Mukilteo, Washington - The City Of "Firsts" - Scene Of Indian Treaty - M. H (part 1 of 14)

Chapter Ii Up The Skykomish

'MONROE. SPRINGS FROM OLD COMMUNITY- - -TUALCO - PARK PLACE - MONROE PLATTED, 1891; TYE CITY - BIG FIRE OF 1900 - INCORPORATION - THE CITY OF 1906 - BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY.

Changed To Startup In 1901 Gold Bar

INDEX. BEAUTIFUL TOWN AT THE FOOT OF THE MOUNTAINS - AMOS D. GUNN, FOUNDER - BOOM DAYS OF 1892 - DESTRUCTIVE FIRE, 1893 - SECOND BIG FIRE - ATTRACTS MANY VISITORS - OTHER SNOHOMISH CCN TY. FE WAIN GS ce ceases scshcnct ashes ete tates aaa eben te cen ped aed chee yd atice baton escbayanesacghcaenmroetuanenetiaate 592

Agriculture

FIRST RANCH SETTLERS - RANCHERS WERE ALSO LOGGERS - PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS - EARLIEST ACTIVITIES - FIRST STORES - FIRST DAIRY COW - FIRST COUNTY FAIR - DIKING BEGINS IN EARLY SEVENTIES - CENSUS OF 1878 - RAILROAD LAND DIFFICULTIES - AGRICULTURE IN 1877 - DIPHTHERIA EPIDEMICS - EARLY MARRIAGES - FIRST FARM MACHINERY - BEGINNING OF DAIRYING - HOP CULTURE - PICTURE OF UPPER VALLEY, 1883 - FRUIT CULTURE - PROGRESS IN 1886 - LAND DISPUTES - FIRST CREAMERY - FRUIT GROWING - POULTRY RAISING - DIKING AND DITCHING - FARMERS ALLIANCE - DAIRYING TODAY - ~ BERRY GROWING INCREASES - -MILLER ORCHARD - POULTRY RAISING - AGRICULTURE'S GROWING IMPORTANCE - COUNTY AGENT'S REVIEW - INSPECTION: 'SERVICE GRAN GES vecdeiticiascictesivlonraaPauainaednceits linatnadeonecoree 627

Chapter Iii

COMIN TEN SSG El OOS ise Sener tt cene thie eeloriatace tev detasedad obals cuancun cena tadashi tudasicshelealoreceedests ananaratnadantineds: 666 CHAPTER III HARVEST @F THE FORESTS

BIRTH OF THE LUMBER INDUSTRY - TULALIP MILL STARTED IN 1853 - MAINE LUMBERMEN ACTIVE - EXPERIENCES OF A NEWCOMER - EARLY FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES - BLACKMAN BROTHERS ARRIVE - CEDAR SHINGLE ERA BEGINS - FIRST MILL AT SNOHOMISH - FIRST LOGGING RAILROAD - DEATH': OF A. J. POPE - LOGGING IN 1887 - TIMBER INDUSTRIES IN 1889 - ATLANTIC SHINGLE MARKET OPENS - THE PANICKY YEARS 1893-965 - SHINGLE MEN ORGANIZE - WEYERHAEUSER VISIT OF

Chapter Railroad Development

SEATTLE, LAKE SHORE & EASTERN - FIRST TRAIN ARRIVES - COLLAPSE OF SNOHOMISH BRIDGE - COMING OF THE GREAT NORTHERN - N. P. ACQUIRES LAKE SHORE ROAD - THE EVERETT-MONTE CRISTO ROAD - HILL VISITS EVERETT - GRAHAM'S RAILROAD REVIEW. ssssssetesesnees 727

Indians And The Tulalip Agency

INDIAN CHARACTERISTICS - ORIGINAL HABITAT - EARLY CONTACTS WITH WHITES - PREHISTORIC BURIAL RITES - WERE NOT BARBARIANS - SOUND INDIANS NOT WARLIKE - KNOWLEDGE WAS LIMITED - INDIANS FOND OF GIVING - AGENT AIDS AGED - HAVE FEW INDUSTRIES - "TAMANAMUS" - INDIAN SHAKERS APPROACH PAGANISM - INDIAN SCHOOL PLEDGED - TULALIP CHOSEN BY TRIBES - DELAYED TREATIES CAUSE OF WAR - FATHER CHIROUSE - AGENCY ESTABLISHED, 1860 - DEPARTURE OF FATHER CHIROUSE - SCHOOL EQUIPMENT - BUCHANAN MEMORIAL - INDIANS LEARN READILY - PRESENT CONDITIONS - ALWAYS FRIENDLY TO WHITES - INDIANS LOYAL TO FLAG - INDIAN ROLL OF HONOR - WHITE VERSUS RED OUTRAGES - OLD CHIEFS ARE GONE - CHIEF SCHIAMKIN - RUINS OF OLD MISSION - PATKANIM MEMORIAL - CHIEF STEH-SHAIL - FRANCHISE DAY - INDIAN LANDS VALUABLE - - PRESENT DAY PROGRESS - PRESENT AGENT POPULAR - AGENCY CONDITIONS EXCELLENT - TRIBAL HISTORY - AGENCY REPORT FOR 1924 - DR. C. M. BUCHANAN - HISTORICAL REPORT OF 1914... cssssesesssscseesseonees 813

Discovery And Exploration

Historians for generations past have been puzzled as to the plausibility of aboriginal traditions among the Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest, telling of explorations by mail-armored, sword-and-battle-axe swashbuckling white men exploring these forest-crowned shores at a time now accepted as prehistoric. Some of these fascinating tales and traditions have frequently been strengthened by what seemed to the earliest explorers who left detailed record of their investigations, existing evidence that these mysterious alleged memories of the simple wild folk of the Northwest have a basis in fact.

Within the last two years certain of these ancient reminders, symbols of early valor and adventure and urge of the white race to inherit and know the whole of Earth, have been painstakingly studied, analyzed and brought more and more into the light of scientific revelation. Thus, a celebrated Norwegian scientist and anthropologist, after a minute and thorough examination of mystic symbols inscribed upon a great, solitary rock near Spokane, Wash., symbols or writing which no living Indian could interpret and no white student up to the present time had been able to explain, issued a public statement early in 1926, giving a complete interpretation of the ancient monolithic message. This scientist, descendant of the roving Vikings, declares that the writing is ancient Norse script or picture writing, and that the Spokane rock tells a thrilling story of a battle at that place between a band of Viking explorers and hordes of Indians of the prairie country. He maintains that the writing is plain and unmistakable, and that the occasion for its inscription upon the face of the solitary monolith was the slaughter at that point of twelve Norse soldiers of fortune by the fierce warriors of the plains, and the burial of the bodies there later by their remaining comrades, who returned to the scene and utilized the great stone as a monument on which to transmit the story of the tragedy to posterity.

'Early explorers of the Puget Sound country recorded legends or traditions of at least two of the northern Puget Sound tribes purporting to record the appearance of two strange ships in Puget Sound waters, in hyas ahncutty times, many lives ago. 'There seems to have been no comprehensive description of the wonderful vessels, but the many armed men aboard were white, golden-haired and clad in metallic armor. One of the vessels soon after sailed away, but the other anchored somewhere along the eastern shore of Puget Sound and sent two exploring parties ashore. After a long time only one of the exploring parties returned, embarked and sailed away, never to return. According to this legend, and also the story on the Spokane rock, there were white women aboard both vessels, two women being mentioned as a part of the company on the Spokane plains, one of whom escaped from the scene of slaughter, but the Indian stories do not mention any woman or women returning to the ship upon its final departure. This, some students gather, may be a hint to account for the fact that several of the earliest white explorers left records of having met Pacific Northwest natives with red or blond hair and blue eyes, and in some instances on the Olympic Peninsula, Indians with blue eyes and almost white skin.

Whether the ancestors of the races we call Indians of the Pacific Coast region were themselves explorers from Asia, or were, indeed, not the first human stock to people these verdant shores, as many investigators now are inclined to suspect because recent excavations in California near Santa Barbara brought out well preserved skeletons of a very ancient race of giants in every essential differing from the characteristics of the Indian race, may perhaps always remain a fascinating mystery. The purpose of this chapter, however, is to present recorded and authenticated stories of Pacific Northwest explorations and discoveries, as briefly and comprehensively as may be.

Early Explorations

Although Balboa, the great Spanish explorer, had discovered and looked upon the Pacific Ocean earlier in the sixteenth century, waded into its waters and claimed it and all it laved as the possession of his king, it was#a few years short of a century after the discovery of the eastern shores of North America by Christopher Columbus before any noteworthy exploration of the infinitely greater possibilities of the Pacific tapped at the portal of history - the voyages of Sir Francis Drake in 1579.

The adventurous and ambitious nations of Europe were too busy with the wonderful prospects revealed to them by the discoveries of Columbus and the many exploration and colonization expeditions that followed him to the New World. Its people, torn at home with religious strife, with the final stages of feudalism, and the sanguinary struggles and rivalries and clashes of puny but ambitious states, were not yet ready to venture farther into the new wilderness beyond the broad Atlantic, much less were the nations prepared to finance expensive expeditions into the greater ocean hinted at by Balboa and comprehended and conquered by Magellan. The ignus fatuus of the dreamy Gasper Cortereal, who in 1500 conceived the fancied sea or strait of Anian, presumed to be the extreme northerly connecting channel between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in northern North America, still lingered, dormant but much alive, in the subconscious minds of mariners and the heads of maritime nations. And this mythic fancied future artery of international commerce served to inspire Pacific Northwest exploration and discovery, perhaps, more than did the greed for furs and the glory of possession of new lands and peoples.

Drake, of dubious reputation in highly piratical times, left somewhat irregular and confusing records of his voyages. In his trip along the Pacific Coast in 1579, he claimed to have reached the latitude of 48, about the latitude of the present city of Everett, but found the weather there in June so bitterly cold that he put back southward with all speed, and was driven by blasting winds to latitude 38, now the coast of California, where he anchored, landed, claimed possession for his king and named the country New Albion, after the ancient name of England.

