision common in the older states and which in the South became intertwined with slavery and produced economic and political deformity and arrested development, was shuffled off when people of East and North and South and Europe all joined to lay the foundations of genuine American states in new regions unhampered and undistorted by caste and prejudice. ”

“ Now that I am about to surrender my trust and return to private life, I desire to testify to my grateful appreciation of the uniform kindness, forbearance and courtesy accorded me by the people of Olympia, and by all the citizens of Washington, it has been my good fortune to meet during my brief term of office. I shall always cherish among the pleasant experiences of my life the seven months passed here as Washington's last territorial governor.
To your governor-elect you need no introduction; if not a pioneer, he is at least an old settler. ”

“ The beautiful creek that now furnishes the water for several thousand acres of the great Clarkston project, a stream of much picturesque beauty as it makes its way, swiftly indeed, but with apparent serenity and general decorum through the lower end of the town into Snake River, has taken the liberty on several occasions to gather up reinforcements from the plains through which its tributaries have worn their way, and has come sweeping down the steep declivities in torrents that threatened to tear out everything in its course. ”

“ PICKING FRUIT IN OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY
[191]
The valley of the Tucanon, a ribbon of fertile soil deep down in the timbered heights of the Blue Mountains and lower down its course surrounded by the wide flats and benches of Garfield and Columbia counties, is the natural home for berries and "truck" of all sorts. The strawberries and melons are of the finest. The sparkling stream—one of the finest fishing streams by the way affords limitless opportunity for easy and economical irrigating and the soil is of the best, even in a region where good soil is no curiosity. ”

“ Each age that followed, the mining period, the cowboy period, the farming period, entered or left the Walla Walla Valley at this very point. Here the first steamboats blew their jubilant blasts to echo from these basaltic ramparts, and here the toot of the first railway in the Inland Empire started the coyotes and jackrabbits from their coverts of sagebrush. Wheresoever we turn history sits enthroned. ”

“ One of the most pleasing results of this new order of things is that the farmers, being almost entirely free from debt, have begun to build comfortable and even elegant homes, both on the farms and in the cities and to surround themselves with the conveniences of life, as automobiles, and to spend money in travel and luxuries which make some of the old-timers, accustomed to the deprivations of pioneer days, open their eyes with wonder, and possibly even disapproval. ”

“ The ease with which the people of that time have adjusted themselves to all the conveniences and elegancies of the present day, shows something of the infinite adaptability of human nature, and still more it shows that the foundation builders of the pioneer days had it in them to create all the improvements of later days. Raw as Walla Walla must have looked in the '60s, the essential conditions were there which have made our later age; rich soil, water, good surrounding country, industry, taste, brains, home spirit, good citizenship—and a certain reasonable amount of time. ”

“ One of the questions of Walla Webs politics, as of the rest of the state and indeed of the country, was woman suffrage. As the logical evolution of democracy that view of suffrage appealed to the Western man, and the conventional objections had little weight with him. Pressure was brought from all sides upon the legislative delegations to submit the proposition to a popular election—and when that occurred in 1908, it carried in the county and the state by a heavy vote. It has seemed to the voters of both sexes so natural a condition that they can now hardly conceive of any other. ”

“ CHAPTER II THE NATIVE RACES OF OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY
Any history of any part of America would be incomplete without some view of the aborigines. Such a view is due to them, as well as to the accuracy of statement and the philosophical perspectives of history. Such a view is required also by justice to the natives themselves. The ever westward movement of American settlement has been marked by trails of blood and fire. Warfare has set its red stains upon nearly every region wrested from barbarism to civilization. ”

“ Either State Socialism or personal ownership of land by the bulk of the people is what we must come to in this country. It looks very much as though we as a nation were at the deciding point. If big corporations, railroad monopolies, Weyerhaeuser timber syndicates, oil trusts, are to acquire the bulk of the land, it is either socialism or serfdom. The American people can take their choice. The rush for land is the evidence of their preference. So long as there is land distribution, as in the decade of the '70s, the American ideal is safe. ”

