Bancroft Works Collections – Page 6 of 7

Delegates of Washington Convention, July 4, 1889

The several counties were represented as follows in the convention: Adams County, D. Buchanan Garfield, S. G. Cosgrove Franklin, W. B. Gray Columbia, M. M. Goodman, R. F. Sturvedant Chehalis County, A. J. West Clarke County, Louis Johns, A. A. Lindsley Cowlitz County, Jesse Van Name Island County, J. C. Kellogg Jefferson County, Allen Weir, George H. Jones, H. C. Willison King County, R. Jeff’s, T. T. Minor, T. P. Dyer, D. E. Durie, John R. Kinnear, John P. Hoyt, M. J. McElroy, Morgan Morgans County, George W. Tibbetts, W. L. Newton Kitsap County, S. A. Dickey Kittetas County, J. … Read more

Deer Lodge County, Montana 1870-1888

Deer Lodge County, also west of the Rocky Mountains, and the second settled, was much less in size than Missoula, containing 6,500 square miles, but fully equal in attractions and natural wealth. It had 25,000 acres under improvement, and raised 130,000 bushels of grain in 1878, made 150,000 pounds of butter, produced 50,000 bushels of potatoes, 1,200,000 pounds of garden vegetables, 75,000 of wool, and manufactured 1,000,000 feet of lumber. Its population was 9,000, and taxable wealth $2,341,268. In 1884 its livestock alone was valued at $1,000,000. Deer Lodge City, the county seat, situated on the east side of Deer … Read more

Dawson County, Montana 1870-1888

Dawson County, owing to Indian wars and other causes, remained unorganized down to a late period, and although having an area of 32,000 square miles, and good stock ranges, contained in 1880 only about 200 inhabitants. It occupied the northwestern portion of Montana, and was divided by the Missouri River, and crossed by the Yellowstone, Musselshell, and Milk Rivers. Its assessable property in 1884 was about $2,500,000. Glendive, the principal town, was founded in 1881, and named by Lewis Merrill after Glendive creek, which received its name from Sir George Gore, who wintered in Montana in 1856. It was the … Read more

Custer County, Montana 1870-1888

Custer County occupied in 1884 an area of 25,500 square miles, divided by the Yellowstone River, which is navigable, and watered by numerous large and small tributaries. It formerly included the Crow reservation, a 5,000,000 acre tract, which was surrendered to the government in 1882, and thrown open to settlement in 1883. Several mountain ranges separated the principal valleys and gave diversity to the scenery. It was possessed of a superior soil, and the bench lands furnish every variety of nutritious native grasses, including Bluegrass, wild rye, and wild oats. The lower portion of the Yellowstone Valley was favored by … Read more

County Development and Education in Idaho

I will now take up the progress and condition of Idaho. Ada County was created out of Boise in December 1864, with Boise City as the county seat. The location of Fort Boise on the 5th of July 1863 was the immediate cause of the location of the town, which followed on the 7th. But before either of these were founded, on the 3d of February of the same year, Thomas and Frank Davis and Sherlock Bristol took up a land claim and built a cabin on a part of the town site as subsequently located, where they had a … Read more

Coal Mining in Washington

Coal Mining in Washington

Choteau County, Montana 1870-1888

Choteau County, containing 27,380 square miles, the first inhabited on the east aide of the Rocky Mountains, having their summits for its boundary on the west, and the vast, unorganized area of Dawson county on the east, the British possessions on the north, and Lewis and Clarke and Meagher Counties on the south, was a grazing country, with a few agricultural valleys of considerable extent, the stock-raisers usually cultivating farms also. In 1884 its livestock was valued at $2,000,000, and 50,000 pounds of wool sent to market. The population of the county was 3,058. Fort Benton, the county seat, was … Read more

Cattle, Sheep and Horses in Washington

To what an extent the people of the Puget Sound country and the Cowlitz and Chehalis valleys depended upon their cattle for support was illustrated in 1863, when the government prohibited for a time the exportation of livestock. The order was in consequence of Canada being made a field of operations for the leaders of the rebellion, and the danger that supplies might be shipped to them from the British provinces. It was not intended to affect Washington. S. P. Alta, July 30, 1863; Portland Oregonian, Sept. 3, 1863; Or. Argos, Aug. 17, 1803. Exports into V. I. from the … Read more

Building the New Territory, Washington

In the previous chapter I have made the reader acquainted with the earliest American residents of the territory north of the Columbia, and the methods by which they secured themselves homes and laid the foundations of fortunes by courage, hardihood, foresight, by making shingles, bricks, and cradling-machines, by building mills, loading vessels with timber, laying out towns, establishing fisheries, exploring for coal, and mining for gold. But these were private enterprises concerning only individuals, or small groups of men at most, and I come now to consider them as a body politic, with relations to the government of Oregon and … Read more

Brief Bios of Washington Senators and Representatives

John S. Baker was born in Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 21, 1861, and removed to Tacoma in 1881. L. B. Clough was born in Waterbury, Vermont, May 12, 1850. He removed to Vancouver, Washington Territory, in 1877, and engaged in fruit raising. He was elected sheriff in 1884, and served two years. In 1888 he was elected representative from Clarke County, but the legislature not assembling, he was elected state senator. Henry Drum was born in Girard, Macoupin County, Illinois, in 1857, and educated at the Illinois State University. He removed to Hebron, Nebraska, where he was a banker, and also … Read more