Juan De Fuca

Thirteen years later, in 1592, Apostolos Valerianos, an old Greek sea captain who claimed to have served under the Spanish flag some forty years, and whose seafaring name was Juan de Fuca, explored the waters of the Pacific Northwest and claimed to have discovered and explored the broad channel eighty miles in length and from ten to more than twenty miles wide, connecting Puget Sound and the Gulf of Georgia with the Pacific Ocean, this broad inlet being later named Juan de Fuca Strait in his honor. His expedition was outfitted and commissioned for the purpose of discovering the fanciful "Strait of Anian,' but no records of it have ever been found in the marine archives of Spain. Its stability and persistence, its wide acceptance as a true story, are mainly due to the remarkable fidelity and accuracy of his descriptions of the great strait, inlets, islands, channels, Puget Sound and the Gulf of Georgia, as they are related in the sole authority for his claims; the publication of a purported interview which Michael Lok, a noted English geographic scholar, had with Juan de Fuca in Naples in 1596.

According to Lok, who provided for the purposes of this interview a large map of the region affected by the supposed exploration and a sea card of his own, Valerianos maintained that he had not only discovered but actually sailed through the fabled sea or Strait of Anian, but in Lok's own words the incidental description of Fuca Strait and the Gulf of Georgia is most worthy of quotation:

"He followed his course in. that voyage, west and northwest in the South Sea, along the coast of Nova Spania (Mexico, for Valerianos claimed that his expedition was fathered by the then Viceroy of Mexico) California and the Indies, now cafled North America, until he came to the latitude of 47 degrees; and that, there finding the land trended north and northwest, with a broad inlet of sea, between 47 and 48 degrees of latitude, he entered thereinto, sailing more than twenty days, and found that land still trending northwest, and northeast, and north, and also east and southeastward, and very much broader sea than it was at the entrance of said strait, and that he passed by diverse islands in that sailing; and that at the entrance of the said strait there is, on the northwest coast thereof, a great headland or island, with an exceedingly high pinnacle or spired rock, like a pillar, thereupon. Also he said that he went on land at divers places, and that he saw some people on the land clad in beasts' skins, and that the land was very fruitful and rich in gold, silver and pearls and other things, like Nova Spania. Also he said that he, being entered thus far into the said strait, and being come into the North Sea already, and finding the sea wide enough everywhere, and to be about thirty or forty leagues wide at the mouth of the straits where he entered, he thought he had now well discharged his office; and that, not being armed to resist the force of savage people that might happen, he therefore set sail and turned homeward again toward Nova Spania, where he arrived at

Pillar or spired rocks, such as he describes as the one outstanding feature at the entrance of the strait, are still characteristic of the coast immediately south of Cape Flattery, and the one at the northwest entrance headland of the strait may plausibly have existed, and may since have been tumbled into the sea through erosion and the action of the terrific seas of that locality. At any rate, there exists no other record of this voyage, or, indeed, that Juan de Fuca, or Apostolus Valerianos, ever lived.

Nearly two centuries elapsed before North Pacific waters again attracted considerable exploration. British overseas enterprise was too busily engaged in the nearer interests of colonial northeast America; the sun-loving Spanish adventurers favored the more congenial clime south of Mexico in the land of the gold-hoarding Incas; the Dutch were busy transferring some of their culture and industry to New Amsterdam (New York); the Danes were busy with the development of Iceland and Greenland; the French, who had launched the expansive empire of New France, claiming the entire northern part of the continent, but justifying none of it with actual settlement beyond the headwaters of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, had come and gone, leaving not a hint of century-old American French civilization anywhere on the Pacific Coast; the British colonies had prospered and grown strong enough to challenge, defeat on the fields of battle and to throw off the yoke of foolish and tyrannical oppression forced upon them by an intolerant and distant monarch, and George Washington had become the torchbearer of Liberty in the new land.

During three palpitating centuries after the discovery of the North American continent, its most resourceful and potential seacoast remained untouched and unsought, and Puget Sound, the world's most sheltered inland sea of innumerable harbors for ocean shipping was still unknown, its very situation and the nature of its connection with the mightiest of oceans conspiring to this immunity from molestation, development and use.

Russia, under the prophetic and able leadership of that wonderful ruler, Peter the Great, seems to have sensed the possibilities of the unknown North Pacific empire. Behring's expeditions and epochal discoveries along the coasts of what we now call Alaska were the result. By the time active exploration of the Pacific Northwest became a reality, Russia was already well established along the coasts of the mighty northern peninsula, as was Spain at the south. During the last half of the eighteenth century the flags of England, France, the United States, Spain, Portugal, Austria and Holland fluttered from the mastheads of vessels exploring the waters of the Pacific Northwest, with Spanish mariners in the forefront as pathfinders, and all still bent upon the discovery of the will o' the wisp of the centuries, the Northwest Passage, the "Strait of Anian," the dream channel of Cortereal - which was not to be revealed until Roald Amundson, celebrated Arctic explorer of the twentieth century, found the extreme northern passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

The Russians' eventual attempts to extend their trading zone southward along the coast, and sending out marine exploration parties as far south as California, alarmed the Viceroy of Mexico, and resulted in a number of historic Spanish exploring expeditions to the Pacific Northwest, the fruits of which amounted to

White Horse Mountain, Darrington

British, Dutch, Austrian and Portuguese expeditions to the same region appear to have been started simultaneously with or at least immediately after the beginning of these Russo-Spanish activities, although, France features only in the almost purely scientific expedition and voyage of her distinguished navigator, La Parouse.

First British Explorations

In July, 1787, Captain Barclay or Berkeley, sailing under the flag of the Austrian East India Company in the ship Imperial Eagle, left Nootka Sound, west coast of Vancouver Island, after a month's stay there, and proceeding southward, rediscovered the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but instead of examining and naming it, proceeded on his southern course. Nearly a year later, on June 29, 1788, a Sunday, the broad inlet was again visited by an English captain, though he sailed under the flag of Portugal. This was the redoubtable, often inconsistent and unreliable Capt. John Meares, with two vessels, the Felice Adventurer, and Iphigenia Nubiana, the latter commanded by Capt. William Douglass. They had sailed from China for a two years' expedition in these waters. Upon crossing the mouth of the great strait on that Sunday morning, Meares quickly identified it as the strait described by Lok in his story of the old Cephalonian captain, Apostolos Valerianos, and forthwith christened the capacious inlet "Strait of Juan de Fuca," noting in his journal that it is so named "for its original discoverer," without mentioning the fact, of which he was fully informed, that Barclay had been there a year earlier. Meares anchored on the southern side of the strait, probably at Neah Bay, and there enjoyed a pleasant meeting with Chief Tatooche of the Makah Tribe, and on the following day named Tatooche Island, just off the mouth of the strait, in honor of the hospitable chief.

This was the second name bestowed upon a land feature within the borders of what is now the State of Washington. Four years before, in August, 1774, Capt. Juan Perez, while cruising off the coast in the Spanish ship Santiago, in which he had sailed from Monterey, Mexico, on a successful voyage of exploration and discovery, viewed from the deck of his vessel the glowing peak of the highest mountain in the Olympic range, and christened it Santa Rosalia. Captain Meares now also was impressed by the grandeur of the icy pile and bestowed upon it the Grecian name it has ever since borne, Mount Olympus.

In 1778, Capt. James Cook, one of the great English explorers, on his third voyage, belabored by storm off the coast of Vancouver Island, sighted and headed for what looked like calm water, at the entrance of Juan de Fuca Strait, but the calm spot proved a terrible delusion and he was driven out to sea by terrific squalls and swells. He named the storm-torn, rock-nosed promontory, which loomed frowningly behind his scudding ship as she sped away from the treacherous locality, "Cape Flattery," and so it remains to this day.

The Spaniards won the honor of landing the first party of white men upon what is now the soil of Washington State. This was on July 14, 1775, a year before American colonists declared their independence. It was effected by Capt. Bruno Heceta of the Spanish ship Santiago, sailing from San Blas, Mexico. Heceta landed with a number of his men on the shore at 47 degrees 30 minutes,

In 1787, Captain Barclay of the Imperial Eagle discovered the Hoh River, which he named Destruction River, because hostile Indians killed some of his men there. Mrs. Barclay, who accompanied him aboard ship, was the first white woman of record to visit the North Pacific Coast.

American Discoveries

In 1788 a highly patriotic and influential American, Joseph Barrel, residing in Boston, conceived, planned, outfitted and financed two trading and exploring expeditions destined to make history in the Pacific Northwest to the honor and prestige of the new American Republic. Capt. John Kendrick was placed in command of the larger of the two vessels, the ship Columbia, and Capt. Robert Gray of the smaller, the sloop Lady Washington. Joseph Barrel was a leading merchant of Boston and was out for more profitable trade, but his captains, for purely patriotic reasons, bore with them instructions to carefully preserve records of their discoveries and explorations. Captain Gray distinguished, if not immortalized, himself by his conspicuous fidelity to these instructions, and shares a great part of the honor of insuring this great Oregon country to the possession of the United States, by the discovery of the Columbia River, which he named for his ship, May 7,.1792. Captain Kendrick was a natural trader as well as navigator, and appears to have concentrated his attention almost entirely upon bartering in furs with the natives, in which he was notably successful. His log and journals reveal only incidental mention of land and water features, but much of the customs of the natives.

These two American vessels sailed from Boston, and in September, 1788, landed at Nootka, where they spent the winter. The next summer Captain Kendrick wished to make a cruise in the Lady Washington, and exchanged ships with Gray, instructing Gray to return to Boston after visiting China and the South Sea Islands. Gray successfully disposed of the furs in China and returned to Boston with teas and spices, arriving in September, 1790. He was received with joy by his employer and the people, and was again placed in command of the Columbia for another expedition, so that in July, 1791, the Columbia and the Lady Washington, the latter just returned from China, met near the scene of their parting many months past. Then Gray in the Columbia again sailed for exploration. It was late on this cruise that he first suspected the existence of the Columbia River, which had also been suspected and noted by the Spanish explorer, Heceta, six years before. On April 29, 1792, Gray met and conferred with Capt. George Vancouver's expedition, just south of Cape Flattery, and they exchanged notes. Captain Gray informed Vancouver of his Columbia River discovery and that for nine days he had tried unsuccessfully to enter the mouth of the river, owing to the impassable power of the outset or reflux of waters at the mouth, but he was about to try again. Vancouver was worried by this claim, but dismissed it tartly in his journal as another improbable story of alleged discovery. He declined even to accord Gray any maritime title in his account, but refers to him with seeming disparagement as "Mr. Gray.'' Captain Gray, however, proceeded south, while Vancouver continued on his way into the Strait of Fuca to make his famous ex- pedition throughout Puget Sound and Gulf of Georgia waters, and Gray this time passed into the Columbia River and many leagues up that great stream.

