who had been hung at Lewiston a few months before. In the issue of the Statesman of June 20th of the same year, there is an item about the recovery of seventeen stolen horses on Coppei Creek near Waitsburg by a vigilance committee. In the next number is an item to the effect that the same men that had stolen the seventeen horses came back and ran away six more, and sent word back that they had the horses on the north side of Snake River and they dared the owners. to come over for them. They said that there were seven of them and they had three revolvers each and they would be glad to see company. The farmers of Coppei organized a well armed force and crossed the river. They discovered the horses and took possession of them, but the vainglorious road agents were nowhere in sight.

In the Statesman of April 14, 1865, we find the first definite account of the operations of the Vigilantes. It appears that a certain individual called "Dutch Louie" had been taken, according to his account, from his bed by Vigilantes at the hour of midnight, and hanged until he was nearly dead, in order to make him testify against someone whom he did not want to name. It appears at the same time that there was an anti-Vigilantes organization which took possession of another man who was in the habit of coming to town and getting "d. d.," and tried to compel him to give evidence against the Vigilantes. In the next issue of the Statesman there is an account of the pursuit of cattle thieves who had run away sixty cattle from the Wild Horse Creek, and had come to a halt on Mill Creek three miles above Walla Walla. Mr. Jeffries followed them with a posse of citizens and found some of the cattle, and according to the story one of the thieves was hung by the Vigilantes, although the paper intimates that the story of the hanging was without foundation. In the same issue there is an account of Mr. Samuel Johnson (and he was well known for many years as one of the prominent citizens of the Walla Walla country) having lost sixty head of cattle out of his band and following them by a trail from the Touchet to a point on the Columbia River sixty miles above Priest Rapids. The same paper also has an item about the "skeedaddling" of thieves, and it gives a suggestion that there is a point beyond which endurance ceases to be a virtue, and that the farther these worthies "skeedaddle" the less chance there will be of their being found some morning dangling at a rope's end.

The Statesman of April 21, 1865, contains an account of some regular “hangings" by the vigilance committee. It seems that on the Sunday morning previous, a man named McKenzie was found hanging to a limb near the racetrack, which at that time was a short distance below town. It appeared from reliable testimony that he was implicated in the theft of the cattle stolen from Mr. Jeffries. During the same week, two men named Isaac Reed and William Wills, were caught at Wallula, charged with stealing horses, and they traveled the same road as McKenzie. Before taking their final jump-off, they acknowledged that they were members of a regular band who had a large number of stolen horses on the Columbia somewhere above Wallula, and that there had just been a fight among the members of the band, in which one had been killed. During the same week the famous hanging of "Slim Jim" was consummated from a tree which still stands in the southern part of town. He was charged with having assisted "Six-toed Pete" and Waddingham to escape from the county jail. The author of this work derived much of his information in regard to the period of the

Vigilantes from Richard Bogle and Marshall Seeke, both well known for many years in Walla Walla, now deceased, but all who were residents of the town during 1864 and 1865 are sufficiently familiar with the events of the time. They do not, however, seem to be inclined to talk very much about it. The general supposition is that the most prominent citizens of Walla Walla were either actively or by their support concerned in the organization. They had secret meetings and passed upon cases brought before them with great promptness, but with every attempt to get at the essential facts. In case they decided that the community would be better without some given individual, that individual would receive an intimation to that effect. In case he failed to act upon the suggestion within a few hours, he was likely to be found adorning some tree in the vicinity of the town the next morning. Although to modern ideas the Vigilantes seem rather frightful members of the judiciary, yet it is doubtless true that that swift and summary method of disposing of criminals was necessary at that time and that as a result of it there was a new reign of law and order.

The most famous of all the cases during that period, was that of Ferd Patterson. This famous "bad man" had begun his career in Portland by killing a captain in the Union army, as a result of an encounter which took place in one of the principal saloons of that city. This man, Captain Staple, lifted his glass and cried out, "I drink to the success of the Union and the flag!" Patterson was a southerner and when all the men about him lifted their glasses he threw his down exclaiming, "The Union and the flag be damned!" The other men cried out to Captain Staple, "Bring him back and make him drink!" The captain turned to follow Patterson, who was upon the stairs, and at the instant a revolver shot rang out and the captain fell with a bullet in his heart. Patterson, however, was acquitted on the ground of self-defense. In fact, like other professional "bad men," he was skilled in getting his opponent to draw first and then with his great quickness he would send a deadly shot before the opponent could pull his trigger. After several similar instances, Patterson came to Walla Walla and was located for a time at what is now called Bingham Springs. It was a station at that time on the main stage line between The Dalles and Boise, and had a good hotel, bath-house, and other conveniences for travelers. On a certain day there appeared at Bingham Springs the sheriff of Boise, whose name was Pinkham. Pinkham was a strong Union man and Patterson, as we have seen, just the reverse; and the two parties at that time were so well balanced that it was just a turn of the hand which would hold supremacy. Meeting Patterson one day, as he was just emerging from the bathing pool, Pinkham slapped him in the face. Patterson said, "I am alone today without my gun, but one of these days I will be fixed for you and settle this matter." Pinkham replied, "The sooner the better." A few days after this, Patterson walked up and slapped Pinkham. Both men drew their revolvers, but Patterson's shot took · effect first, and another man was added to his long score. The brief item in respect to this Pinkham affray appears in the Walla Walla Statesman of July 28, 1865.