Biography of Charles Biles

Charles Biles was born in Warren County, Tennessee, in Aug. 1809, and reared on a farm in North Carolina, removing when 19 years old to Christian County, Kentucky. In 1832 he married, and in 1835 removed to Illinois, soon returning to Hopkins County, Kentucky, where he resided until 1853, when he emigrated to Washington Territory in company with his brother James, their families, and C. B. Baker, Elijah Baker, and William Downing, and their families, being a part of the first direct immigration to the territory, via the wagon road through the Nachess pass. Mr Biles settled upon Grand Mound … Read more

Biography of Bezaleel Freeman Kendall

Bezaleel Freeman Kendall, like Elwood Evans, crossed the continent in 1853 with Stevens. He was a native of Oxford, Maine, and a graduate of Bowdoin College. His talents are highly praised by all his biographers. Evans, who knew him well, says that he possessed a grand physique, was a fine scholar, able writer, powerful speaker, hard student, and of thorough integrity, but ambitions, aristocratic in his feelings, bitter in his prejudices, and indiscreet in his utterances. The newspapers cannot too highly paint his contempt for the opinions of others, his bitterness of expression, his unqualified style of assault upon any … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Joseph Cushman

Joseph Cushman was appointed by a democratic legislature first probate judge of Thurston County. He was born at Middlebury, Massachusetts, March 13, 1807, and was a lineal descendant of Robert Cushman of the Mayflower company, had a good home education and a Boston business training, hence was a valuable man in any community, besides being an orator of ability, and ready writer. He went to South America in 1849, and after a brief stay in Valparaiso, came to California, and engaged in jobbing goods on the Sacramento Paver. Making the acquaintance of Samuel Merritt, owner of the brig G. W. … Read more

Biographical Sketch of I. L. Scammon

Another Chehalis County pioneer is I. L. Scammon, who was born in Maine in 1822, came to California in 1849-50, making the voyage on the 63-ton schooner Little Traveler. In the autumn of 1850 he took passage for the Columbia River, which was passed by mistake, the vessel making Shoalwater bay. Making his way overland to the Columbia, he went to Salem, Oregon, and to the southern mines, but returning to Washington Territory took a donation claim on the Chehalis River, where the old town of Montesano, now known as Wynoochee, grew up about him. He married Miss Lorinda Hopkins … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Gilmore Hays

Gilmore Hays was a native of Kentucky, but resided in Missouri, where he was district judge, when the gold discovery drew him to California. Returning to Missouri, he led a train of immigrants to Oregon in 1852, and in 1833 settled on Des Chutes River near the head of Budd Inlet. The year 1852 was the time of the cholera on the plains, and Hays lost his wife and two children, who were buried near Salmon Falls of Snake River, together with the wife of B. F. Yantis. There remained to him three sons, James H., Charles, and Robert, and … Read more

Beaverhead County, Montana 1870-1888

Beaverhead County, where the first town of eastern Montana was laid off in 1802, contains 4,2110 square miles. More than any other part of Montana, it reminds the traveler by its nomenclature of the journey of Lewis and Clarke in 1805, containing Horse Prairie, Willard Creek, Beaverhead Rock, and the pass by which these explorers crossed the Rocky Mountains. It is a mountainous district interspersed with a few fertile valleys, and furnishing excellent stock ranges on the bench lands between the valleys and the high ridges. Its population was less than 3,000 in 1880. In 1884, its taxable property was … Read more

Battle of the Little Bighorn, Montana

The advance of the Northern Pacific railroad survey diverted for a time the hostilities of the Sioux from the people of the territory to the exploring expedition. Red Cloud had said that the railroad should not be laid across is country, and he meant to maintain his word. Accordingly, when the surveying party, with a force of 1,500 men and an abundance of ammunition and supplies, appeared on the Yellowstone about the middle of July, he was there to resist their progress. The expedition was commanded at this time by Gen. D. S. Stanley, the 7th cavalry companies being under … Read more

1863 Settlers to Madison County, Montana

John Willhard, born in Germany Sept. 28, 1838, came to the U. S. in 1854, and crossed the plains with a mule-team in 1860, to Colorado, where he mined and farmed until May 1863, when he followed the immigration to Montana. After mining one season at Virginia City he took a farm of 640 acres in the Beaverhead Valley, a mile below Twin Bridges. In company with Lester Harding he discovered Carpenter’s Bar. Carl Rahmig, born in Germany Oct. 3, 1837, came to the U. S. in 1858, locating in Iowa, where he remained until 1862, when he went to … Read more

1863 Settlers to Beaverhead County, Montana

William B. Carter, born in Ohio April 23, 1840. At the age of 223 years he came to Montana with a horse-team, and established himself on Alder Creek, freighting goods from Salt Lake for 4 or 5 years, in company with E. C. Bennett, who came with him from Ohio. Bennett died. Carter married Anna B. Selway in 1868, and settled at Dillon. Frederick Temple, born in Germany Aug. 14, 1840, came to America an infant and lived in Ohio and Missouri until 20 years of age, then went to Colorado, following the rush to Montana in 1863. Mined in … Read more

1863 Settlers of Gallatin County, Montana

George E. McKinsey, born in Indiana Aug. 22, 1822. In 1854 he removed to Nebraska, remaining there until 1863, when he went to Montana with an ox-team, and mined for three years at Alder gulch. In 1866 he removed to Madison Valley, and established a ferry, but went back to mining the following year, and in 1869 returned to Middle Creek, settling finally near Bozeman in 1871. He married Sarah Anna Wilson in 1850. Andrew Cowan, Hillsdale, born in Ky March 1834, and raised on a farm. Went to Salt Lake from Missouri by stage in 1863, and from there … Read more