Canal De Haro

In 1790 Lieut. Alferez Manuel Quimper in the ship Princess Royal, an English vessel captured from Captain Colnett and now named Princesa Real, on May 31 began the exploration and mapping of Fuca Strait. He named Canal de Haro, now the international boundary line, separating Vancouver Island from the mainland, in honor of his pilot, Gonzalo Lopez de Haro. The Spanish commander had taken possession of Neah Bay near the entrance of the strait and built a fort there, as they had already done at Nootka on Vancouver Island. It is worthy of note that up to the time of the treaty of Nootka, by Vancouver and Cuadra (Quadra) late in 1792, the British had not claimed possession of this region of the Northwest, while the Spanish had persistently claimed the country by right of discovery and actual possession. Neah Bay was named by the Spaniards Nunez Gaona, but it was abandoned soon after. Cuadra, Caamano, Quimper and Fidalgo figured chiefly in the Spanish explorations and surveys of 1790, followed by the great Capt. Francisco Elisa, who sailed under Viceroy Revilla Gigedo of Mexico, with three vessels, in 1791 and 1792. Elisa commanded the Concepcion, Lieutenant Fidalgo the sloop San Carlos and Lieutenant Quimper the captured Princesa Real. Elisa carried 100 soldiers. These expeditions charted and named many islands and channels. In March, 1791, Quimper surveyed and named Rosario Strait, charted the south channels of the Gulf of Georgia, and named that mighty body of water with a correspondingly mighty title, Gran Canal de Nuestra Senora del Rosario la Marinera. :

Captain Elisa discovered and named many prominent natural features, including the Cascade Mountain range, which he named Sierra Antonio, its first recorded name, and Mount Baker in 1791 impressed him as suggesting a white-robed monk, and he named it quite poetically El Mantatia del Carmelo, with reference to the picturesque and historic White Friars of Mount Carmel, in Palestine. A year later, however, Captain Vancouver named the mountain, Baker, in honor of his third lieutenant, Joseph Baker, who saw it from the deck of Vancouver's flagship, Discovery, while sailing eastward in the Strait of Fuca, and at once reported the splendid spectacle to his commander. Captain Vancouver's excellent charts were published as soon as possible, while the results of earlier and coincident Spanish explorations first appeared many years later, so the acceptance of Vancouver's names by geographers and mariners was not a matter of chance, or of favoritism, or of national bias.

There was one other important Spanish exploration and survey expedition that operated in northern Puget Sound and Gulf of Georgia synchronically with the operations of Vancouver; that of Captains Galiano and Valdes in the ship Sutil y Mexicana. They explored and charted the islands and channels of the region, including Bellingham Bay, which they named Bahia de Gaston, a correction of Elisa's christening of 1791, Seno de Gaston. Another important Spanish expedition was that of Capt. Alejandro Malaspina and Captain Bustamente, who explored the same region in 1791, proceeding farther north to Alaska. Malaspina's vessels were the frigates Discubierta and Atravida. He discovered the Fraser River and named it Rio Blanca, in honor of the Premier of Spain. When he later informed Vancouver of his discovery, the British officer could not believe the story, as he had sailed close to its mouth without seeing it, so it could not be possible. It was another Columbia River joke to the great navigator, and the truth in both instances must have been annoying to him in later years.

Up to this time, 1792, the most important explorations by sea had been accomplished by the Spaniards, chiefly in the last two years. Now a new flag, the Stars and Stripes, had been in the field for some time with a number of vessels commanded by energetic masters, and the British exploration and Nootka treaty expedition under Capt. George Vancouver, together with the American vessels under Gray and Kendrick, were most active and effective, Gray in discovering Vancouver as an island, entering and exploring Gray's Harbor and the mighty River of the West, the Columbia. Vancouver expeditiously completed an investigation and survey of Puget Sound and the Gulf, and then successfully consummated a satisfactory treaty with the Spanish commissioner, Captain Quadra, at Nootka.

Summary Of Discoveries

What led up to these final exploration developments may be briefly summarized: In 1500, Gaspar Cortereal, Portuguese explorer, sailed up the strait north of Labrador into the vast inland sea later called Hudson's Bay. He thought he had entered the Pacific Ocean, and so reported to the world. He named the inlet Strait of Anian and the land south of it Labrador. This alleged navigable passage between the two oceans became the goal of nearly all explorations of North Pacific waters during the three succeeding centuries.

1514. Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Darien and discovers the South Pacific. Six years later Magellan passes into the ocean through Magellan Strait and names it the Pacific.

1537. Cortez, who in 1519, with 950 men in mail had entered Mexico and within two years conquered the Mazumas, found nothing worth while along the California Coast northward, and thus discouraged further explorations.

1542. Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo, with two small vessels dispatched by Viceroy _ Antonio de Mendoza of Mexico to explore the northern coast and hunt for Anian Strait and for traditional civilizations, reached as far north as the forty-eighth degree, that of Everett, and was then driven back by storm to the thirty-fourth parallel of latitude, where he landed and where he died, in January, 1543. Bartholome Ferrello succeeded him in command, for a time continuing exploration northward. This was the first important expedition from California northward along the coast as far as what is now Washington state.

1728. Russia, ruled by the great Peter and his equally capable queen, Catherine, sent Vitus Behring, distinguished Danish explorer, to explore the farthest northeast (our northwest) waters. After two voyages of failure, in a third expedition, in 1732, one of Behring's vessels lost in a storm was driven to the eastern coast, and thus discovered Alaska and Behring Sea, but the explorer thought Alaska merely the largest of Behring Sea islands.

1776. By the third quarter of the eighteenth century Pacific coast explorations and charted waters and lands were completed by Spain as far north as latitude 34, and by the Russians as far south as latitude 56, leaving an intervening blank of 22 degrees of latitude of uncharted coast line. July 12, 1776, Capt.

James Cook sailed from England under instructions to explore and chart this blank area, and to search for the Strait of Anian. On March 7, 1778, Cook sighted the coast of what was then known as Drake's New Albion, at latitude 44 degrees north, near the mouth of the Umpqua River, Oregon. He then put out to sea and sailed north, anchoring at Nootka. Going farther north he saw Mount St. Elias, May 4, and continued north through Behring Sea to the great cape which he named Cape Prince of Wales, August 9, 1778. He then sailed south to the Sandwich Islands for the winter, and was killed there in a fight with the natives, February 16, 1779. The renowned George Vancouver was one of the junior officers of Captain Cook's last expedition.

On March 22, 1778, when Captain Cook sighted and named Cape Flattery, he entered this note in his journal: "It is in this very latitude where we now were that geographers have placed the pretended Strait of Juan de Fuca. But we saw nothing like it; nor is there the least probability that ever any such thing existed." It is a curious fact that the most notable mistakes of both Cook and Vancouver were their failures in discovering important inlets or outlets along the North Pacific Coast - Fuca Strait, Columbia and Fraser rivers. It is the more curious because Captain Cook was the original guide and mentor of young Vancouver, from whom the latter received his sea training, beginning aboard Captain Cook's ship at the age of thirteen, participating in Cook's second and third and last voyages to the Pacific Northwest, 1772-1774 and 1776-1779. He was a midshipman at the time Cook's vessel was driven out to sea by storm off Cape Flattery.

We are particularly interested in the epochal expedition of Vancouver in the waters of Puget Sound and the Gulf of Georgia, because it was here, in the very locality of Everett and the shores of Snohomish County that the famous navigator planted the sign of British authority, and proclaimed possession of all the land laved by these sheltered waters, for King George III, at the same time naming the country "New Georgia" in honor of that monarch.

Capt. George Vancouver had sailed from England April 1, 1791, in command of the sloop Discovery, with 100 men and twenty guns, and accompanied by the armed tender, the 'brig Chatham, forty-five men and ten guns, commanded by Lieut. W. R. Broughton, vessels and officers and men being of the British navy.

Vancouver's instructions were to examine and survey the coast from the 30th parallel north, making careful note of the country and its people, as well as to act as commissioner for the crown in negotiating a treaty with the Spanish commissioner, Captain Quadra, at Nootka, where Captain Francisco Elisa had in 1790 built a fort and established the possession and authority of Spain. Vancouver's charts and journals were excellent and showed painstaking care in their preparation. The charts were the work of Third Lieut. Joseph Baker, in whose honor his commander named the noble mountain.

Captain Gray denied to Vancouver's officers the story that he had circumnavigated Vancouver island with the Lady Washington, but had penetrated into the strait of Fuca only fifty miles, so when Vancouver's expedition anchored at Dungeness they felt that they were the first white men to see that region, or any parts east of it, unless Juan de Fuca's traditional story were true. Under that delusion, the explorer felt confident of his right to claim possession of all the lands and waters east of the strait of Fuca and south to the 45th parallel, which he did at or near where the city of Everett now stands, on Monday, June 4, 1792, the birthday anniversary of King George III.

Writing in his journal of this climactic event, which took place a day or two after the return to the ships of Whidbey and party who had spent five days exploring the channel between Whidbey's Island and the mainland, Captain Vancouver Says:

"A fortnight had been dedicated to the examination of this inlet, which I have distinguished by the name of Admiralty Inlet. (He had already named the sound south of Seattle, Puget Sound, and the waters south of the Gulf of Georgia were included as Admiralty Inlet). We had still to return about forty miles through this tedious inland navigation, before we could arrive on a new field of inquiry. The broken appearance of the region before us and the difficulties we had already encountered in tracing its various shores, incontestibly proved that the object of our voyage could alone be accomplished by very slow degrees. Perfectly satisfied with the arduousness of the task in which we were engaged, and the progress we were likely to make, I became anxiously solicitous to move the instant an opportunity should serve. The two following days were however unfavorable to that purpose, and after the great fatigue our people had lately undergone, were well appropriated to holidays. Sunday, June 3, all hands were employed in fishing with tolerably good success, or in taking a little recreation on shore; and on Monday the 4th, they were served as good a dinner as we were able to provide for them, with double allowance of grog to drink the King's health, it being the anniversary of His Majesty's birth; on which auspicious day I had long since designed to take formal possession of all the countries we had lately been employed in exploring, in the name of, and for His Britannic Majesty, his heirs and successors.