“ Snell is identified with the Walla Walla Commercial Club and is in thorough sympathy with its purposes to further the interests of the city and exploit its possibilities and advantages, also to extend its trade relations and, more than all, to uphold the high civic standards which here prevail. He had no assistance when he started out in the business world, but he early came to a realization of the fact that industry wins and industry became the beacon light of his life. Persistency of purpose has been one of the foundation stones of his success. ”

“ But at that time, the very year of the final consummation of the great work of Whitman, the treaty of 1846, giving Oregon up to latitude 49° to the United States, a consummation which must have made the brave hearts of the heroic pair thrill with joy and gratitude, the shadow was approaching, the end was near. The crown of heroism and service must be still further crowned with martyrdom. Even since the death of little Alice, the Indians at Waiilatpu had seemed to lose in growing measure the personal interest which they had manifested. ”

“ In the decade of the '70s there came to Walla Walla a man destined to leave upon the entire region the impress of one of the most remarkable characters in far vision, noble aims, and philanthropic disposition that ever lived within the State of Washington. We refer to Dr. N. G. Blalock. Eminent in his profession, his ceaseless industry and progressive aims did more perhaps than any other single life to broaden and advance all phases of the section in which he lived and wrought. He was the pioneer in wheat raising on large scale, as well as in many other lines of activity and experiment. ”

“ Governor Stevens had entered upon his great task of organizing the newly created territory by undertaking the establishment of a number of Indian reservations. The necessities of the case—both justice to the Indians and the whites, as well as the proper development of the country whose vast possibilities were beginning to be seen by the farsighted ones—seemed to compel the segregation of the natives into comparatively small reservations. The history of the laying out of these reservations is an entire history by itself. ”

“ This state of affairs in the West prepared the way for a new democracy, a national democracy, a genuine democracy for all men. The transformation of Walla Walla politics was simply a sample of a movement taking place all over the country. As a result, during the decades of the sixties and seventies, many former democrats, notably some who had been brought up in Missouri and other slave states, finding the democratic party, as they thought, still a laggard on progressive issues developed by the war and reconstruction, left the party and joined the republicans. ”

“ In the matter of expense for public education, the question never has been how little but how much can we afford to give or how much can we give. The configuration of the county has made necessary many remote and small communities and it is astonishing how much the people in these remote communities have been willing to sacrifice to educate their children and when it has been impossible to maintain a local school on account of the small valuation or small number of pupils many families have annually moved to town for the winter months to give their children the opportunities of the schools. ”

“ Michael Kenny
FORT WALLA WALLA IN 1857
[91]
"Monday, 11:30 A.M.—I have no reason to die for things that I did not do. My time is short. I tell the truth. I know that I am close to the grave; but my heart is open and I tell the truth. I love every one in this world. I know that God will give me a big heart. I never confessed to the marshal that I was guilty, or to any other person; I am innocent. The priests did not tell us to do what the Indians have done. ”

“ On the spot where we stand the past, the present and the future join hands. Here passed unknown generations of aborigines on the way from the Walla Walla Valley to ascend or descend the Great River, to pass in to the Yakima country, or to move in either direction to the berry patches or hunting grounds of the great mountains; here the exploring expedition of Lewis and Clark paused to view the vast expanse of prairie before committing themselves to what they supposed to be the lower river ”

“ For forty-seven years I have been a resident of the Walla Walla Valley. As I have expressed myself many times before I think our valley, its climate and resources considered, is one of the greatest countries in the world. For years on my farm at Dixie I have been a producer of a varied line of farm products, not the least of which was much choice fruit and also several varieties of nuts. ”

“ Gold had been discovered in Eastern Washington. Vast possibilities of cattle raising were evident on those endless bunch-grass hills. Although there was as yet little conception of the future developments of the Inland Empire in agriculture and gardening, yet the keen-eyed immigrants and volunteers had scanned the pleasant vales and abounding streams of the Walla Walla and Umatilla and Palouse, and had decided in their own minds that, Wool or no Wool, this land most be opened. ”

“ With childlike interest in the stars and moon and sun and fire and water and forests, as well as plants and animal life and their own natures, they have sought out and passed on a wealth of legend and fancy which in its best features is worthy of a place with the exquisite creations of Norse and Hellenic fancy, even with much of the crude and grotesque. ”