"To execute this purpose, accompanied by Mr. Broughton and some of the officers, | went on shore about 1 o'clock, pursuing the usual formalities which are generally observed on such occasions, and under the discharge of a royal salute from the vessels, took possession accordingly of the coast, from that part of New Albion, in the latitude 39:20 north and longitude 236 :26 east, to the entrance of this inlet of the sea, said to be the supposed straits of Juan de Fuca; as likewise all the coast islands, etc., within the said straits, as well on the northern as on the southern shores; together with those situated in the interior sea we had discovered, extending from the said straits, in various directions, between the northwest, north, east and southern quarters; which interior sea I have honored with the name of The Gulf of Georgia, and the continent binding the said gulf, and extending southward to the 45th parallel of north latitude, with that of New Georgia, in honor of His present Majesty. This branch of Admiralty Iniet I distinguished by the name of Port Gardner, and its smaller eastern (northern) one by that of Port Susan." In 1915, Marcus Whitman Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, commemorated this historic event by erecting a granite monument near the scene of the landing of Vancouver, and where he officially laid claim to all the lands and waters of the Puget Sound country; this monument stands in beautiful Grand Avenue Park, and upon its face is a bronze tablet bearing the inscription: "On the Beach Near This Spot, Vancouver Landed June 4th, 1792,"

Port Gardner Named

Elucidating this nomenclature in his work entitled ''Vancouver's Discovery of Puget Sound," (1907) Prof. Edmond S. Meany, after exhaustive research in England, shows that Vancouver intended honoring Sir Alan Gardner in naming this bay. In a footnote he writes: "Sir Alan Gardner is one of the names that is loved and respected by British seamen everywhere. It is a matter of regret that the name Port Gardner is gradually disappearing from the geographies of Puget Sound. Originally Vancouver applied it to the waterway extending from Deception Pass to Possession Sound, or the present site of Everett. Now that waterway is charted as Saratoga Passage and occasionally we see the name Port Gardner applied to the bay of Everett. At this rate it will be the matter of but a few years when Port Gardner will be extinct as a geographic term.

"Not so is the name of Port Susan as applied to the waterway between Camano Island and the mainland. * * * For more than a century Vancouver's curt and brief honor to Susan has proved a baffling enigma. It has often been suggested that Susan was the sweetheart in England whom Vancouver did not live long enough to wed. The mystery is cleared away, however, when it is learned that Capt. Alan Gardner, while serving -in the West Indies, met, wooed and wed a widow and heiress at Jamaica in 1769. Her name was Susanna Hyde Turner. Vancouver had served under Gardner and the latter recommended Vancouver, who had just returned with him from the West Indies, to be second in command of the proposed expedition under Capt. Henry Roberts. This was the very expedition of which Vancouver was later given the chief command. Then it was that Gardner as one of the Lords of the Admiralty signed his 'Additional Instructions' for his great voyage. Therefore, when he named one port after Admiral Gardner, he named the other after the admiral's esteemed lady."'

Rivers, large and small, seem to have been unnoticeable to Vancouver and the other men of his expedition. They passed the mouths of the Columbia and Fraser without seeing them, anchored close to its mouth without making note of the Dungeness River, passed all the streams between Seattle and Olympia without noting them, and lay at anchor more than two weeks in Port Gardner, with a five-day exploration of the channel up to Port Susan, without evidently being aware of the Snohomish and Stillaguamish rivers. In his journal written while at Port Gardner, Vancouver's only complaint was the difficulty of obtaining a supply of fresh water, declaring that members of his crews had to plod through the woods a mile inland to get it from a brook.

After leaving Port Discovery, where the two crews had examined that locality of the Olympic peninsula and met some of the natives, the two vessels proceeded leisurely southeastward along Admiralty Inlet, incidentally discovering and naming "Hood's Channel," and anchored in the vicinity of Elliott Bay as a base station. Vancouver then sent Lieutenant Broughton with the Chatham to explore what he later named Possession Sound and the islands and inlets or channels of that locality, while he proceeded in the Discovery's launch to explore the eastern side of the channel south from Seattle, and sent Lieut. Peter Puget to the west shore, at the same time sending Master Joseph Whidbey of the Discovery in one of that vessel's boats to accompany the Chatham on the exploration of the eastern channels and shore, Lieutenant Puget and Master Whidbey had just returned from a trip northward with a report of the discovery of the San Juan

Eagle Falls, Above Index Falls Near Granite Falls

Archipelago and a view of the Gulf of Georgia. It was Puget who made the complete exploration of the sound southward from Seattle, and Whidbey who earned the honor of exploring the east channel of "Whidbey's Island" and later of Bellingham Bay. Peter Puget had been advanced to the rank of Rear- Admiral in the British Navy at the time of his death, 1829, but as to what became of the equally deserving Joseph Whidbey there is no known record, according to Meany. His last recorded and one of his most important contributions to the success of Vancouver's expedition here was the thorough survey of Gray's Harbor in the Discovery's storeship Daedalus.

Whidbey's report to Vancouver of his experiences and discoveries during his exploration of the channel between Whidbey Island and the mainland is highly interesting. Portions of it as related by Vancouver in his journal are well worthy of recounting here: Vancouver records that on Saturday, June 2, 1792, he had proceeded with the Discovery to a point much farther east and anchored in fifty fathoms of water a quarter of a mile from shore, "and about six times that distance to the eastward of the arm we had quitted, which forms an excellent harbor, well sheltered from all winds; but during our short stay there we saw no appearance of any fresh water. Here our position was before a small bay, into which flowed two excellent streams, but these were so nearly on a level with the sea, that it became necessary either to procure the water at low tide, or at some distance up the brook; which latter was easily effected, as our boats were admitted to where the fresh water fell from the elevated land."

That same evening, June 2, Whidbey and his men, over whose five-day absence the officers of the Discovery and Chatham were becoming anxious, returned to the ships, and Joseph Whidbey delivered his interesting, detailed report orally to his chief. On the first day, when they had proceeded up the channel about four miles, quoting from Vancouver's journal, "they found, on a low projecting point of the western shore, a village containing a numerous tribe of the natives. But as my orders, as well as the general inclination of the officers, were to prevent by all possible means the chance of any misunderstanding it was the uniform practice to avoid landing in the presence of considerable numbers; and as it was now the dinner time of our party, Mr. Whidbey very prudently made choice of the opposite shore, in the hope of making a quiet meal without the company of the Indians. Having reached the place where they intended to land, (evidently the vicinity of Tulalip) they were met by upwards of two hundred, some in canoes with their families, and others walking along the shore, attended by about forty dogs in a drove, shorn close to the skin like sheep. Notwithstanding their numbers, it was important to land for the purpose of taking angles; and they had the satisfaction of being received on shore with every mark of cordial friendship.

"Mr. Whidbey, however, thought it prudent to remain in their society no longer than was absolutely necessary; and having finished the business for which he landed, he instantly embarked and continued his route up the inlet until evening, when he landed for the night about nine miles within its entrance. In the morning they again pursued their inquiry, and soon after they had landed to breakfast, they were visited by a large canoe full of Indians, who were immediately followed by a hundred more of the natives, bringing with them the mats

"On landing, which they did without the least hesitation, their behavior was courteous and friendly in the highest degree. A middle-aged man, to all appearance the chief or principal person of the party, was foremost in showing marks of the greatest hospitality, and perceiving our party were at breakfast, presented them with water, roasted roots, dried fish and other articles of food. This person, in return, received some presents, and others were distributed among the ladies of the party. |

"The chief, for so we must distinguish him, had two hangers, one of Spanish, the other of English manufacture, on which he seemed to set a very high value. The situation of the spot where they had landed was delightful; the shores on each side the inlet being composed of a low country, pleasingly diversified by hills, dales, extensive verdant lawns, and clear places in the midst of the forest, which, together with the cordial reception they had met from the natives, induced Mr. Whidbey to continue his examination on shore. On this occasion he was accompanied by the chief and several of the party, who conducted themselves with the greatest propriety, though with no small degree of civil curiosity in examining his clothes, and expressing a great desire to be satisfied as to the color of the skin they covered, making signs that his hands and face were painted white, instead of being black, or red like their own. But when convinced of their mistake by opening his waistcoat, their astonishment was inexpressible.

"From these circumstances and the general tenor of their behavior, Mr. Whidbey concluded they had not before seen any Europeans, though, from the different articles they possessed, it was evident a communication had taken place; probably by means of distant trading tribes. The people who had been met in that inlet removing with their families, and all their movable property, were not unlikely to be of this commercial description, particularly as their voyage was towards the seacoast, where, in some congenial situation near to the general resort of Europeans, they might fix their abode until an opportunity was afforded them to barter their commodities for the more valuable productions of Europe, which are afterwards disposed of to the inhabitants of the interior country at a very exorbitant price. * * *

"On the boats being ordered on shore to receive Mr. Whidbey and the gentle- | men who had attended him in his walk, the launch grounded, which was no sooner perceived by the Indian chief than he was foremost in using every exertion to shove her off. This being effected, and the gentlemen embarked, most of these good people took their leave, and seemed to part with their newly-acquired friends with great reluctance. The chief and a few others accompanied our party until they had advanced about fourteen miles from the entrance, when they, very civilly, took their departure; here the arm branched off from its former direction of about north-northwest, to the westward, and northeast. The latter being the object of their pursuit, they soon arrived off another extensive and populous village, whence several canoes came off with not less than seventy of the natives in them, and several others were seen coming from the different parts of the shore.

"Those who approached the boats conducted themselves with the utmost propriety, showing, by repeated invitations to their dwellings, the greatest hospitality and making signs that they had plenty of food to bestow. In these entreaties the ladies were particularly earnest, and expressed much chagrin and mortification

36 . HISTORY OF SNOHOMISH COUNTY that their offers of civility were declined. As the boats sailed past the village those in the canoes returned to the shore.

"The direction which the land took to the northeast conducted them to a considerable branch whose outer points lie from each other N. 20 W., about a league asunder. From its eastern shore a shallow flat of sand, on which are some rocky islets and rocks, runs out until within half a mile from the western shore, forming a narrow channel, navigated by them in nearly a north-northwest direction for about three leagues. The depth at its entrance was twenty fathoms, but gradually decreased to four as they advanced up the channel which is formed by the western shore, and the sand hank continuing with great regularity about half a mile wide to the latitude 48:24 longitude 237 :45, where it then ceased to be navigable for vessels of any burden, in consequence of the rocks and overfalls from three to twenty fathoms deep, and a very irregular and disagreeable tide.

"On meeting these impediments, the party returned with intention of exploring the opening leading to the westward. As they repassed the village, they were again visited by their friendly chief, attended by two or three canoes only, who presented them with a most welcome supply of very fine small fish which, in many respects, resembled, and most probably were, a species of the smelt. He accepted, with apparent pleasure, an invitation into the launch, where he remained with Mr. Whidbey until evening, ate and drank of such things as were offered with the greatest confidence, and on being made acquainted that the party was going to rest, bade them farewell with every mark of respect and friendship.

"In the morning the examination of the western branch was pursued, and found to terminate in a very excellent and commodious cove or harbor, with regular soundings from 10 to 20 fathoms, good holding ground. Its western extent situated in latitude 48:17 longitude 237 :38, is not more than a league (three miles) from the eastern shore of the main inlet, within the straits. On each point of the harbor, which in honor of a particular friend I call Penn's Cove, was a deserted village, in one of which were found several sepulchers formed exactly like a sentry box. Some of them were open and contained skeletons of many young children tied up in blankets; the smaller bones of adults were likewise noticed, but no one of the limb bones could here be found, which gave rise to an opinion that these, by the living inhabitants of the neighborhood, were appropriated to useful purposes, such as pointing their arrows, spears, or other weapons.

(Mr. Meany says in a footnote here: "There were undoubtedly many Penns in England at that time. The explorer does not leave a shred of information by which his 'particular friend' may be identified. The Century Cyclopedia of Names gives two who were living in 1791 when Vancouver left England. These were John Penn, 1729-1795, and Richard Penn, 1736-1811. Both were grandsons of William Penn. Both were born in England, and each served as lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. It probably never will be known whether or not it was one of these whom Vancouver thus honored.'')

"The surrounding country, for several miles in most points of view, presented a delightful prospect, consisting chiefly of spacious meadows elegantly adorned with clumps of trees, amongst which the oak bore a considerable proportion, in size from four to six feet in circumference. In these beautiful pastures, bor- dering on an expansive sheet of water, the deer were seen playing about in great numbers. Nature had here provided the well-stocked park, and wanted only the assistance of art to continue that desirable assemblage of surface, which is so much sought in other countries, and only to be acquired by an 1mmoderate expense of manual labor. The soil principally consisted of a rich, black vegetable mould, lying on a sandy or clayey substratum; the grass, of an excellent quality, grew to the height of three feet, and the ferns which, in the sandy soils, occupied the clear spots, were nearly twice as high.

"The country in the vicinity of this branch of the sea is, according to Mr. Whidbey's representation, the finest we had yet met with, notwithstanding the pleasing appearance of many others; its natural productions were luxuriant in the highest degree, and it was by no means ill supplied with streams of fresh water. The number of its inhabitants he estimated at about six hundred, which I should suppose would exceed the total of all the natives we had before seen; the other parts of the sound did not appear, by any means, so populous, as we had been visited by one small canoe only, in which were five of the natives, who civilly furnished us with some small fish. The character and appearance of their several tribes here seen did not seem to differ in any material respect from each other, or from those we have already had occasion to mention."

On Tuesday morning, June 5, Vancouver sailed out of Port Gardner to proceed with explorations and surveys northward, but during the next two days the two vessels were becalmed and had to lie at anchor off the west coast of Whidbey Island north. At that time Vancouver refers to anchoring for a time between Oak cove and Marrowstone Point because of the strong current and unfavorable winds, June 5. Next day he named Point Partridge, Point Wilson and Strawberry Bay. On the 7th, still becalmed and at anchor, Vancouver despatched Puget in the Discovery's launch and Whidbey in the cutter with a week's provisions to continue the explorations northward along the east shore. During the day Vancouver obtained a fine view of distant mountains, Mount Baker eastward and Rainier and two lesser snow peaks southward. A light breeze from the southwest that evening enabled him to proceed northward eleven miles, and the following day anchored in Strawberry Bay, Cypress Island, which he named. The brig Chatham meanwhile was having trouble southeast from Strawberry Bay, losing her anchor on the rocky bottom, probably near the north end of Whidbey Island, but she rejoined the Discovery at Strawberry Bay on Sunday, June 10, and in the afternoon Puget and Whidbey returned with the exploring boats. Under this date Vancouver says in his journal:

"From the officers I became acquainted that the first inlet communicated with Port Gardner by a very narrow and intricate channel, which, for a considerable distance, was not forty yards in width, and abounded with rocks above and beneath the surface of the water. These impediments, in addition to the great rapidity and irregularity of the tide, rendered the passage navigable only by boats of very small burthen. This determined all the eastern shore of the gulf, from southwest point of this passage, in latitude 48:27 longitude 237 :37, to the north point of entrance into Possession Sound, in latitude 47:53 longitude 237 :47, to be an island, which, in its broadest part is about ten miles across; and in consequence of Mr. Whidbey's circumnavigation, I distinguished by the name of Whidbey's Island: and this northern pass, leading into Port Gardner, Deception Pass."

Mr. Whidbey in the Discovery's launch and with the Chatham's cutter was left to cover all the unexplored and unsurveyed mainland coast, including Bellingham Bay, Vancouver himself proceeding in another ship's boat north along the Gulf of Georgia, stopping at Point Roberts, which he named, and then on to Point Grey and up Burrard Inlet, also named by him, as well as Howe Sound. He also made an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the channel separating Vancouver Island from the mainland, and upon returning from this disappointment, near the entrance to the channel, came upon the two vessels of Malaspina's Spanish expedition, the brig Sutil and the schooner Mexicana, commanded, respectively, by Senor Don D. Galiano and Senor Don C. Valdes, both captains of frigates in the Spanish navy. Commodore Malaspina himself was then in the Philippines on another mission, but had been here with this expedition the year before. From them Vancouver learned for the first time that the great land that lay to his west where he tried to penetrate the channel was an island, later to perpetuate his name, and also that Senor Quadra, commander-in-chief of the Spanish Marine at San Blas and California, was then at Nootka with three frigates and a brig, awaiting Vancouver's arrival, "in order to negotiate the restoration of those territories to the crown of Great Britain," as Vancouver states it in his journal. The Spaniards welcomed and received him with the utmost pleasure and hospitality, offering to accommodate his party aboard as guests, despatching a boat at once with such orders as he might wish to convey to the officers of his distant ships. In his journal Vancouver says that "every kind of useful information they cheerfully communicated, and obligingly expressed much desire that circumstances might so concur as to admit our respective labors being carried on together."" A bounteous breakfast was enjoyed by the weary English party aboard the dingy Spanish exploring vessels, which Vancouver describes as astonishingly inadequate craft for such a purpose: "They were each about forty-five tons burthen, mounted two brass guns and were navigated by twenty-four men, bearing one lieutenant, without a single inferior officer. Their apartments just allowed room for sleeping places on each side, with a table in the intermediate space at which four persons, with some difficulty, could sit, and were in all respects the most ill calculated and unfit vessels that could possibly be imagined for such an expedition. Notwithstanding this, it was pleasant to observe, in point of living, they possessed many more comforts than could reasonably have been expected." He, however, declined their offers. They were much surprised that he had passed the mouth of the Fraser River, which they had named Rio Blancho, without observing it, yet Vancouver passed along the great shoal extending from Point Grey to Point Roberts without seeing the mouth of the great river while crossing it, although he named the shoal Sturgeon Bank because of the purchase from natives there of fine specimens of river sturgeon, ranging in size from 14 to 200 pounds each, and which he should have known must be natives of a large inland stream. When they at last reached their ships, Vancouver's party found, June 23, that they had covered 330 miles in their two small boats. Master Joseph Whidbey had completed the survey of the large harbor, which Vancouver named Bellingham Bay, probably for Sir William Bellingham, controller of the storekeeper's accounts of the British navy, who had checked over the list of his stores at the time of leaving England. He also named Points William and Francis, and Birch Bay. The expedition then sailed out of Birch Bay, joined the Spanish vessels and proceeded around Vancouver Island through Johnstone's straits to Nootka for the treaty conference.

Capt. George Vancouver may easily be forgiven his failures in finding the mouths of important rivers, though passing within sight of them, for his journal reveals a keen perception and appreciation of the natural features of any district or region which he visited. Thus he mentions the tree and shrub growth upon our islands as including pines of different sorts, small oaks, oriental arbutus, arbor vitae, Virginian juniper, Weymouth pine, Canadian elder, some species of cypress, black birch, gooseberry, wild rose, other bushes in abundance and "very luxuriant grasses." Unfortunately, he did not see our syringa, wild currant bloom, thimble and salmon berry bushes and bloom, spiraea, daisies, and the most regal flowering bush of all, the radiant rhododendron.

However, while exploring in this favored region of Puget Sound, Captain Vancouver wrote a paragraph of his impressions that glows like a flower from the pages of his historic journal, and which might well be quoted in any literature descriptive of this richly endowed district. Therefore, we give it a place here as a fitting farewell to this initial chapter :

"To describe the beauties of this region will, on some future occasion, be a grateful task to the pen of a skilled panegyrist. The serenity of the climate, the innumerable pleasing landscapes, and the abundant fertility that unassisted nature puts forth, require only to be enriched by the industry of man, with villages, mansions, cottages and other buildings, to render it the most lovely country that can be imagined; whilst the labor of the inhabitants would be amply rewarded in the bounties which nature seems ready to bestow on cultivation."'

Americanization

THOMAS JEFFERSON, THE FATHER OF THE FAR WEST - LOUISIANA PURCHASE - LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION - ASTORIA FOUNDED - BRITISH CAPTURE ASTORIA - -BOUNDARY DISPUTES - AMERICANS REGAIN FOOTHOLD - BONNEVILLE AND WYETH - MARCUS WHITMAN - BEGINNINGS OF GOVERNMENT - FIRST WASHINGTON SETTLEMENTS - WHIDBEY ISLAND SETTLED - -WASHINGTON TERRITORY.

Thomas Jefferson! what a name to conjure with in all the great West! Yet too many know him only as the author of the matchless human document, the Declaration of Independence, and as the great president of eight epochal years of creative Republican government. Yet he was not only the potent liberal influence, the republican idealist and peerless spokesman of the whole people at the time of the inception of this great nation and the outstanding creative prophet of Revolutionary times, but the real father of the great West as an American heritage. He not only conceived and planned in every detail the first conception of a great national university as a permanent offering of higher education to all Americans, but was also the first, most steadfast and most effective statesman to appreciate the need, the greatness, the essential security and national strength and welfare, of bringing the entire western portion of the North American continent under the Stars and Stripes.

As early as 1778, in the midst of the Revolution, this great statesman and seer, in the very year of Capt. James Cook's historic third voyage in North Pacific waters, dreamed of and conceived the exploration of the Far West to the Pacific. While serving as minister to Paris in 1786, Jefferson met the impetuous explorer Ledyard, who was almost fanatically anxious to embark in an exploring and furtrading expedition to the Pacific Coast of North America. Jefferson's suggestion that he proceed to Kamchatka, and from there in a Russian vessel across to Nootka, from whence he should make an exploring expedition eastward over the Pacific Coast to the United States, was promptly accepted by Ledyard, but he was captured as a spy by the Russians, and both his health and the enterprise failed, 1787. In 1792 Jefferson proposed to the American Philosophical Society that it engage a competent scientist "to explore Northwest America from the eastward, by ascending the Missouri River, crossing the Rocky Mountains and descending the nearest river to the Pacific Ocean." The members received the suggestion favorably, and Capt. Meriwether Lewis (later head of the Lewis and Clark expedition) volunteered his services. For some unaccountable reason, Andre Michaux, a French botanist, was chosen instead; his expedition got as far west as Kentucky, when the French government to which he owed allegiance, recalled him, and the project died.

Louisiana Purchase

Jefferson, however, for almost a quarter of a century, had persisted in his great purpose, and when he was elected president after a tie vote with Aaron Burr in 1800 - when the House of Representatives on the 36th ballot gave him the vote of ten states, while two were blank and four voted for Burr - he at once set out upon the creation of the mighty continental United States of his cherished dream. Circumstances developed almost coincidentally in aid of this mighty project. Spain had up to this time claimed priority and possession of the Pacific Coast, and France with her trading posts, forts and land explorations claimed everything west of the Mississippi and east of the Rockies, while Great Britain's trading charters extended to the Pacific Coast upon the doctrine of abutting continuity with the British provinces on the North Atlantic Coast, Spain claiming the same territory as granted by Pope Alexander VI. After losing in the contest with England for supremacy in America, France, in 1762, had ceded the province of Louisiana to Spain, and by the treaty of 1763, by which Great Britain acquired Canada, Great Britain renounced to Spain all territory west of the Mississippi. In 1800 Spain had receded to France all the territory ceded to Spain by France in 1762, and October 15, 1782, a year and a half after Jefferson had become president, the King of Spain formally transferred the title to France. The great Jefferson seems to have been fully informed immediately as to every step of these negotiations, and was ably acting in the midst of them. Thus he and his ministers had succeeded in concluding the negotiation for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory and the purchase was formally consummated by the treaty of April 30, 1803, but the fact did not become known in the United States until the succeeding July 1.

The territory embraced in the Louisiana purchase had not been clearly defined, but according to the treaty descriptions it extended from the British line at the north to the Gulf of Mexico, and included what are now the states of Muinnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri and Louisiana, parts of Colorado and New Mexico, most of Montana and Wyoming and all of Oklahoma and Indian territories. Incidentally it included all the Spanish rights of exploration and possession on the Pacific Coast, which Spain had included in the transfer to France, and France to the United States.

Jefferson, stimulated by the imminent expiration of an act of Congress under which American trading posts had been established to promote commerce with the Indians, in urging its continuance, strongly recommended that a Government expedition be at once provided for "to explore the Missouri River and such principal stream of it as, by its course of communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river, may offer the most direct and practical water communication across the continent, for the purpose of commerce." Congress was persuaded, and voted an appropriation for the purpose. Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, (a younger brother of George Rogers Clark, to whom Jefferson in a letter had proposed a similar expedition just twenty years before) were placed in charge of the enterprise.

This expedition, at first purely commercial in purpose as understood by Congress at the time the appropriation was voted, had become by the time it got under way, owing to the Louisiana purchase and the acquisition of the claimed possessions of Spain on the North Pacific Coast, the most portentous and epoch-marking project in all American history, so far as the interests of the United States are con- cerned. Instead of traversing vast territories claimed by a foreign power, it was now dedicated to the exploration and extension of geographic and scientific knowledge of our own country, and to establish relations with the native tribes of Indians accordingly.

Lewis And Clark Expedition

Thus the Lewis and Clark expedition left St. Louis by boat up the muddy Missouri on May 14, 1804, headed by the two bold and energetic American Army officers, with fourteen United States regulars, nine Kentucky volunteers, two French voyageurs, an Indian interpreter, an experienced hunter, and a sturdy negro - probably the first of his race west of the Mississippi River, and who was later to be lionized, almost idolized, and feted by the astonished Indians of the Western plains.

It is not the province of this brief chapter to follow Lewis and Clark in their hazardous and eventually successful journey through the Rockies and Cascade mountains to the mouth of the Columbia River, which they reached on November 14, 1805, and where they built a cabin, spent the winter in various explorations, and departed on the return trip March 23, 1806. Before departing, the officers gave to the chiefs of the Chinook and Clatsop tribes certificates of commendation for hospitality and friendship, and also posted upon the walls of the rugged log fort this notice:

"The object of this last is that, through the medium of some civilized person who may see the same, it may be made known to the world that the party consisting of the persons whose names are hereunto annexed and who were sent out by the government of the United States to explore the interior of the continent of North America, did penetrate the same by way of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, to the discharge of the latter into the Pacific Ocean, at which they arrived on the 14th day of November, 1805, and departed on their return to the United States by the same route by which they had come."

This was the first known penetration of the Rockies and Cascades to the shores of the Pacific. The first overland explorer of record, however, was Verendre, in 1773, commissioned by the governor-general of New France to explore the Northern country to the foot of the Rockies. Verendre, his brother and sons made important discoveries, but could not find a pass through the Rock Mountains. The honor of conquering the "Shining Mountains," as the Rockies were called, probably belongs to the Indian of the Yazoo tribe, Moncachabe by name, who, in a French exploration history of 1758, is credited with having accomplished the job. The first white man to lead his party over the mighty range was the Scotch explorer, Alexander Mackenzie, who crossed the towering divide at 52:24 :48 - Yellowhead Pass - and reached Bella Coola, on the Northern British Columbia coast, July 22, 1793, but his discoveries are of no direct interest in this work.

Astoria Founded

As the revelations of Capt. Robert Gray in his marine expeditions of 1778-92, laid down a challenge to the American captains of sea-going commerce and enterprise which at once resulted in bringing numerous American trading vessels to the North Pacific, so the Lewis and Clark expedition opened the way for commercial and empirical Americans of still broader and more creative vision and purpose, and inspired the far-seeing, constructively patriotic John Jacob Astor to conceive, organize and finance the greatest permanent settlement enterprise ever undertaken in North America - the founding of Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1811, which marked the first actual white settlement on the Pacific Coast, because the earlier Spanish missions of California were, indeed, religious missions and not actual settlements of white people determined upon establishing a permanent residence.

Mr. Astor, a great merchant, not only contemplated permanent establishment of the fur trade in every region claimed by the United States, but tried to arrange for permanent settlement and possession at the same time. The fur trade was extraordinarily profitable. Lewis and Clark were able to buy for 24 feet of blue beads, worth about $1, a prime sea otter skin worth in the market from $45 to $60. Later, Agent Ross of the Astor post at Okanogan, before breakfast one morning, bought 110 beaver pelts at five leaves of tobacco per pelt, and at one time, for $165 worth of cloth, trinkets, etc., he bought furs that brought $11,000 in Canton, China; he related that a yard of 10-cent cotton cloth would buy twenty-five beaver pelts having a market value of $5 each. A fur trading ship with a $25,000 cargo, could return from a single voyage with furs having a cash market value of $250,- 000, or 1,000 per cent profit. That was the pecuniary inspiration of the ill-fated but nationally fruitful Astor expeditions by land and sea.

Astor's was a colossal undertaking in every respect, and most carefully and wisely planned in every detail, one of the ultimate objects being to tie up with the Russians by supplying them with goods and provisions at New Archangel, Alaska, in return discouraging British and Russian competition in the projected Astor territory. But' Captain Thorne, a United States navy lieutenant on leave, who commanded Astor's marine expedition on the ship Tonquin, proved an arbitrary and headstrong, if capable officer, and soon after landing his charge at Astoria, proceeded North on his Russian mission, abused Indians who were invited aboard to trade at a natural Vancouver Island harbor called Neweetee, and declining to act upon all other advice, remained anchored there. Next morning all hands were murdered by the Indians, except a Chehalis Indian interpreter. The powder magazine of the vessel then exploded, killing all the wounded and more than 100 Indians - some estimates making it more than 200 of the native warriors who were swarming on board to loot the vessel. Thus ended all hope of association with the Russians, at least for a long time to come.

As an indication of the unreliable and impulsive nature of Captain Thorne, a short paragraph from the "Journal of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains," by Rev. Samuel Parker, A. M., 1835-6-7, is here quoted:

"In 1811, the Tonquin, sent out from New York by Mr. Astor to form a fur trading establishment at or near the mouth of the (Columbia) River, lost eight men in crossing the bar. This calamity resulted from the ignorance of Captain Thorne of the dangers, and his great want of prudence."

The Astorians built a fort at the mouth of the river, and other trading posts were established along that river as far northeastward as its confluence with the Okanogan River, on the East side of the Cascade Range, where David Stuart erected Fort Okanogan in 1811.

Wilson P. Hunt, and Robert Maclellan, Americans, headed the Astor overland party, accompanied by David and Robert Stuart and Ramsey Crooks, Scotchmen, a Canadian named John Clark, and more than fifty others, the men named becoming partners in the enterprise, with the brave and determined Hunt i command. With the idea of winning the friendship of the Northwest Fur Company of Montreal, whose most southerly trading post was at the 52nd parallel of latitude, Mr. Astor had written to that company, informing them frankly of his plans and offering them a third interest in his project. The men in charge of the Northwest Company at that time evidently could not appreciate or reciprocate such ingenuous and generous conduct. They pretended to consider the matter in order to gain time, and at once sent their surveyor and astronomer, David Thompson, to establish posts along the Columbia River, and to watch and checkmate the American by occupying the mouth of the Columbia. It was a perfidious move of unscrupulous men, but it failed - Astoria was well established before Thompson was able to reach that locality.

Wilson P. Hunt, who was forming his party at Montreal, was likewise harassed and impeded in every possible way, but finally made up his party of sixty men and in April, 1811, started on his epic journey across the continent by way of the west end of Lake Superior to St. Louis, and thence up the Missouri across the Rockies and down the Columbia to Astoria, where a part of his expedition, near the point of total exhaustion, arrived on January 8, 1812. Hunt, Crooks, Mackenzie, Miller and Maclellan were Astor partners, and Hunt was to be chief agent on the Columbia.

British Capture Astoria

In 1812 the war between the United States and Great Britain resulted in the capture of Astoria by a British sloop of war, the raising of the British flag taking place on December 12, 1812, and it remained under the British flag under the English name of Fort George, until restored to the United States in accordance with the treaty of peace on August 9, 1818, Capt. J. Biddle of the American sloop of war Ontario receiving the transfer and hoisting the Stars and Stripes once more over the historic port.

But the occupation by the British mn 1812 had been anticipated by British partners of Mr. Astor's company, the Pacific Fur Company, and Duncan Macdougal and Donald Mackenzie, with David Stuart and John Clarke, partners, dissolved the Pacific Fur Company and transferred the entire property at a ridiculously low price to the Northwest Fur Company, despite the protests of Mr. Stuart, the British company being represented by George John MacTavish. Macdougal in this cowardly and deceitful manner returned to the company of his former service, acquired a full partnership therein, and upon the return to Astoria of Mr. Hunt, February 28, 1814, with the brig Pedlar, which he had purchased to convey the movable Astor property to a place of safety upon learning that Astoria was to be seized as a prize of war by British vessels, found Partner Macdougal still officiating amidst the same old properties, but as the officer of the rival company and under another flag.

The Northwest Company, which had been formed to compete with the older and more powerful Hudson's Bay Company, did not long survive as an important factor, for it was eventually absorbed by the Hudson's Bay Company. The latter in 1825 built a trading post and central fort on the little prairie bordering the north bank of the Columbia River, opposite the present city of Portland, naming it Fort Vancouver in honor of the famous marine explorer, and continued the dom- inant power of the Columbia until the treaties of 1827 and 1833 culminated in the final boundary treaty of 1846, which designated the 49th parallel as the international line. In that year the chief operating post of the company was established near the south end of Vancouver Island, at a harbor indention which the Indians called Camosun, but which the British renamed Victoria, and which has since developed into one of the most beautiful cities on the Pacific Coast.

Boundary Disputes

The international boundary line, however, remained a point of dispute, the British maintaining that the treaty of 1846, which was designed to give all of Vancouver Island to the British by designating the middle of the channel separating the island from the mainland as the boundary line, referred to Rosario Straits, south of the San Juan Archipelago, while the American interpretation fixed upon the Canal de Haro, which touches Vancouver Island directly and is northwesterly from the San Juan group. In 1859, this resulted in joint occupancy of San Juan Island by a force of 100 soldiers of each nation while settlement of the dispute was undergoing negotiation and arbitration. It was eventually referred to Emperor William I. of the newly created German empire, in 1871, and, after exhaustive hearings and investigations, he decided in favor of the United States in 1872, and on the following October 31, 1873, the San Juan Archipelago became San Juan County of Washington Territory.

The treaties of 1818, 1827 and 1833 did not decide the question of dominion, nor of boundaries, but provided that the citizens of either the United States or Great Britain might travel, hunt or trade in the disputed country without molestation from either power. This was all that could have been desired by the British interests represen'«1 in the mighty Hudson's Bay Company, for this company was supreme throughout the Columbia River country, particularly after its absorption of, or consolidation with its most bitter and resourceful rival in 1821, the Northwest Fur Company of Montreal. Yet while this great corporation exercised empirical rule over the disputed domain, its factors and agents were uniformly humane and kind, and without exception courteous and hospitable in the best sense to all missionaries, civil or military officials, travelers rich or poor: the one thing that was absolutely frowned and pounced out of existence in their realm was anything that attempted competition with the business of the company.

Americans Regain Foothold

American settlement, first magnificently and courageously inaugurated by the ill-starred Astor enterprise, all but died out during British occupancy and rule at Astoria, and the latter's restoration to the American colors, in 1818, did not alter the economic situation, for the ruling power remained with the Northwest Company at the mouth of the Columbia and the Hudson's Bay Company in the interior. Nevertheless, this restoration inspired a few hardy Yankee souls to brave the situation and try to live in the country as Americans.

William H. Ashley headed several exploration and trading expeditions from the United States into the wilds west of the Rockies during the early twenties, and in 1826 accomplished the epic achievement of bringing across the sanguinary heights a six-pounder cannon drawn by Missouri mules - signalizing the birth of the modern highways and railways across the divide. About the same time, Jedediah S. Smith of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company headed an expedition west of Salt Lake in the mining country east of the Rockies; his horses were so jaded that he found it impracticable to return eastward over the long trail, so he proceeded south to San Diego, Calif., with his party of nineteen hardy Americans, for fresh horses and supplies, after which he proceeded north along the coast as far as the Umpqua River in Southern Oregon, where hostile Indians massacred all but four of the party, the remaining four, including Smith, reaching Fort Vancouver. They were most kindly received by Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor, who immediately organized an expedition to punish the murderers and recover Smith's property, and with such success that more than $3,000 worth of peltries stolen from Smith were recovered and the murderers were punished by friendly Indians. At Smith's suggestion, in recognition of these humane and kindly acts, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company permanently withdrew from Hudson's Bay Company territory.

Bonneville And Wyeth

During the next five years there were many other American trading enterprises in the Northwest, by sea and land, and in 1831 Capt. B. L. E. Bonneville of the United States Army obtained a two-year leave of absence to organize an expedition into the far west and to explore the country to the Rocky Mountains and beyond, making a close study of the Indian tribes, their relations with neighboring tribes and military strength and characteristics; to investigate quality of soil, climate, natural history, topography, geography, minerals, productions, etc., "within the limits of the territories of the United States between our frontier and the Pacific." He received specific instructions for particular investigations for the government, but the entire expedition had to be financed by a voluntary syndicate which he personally organized.

Captain Bonneville's great expedition, with 110 men, wagons, horses and trading goods, started out on May Day, 1832, and while Bonneville himself penetrated as far west as Walla Walla, the expedition proved a financial failure because his traders were unable to compete with those of the Hudson's Bay Company. His enterprise is particularly interesting to us because he planned to establish salmon fisheries on the Columbia as main support for projected trading posts along that stream. His supply ship, bringing equipment and supplies for these fisheries and posts, sailed from the Atlantic Coast for the voyage around Cape Horn, and was never again seen. In the same year Capt. Nathaniel J. Wyeth of Boston organized a similar expedition and reached Oregon with a large party of Americans, most of whom remained in the country, after their supply ship was lost at sea while en route from the Atlantic. Captain Wyeth returned east, and in 1834 returned to the Columbia River with another expedition coming overland, and his schooner May Dacre arrived with ample supplies. He established trading posts on the river as far east as the mouth of the Snake, and a central station and settlement on Wapato Island, which was called Fort William. But the Indians were hostile, and the Hudson's Bay Company constantly surrounded and impeded him with distressing difficulties. Fort Hall, his principal interior trading post, at the confluence of the Snake and Neuf, proved a failure because of continual Indian hostility and Hudson's Bay Company opposition tactics. The Wapato station fishery and trading post likewise failed, and Wyeth returned to Massachusetts thoroughly

It was the policy of the Hudson's Bay Company always to discourage, if not actually prevent, American settlers locating north of the Columbia while the sovereignty of the region remained undecided, claiming that all the north side country was certain to be permanently British territory. At the same time, the company shrewdly organized a subsidiary but unchartered and unincorporated concern, made up of its stockholders, and called the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, for which the company established Fort Nisqually, south of the present City of Tacoma, near Steilacoom, where it proceeded to claim possession of 261 square miles of fertile land - this evidently being the purpose of the Puget Sound Company - and also the so-called Cowlitz farm of 3,572 acres. So when the sovereignty of the country was finally agreed upon in 1846, this concern claimed $5,000,000 as a just award for its surreptitious holdings, which were in violation of the Hudson's Bay Company's own charter, and we had to pay it or go through the prolonged treaty negotiations all over again.

As one indignant writer stated the situation: The United States 'was forced by a provision of the treaty of 1846 to obligate herself to purchase lands which the same treaty conceded as belonging to her. More humiliating still, she was compelled to reward a company for its acts of hostility to her interests in keeping out her citizens and breaking up their establishments. But the sacrifice was made in the interests of peace and civilization, and who shall say that in conserving these it lacked in abundant justification ?"

Doubtless the most potent influence at this time, the early thirties, in the American settlement of the Columbia River district, was the arrival of the scientific expedition of Dr. Nuttall, naturalist, and J. K. Townsend, ornithologist, sent out by the Boston Scientific Society, and of the home-creating Methodist missionary, Rev. Jason Lee, with his courageous party, including his nephew, Rev. Daniel Lee, P. L. Edwards, Courtney M. Walker and Cyrus Shepherd, all of whom had left the Captain Wyeth party at Fort Hall. This sctentific-missionary party proved the entering wedge of American settlement and independence on the lower Columbia and Willamette, in October, 1832. Lee at once established a log miussion settlement on the Willamette River, naming it Wheatland. By December 14, he had baptized twenty-one persons, including seventeen children. Unlike the Wyeth enterprise, which was crushed by the Hudson's Bay people, the Lee mission was in every way assisted and encouraged as an influence to pacify and control the natives. But the attempt to convert the Indians soon discouraged Lee, and his mission became more and more a shrine for the whites, and the real beginning of American settlement and occupancy.

Marcus Whitman

In 1836 Marcus Whitman, the intrepid Congregational missionary, increased the American population of Oregon by five - Dr. Marcus and Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, Rev. and Mrs. H. H. Spalding and W. H. Gray, the two ladies being the first white women to press the soil of Oregon. Dr. Whitman at this time brought the first wagon over the Rocky Mountains; he also brought sixteen cows, twelve horses, eight mules, three wagons loaded with supplies, farm tools, blacksmithing and carpenters' outfits, seeds, etc.

Numerous missionary, settlement and trading expeditions followed within the next decade. In 1840 the resourceful and energetic Jason Lee returned from the East overland with a party of forty-eight Americans, of whom eight were clergymen, nineteen were women, fifteen children, and one a physician. In 1841, eight young Americans of the Columbia built a small vessel, Star of Oregon, sailed it to San Francisco with Joseph Gale as captain and there at Yerba Buena (later renamed San Francisco) traded the vessel for 350 cows, which they drove back to the Columbia River settlement. Gale remained in California that winter, and in the spring assembled a party of forty-two immigrants and with 1,250 head of cattle, 600 horses, mares, colts and mules, and 3,000 sheep, and successfully took this fundamental caravan of permanent settlement and industry over the roughly blazed trail into the valley of the Willamette. Joseph Gale, the resourceful pioneer who accomplished this then gigantic projéct, was later a member of the great Executive Committee of three in the provisional government of Oregon.

In 1841 there were 253 American or independent persons in Oregon; in 1842, 111 immigrants were added, including A. M. Hastings and A. L. Lovejoy, lawyers; 1843 brought a great immigration of Americans, Marcus Whitman personally piloting a caravan of 875 men, women and children, with many wagons and 1,300 head of cattle; in 1844, about 800 more Americans arrived; 1845 was the banner year of American immigration, estimated as high as 3,000, and the year of the treaty, 1846, brought 1,000 more, making a probable total American population at that time of more than 6,000.

Beginnings Of Government

The need of some form of government, some of the functions of which had been in a way supplied by the Methodist mission, now became urgently necessary, and even the French-Canadian settlement, whose children were pupils of the Methodist American teachers, were largely inclined to side with the Americans, especially after the signing of the boundary treaty. Rev. Jason Lee and George Abernethy strongly opposed the formation of an independent government, but the majority of the settlers as determinedly favored it. Those whose hearts were set upon the formation of a real provisional government, with a view to thereafter having Oregon recognized as a territory, had to work along that line under cover, without arousing the powerful opposition of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Methodist missionaries who joined with them in opposition.

The great herd of cattle brought in by Joseph Gale and his immigrants from California in 1841, resulting in every settler having some cattle, besides the flocks of the mission and the trading post, and the increasing depredations of wolves and cougars upon the herds, gave them the opportunity. A general mass conference was called and held, known as the "wolf meeting,' February 2, 1843, of which Dr. I. L. Babcock, known to be opposed to the independent government project, was elected chairman. After organization had been perfected for a campaign against wolves, panthers, bears and other pests, one of the government "conspirators" arose and eloquently proposed that organization likewise should be formed to protect the lives and property of human beings, at the conclusion of which he offered a resolution that a committee of twelve be appointed "to take into consideration the propriety of taking measures for the civil and military protection of this

Within a month the committee met at Willamette Falls, where Rev. Jason Lee and George Abernethy appeared before them and vehemently opposed the movement as premature and abortive. After hearing these protests, the committee cut out the office of governor from its plan, and then called a general meeting for May 2, 1843. This was a sensational assemblage, at which the opposing forces clashed in the open and everybody voted. The Hudson's Bay crowd had coached their French employes, under the leadership of Father Blanchet, the priest, to vote "no" on each motion; this was quickly discovered by the Americans and they worded their motions so that some of their chief projects seem to have been adopted unanimously. Le Breton and W. H. Gray then moved for a division on the question of organizing a government, and big Joseph L. Meek strode out and marked a line on the ground with his boot, shouting: "All for the report of the committee and an organization, follow me!" Fifty-two Americans and American-favoring French toed the line, while Father Blanchet could muster but fifty Frenchmen in opposition. The vote was declared, the opposition deserted the meeting, confused and disgusted. The government officers chosen were: Supreme Judge, A. E. Wilson; Clerk and Recorder, G. W. Le Breton; Sheriff, J. L. Meek; Treasurer, W. H. Willson, and Legislative Committee to prepare a code of laws to be submitted for approval July 5: Messrs. Hill, Dougherty, Shortess, Moore, O'Neil, Gray, Newell, Beers and Hubbard. This code of laws, singularly just, wise and adequate, was adopted, and the provisional government remained both efficient and popular until Congress, on August 14, 1848, granted Oregon the rights of territorial government. Abraham Lincoln was offered the honor of becoming the first territorial governor, but he declined, and the honor passed to the able Joseph Lane of Indiana.

First Washington Settlements

Despite warnings of the Hudson's Bay Company men, Michael T. Simmons, later known as "the Daniel Boone of Washington', with five companions, left the Columbia River in the spring of 1845 to explore the forests and lands north of that great stream. He was a rugged Irish-Kentuckian of powerful build and indomitable courage, as well as independent spirit. They ascended the Cowlitz River about fifty miles on the first trip, and then returned to the Columbia. In July, with eight companions, he explored the head inlets of the sound, near Olympia, in canoes, and then selected a site for his colony near the falls of the Des Chutes River, later known as Tumwater. He then went back to the Columbia settlements, and a little later returned to his colony site with Geo. W. Bush, Gabriel Jones, James McAllister and David Kindred and their families, and Jesse Ferguson and S. B. Crockett, to form the first white settlement in what was soon to become Washington Territory. Next year, 1846, a few more families Joined the hardy colony, including Edward Sylvester, whose land claim became the site of the future territorial capital, Olympia. They were industrious and courageous people, and the settlement prospered and encouraged further progress in the occupation and development of Puget Sound.

The next important attempt to found an American colony on Puget Sound was that of the unfortunate Thomas W. Glasgow on Whidbey Island in 1848, but a council of the Indians of this region decided against it and the settlers vacated the land. Glasgow's claim and cabin were later taken by the renowned Col. I. N. Ebey in 1850, who was murdered there by Northern Indians seven years later.

Whidbey Island Settled

Simmons early in 1850 bought a tramp brig that had come from Maine with gold seekers, loaded it with piles and initiated Puget Sound marine commerce by taking the cargo to San Francisco and selling it. In the same year Col. I. N. Ebey having settled near the northwest end of Whidbey Island, R. H. Lansdale took up a claim and settled at Penn's cove; Steilacoom had a small colony and a large store was built there; H. C. Wilson settled at Port Townsend and a townsite of that name was laid out on the west side of the bay. In the following year what is now West Seattle was chosen by a colony including C. C. Terry, John Low, C. T. Boren, A. A. and D. T. Denny, John C. Holgate and W. N. Bell, followed soon after by Henry Yesler, who with his sawmill, transplanted the town to the east side of the Elliott Bay inlet. In 1852 Capt. Henry Roeder and Russell V. Peabody located their sawmill at Whatcom, where coal was discovered and a mine opened the following year. Tulalip accommodated the first Snohomish County settlement, in 1853, when John Gould and Peter Goutre located there and built a sawmill, later sold to the United States, in 1856, when the locality had been included in the Tulalip Indian reservation.

The ambition of all these early pioneers, so far distant from the then territorial capital, Oregon City, Oregon, was to form a more flexible and sympathetic government of their own, north of the Columbia River. J. B. Chapman, in a 4th of July speech at Olympia in 1851, eloquently voiced this desire, and entitled his address, "The Future State of Columbia." It inspired immediate action, mass meetings were held and memorials sent to Congress, praying for the creation of a new territory. Congress was slow in taking action, but a new newspaper, The Columbian, the first in the region now Washington State, made its appearance and kept the subject very much alive. The first issue of this paper, a weekly, appeared September 11, 1852. :

A general convention was held at Monticello, at the mouth of the Cowlitz River, and Congress was again memorialized, this time with a certain support from the Oregon Legislature, many of whose members, however, wanted what we now know as Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon, east of the Cascade Range, set aside as Columbia Territory, and all west of the Cascades from the British boundary to the California line to remain as Oregon Territory. The majority of the legislators and the people favored the Columbia River as the boundary.

Washington Territory

On March 2, 1853, with the name Washington substituted for Columbia, the new territory of Washington was created by Congress, with the following officers: Isaac Ingalls Stevens, who had just completed the transcontinental government railroad survey, Governor; C. H. Mason, Secretary of the Territory; Edward Lander, Chief Justice; John R. Miller and Victor Monroe, Associate Justices ; J. S. Clendenin, District Attorney, and J. Patton Anderson, United States Marshal. Judge Miller declined the appointment as supreme court justice, and O. B. McFadden of Oregon was appointed in his stead.

All the territory now embraced in the State of Washington was composed of nine counties, the names of which still remain, though their vast areas have been cut up into new counties. The original. nine were: Lewis, Clark, Pacific, Thurston, Jefferson, Pierce, King, Island and Walla Walla counties. Island County in the original formation of the territory included all that vast area now separated into Snohomish, Island, Skagit, Whatcom and San Juan counties. Whatcom became a separate county in 1854, Snohomish in 1861, San Juan in 1872 and Skagit (formed from the South half of Whatcom) in 1883.