Some weeks passed by and Patterson came to Walla Walla where he was supported mainly by various light-fingered arts and gambling games in which he was an adept. It was considered by many that he was too dangerous a man to have in the community, but it was a very difficult matter to get any evidence

against him. Very few dared to incur his enmity. Finally, a man named Donnehue, who was a night watchman in the town, took upon himself to try, convict, and execute the famous gambler all in one set of operations. It appears from the account given by Richard Bogle that between eight and nine o'clock on February 15, 1866, Patterson had entered his barber shop, which was then situated on Main Street, between Third and Fourth, as it would be at the present time. While the barber was engaged upon the countenance of the gambler, Donnehue entered and stood for some little time watching the operation, and just at the moment of completion of the combing of his hair, about which the gambler was very particular, Donnehue suddenly stepped up and shouted, "You kill me or I'll kill you.” And at the same moment he let fly a bullet from his revolver. Patterson, who was a man of magnificent physique, although mortally wounded, did not fall but endeavored to reach his own gun; and while doing so, and in fact having gotten out upon the street, Donnehue emptied the revolver into the staggering form of his antagonist. Patterson died within a few minutes and Donnehue was arrested at once without resistance upon his part, and taken to jail. He was never tried, but soon after left town, with his pockets lined with gold dust, according to reports. It was generally supposed for many years that the Vigilantes had passed upon Patterson's case and had appointed Donnehue to execute their sentence in the only way that could be done without loss of somebody else's life. We are informed, however, by one of the most reliable old-timers in Walla Walla, a man still living, that the Vigilantes did not pass upon Patterson's case and that his death was pure murder on the part of Donnehue. However that may be, there is no question but that the community drew a long sigh of relief when it was known that Ferd Patterson had been retired from active participation in its affairs. With the death of Patterson, and the close of the Civil war, and still more as a result of the beginnings of farming, it may be said that the era of the Vigilantes came to an end. They gradually disbanded without anyone knowing exactly how or why, and by degrees there came to be established an ever-growing reign of law and order in Old Walla Walla.

As constituting a vivid narrative in the history of the Vigilantes, we include here a historic sketch by Prof. Henry L. Tolkington of the State Normal School of Idaho. It appeared in the Lewiston Tribune of August 19, 1917. It will constitute a part of a book now in preparation by Professor Tolkington entitled "Heroes and Heroic Deeds of the Pacific Northwest."

While the conclusion does not occur within the limits of Old Walla Walla County, it is a part of the same story and is intensely characteristic of those times.

CHAPTER III

POLITICAL HISTORY TO TIME OF COUNTY DIVISION

In previous chapters we have presented the facts in relation to the first attempt at organization of Walla Walla County in 1854, prior to the period of great Indian wars. We took up again the reorganization and development in 1859 with the incoming of permanent population. We also mentioned the first charter and the inauguration of permanent city government. In the chapter dealing with the beginnings of industries we showed the first locations at the different points which have become the centers of population in the four counties.

It remains in this chapter to take up the thread with the growing communities and the government over them which composed the old county down to 1875, when Columbia County was created, embracing what are now the three counties of Columbia, Garfield and Asotin, and thus reducing Walla Walla County to its present limits. After that we shall trace the story of the successive subtractions of Garfield from Columbia and then Asotin from Garfield.

The authorities to which we have had recourse are first the county records, so far as available; second, the files of the newspapers covering the periods; third, Col. F. F. Gilbert's Historic Sketches, published in 1882, to which frequent reference has been made and which seems in general to be very reliable; and fourth, the memory of pioneers still living or from whom data were secured prior to their death. In respect to the public records it may be said that a destructive fire on August 3, 1865, of which an account is given in the Statesman of the 4th, destroyed the records, though the more important ordinances and other acts of city and county government had appeared in the Statesman and from that source were replaced.

The most important events in the political history were connected with, first, the county, its legislative and local officers, and the chain of circumstances going on to county divisions; second, the city government and the movement of laws and policies through various reorganizations to the present; and third, the place occupied by the old county in relation to state and national affairs.

In the way of a general view of political conditions in the period from the creation of county offices by the Legislature of the Territory on January 19, 1859, through the period of war, it may be said that the prevailing sentiment was at first strongly democratic. The majority of the settlers in Old Oregon, from which had come a large proportion of the earlier comers to Walla Walla, were from Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, with quite a sprinkling from Tennessee and Kentucky and democratic views preponderated in the sections from which the majority came. With that strange inconsistency which has made American political history a chaos for the philosopher and historian, that early democratic element here and elsewhere was in general bitterly opposed to "abolitionists and black repub

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licans." While a great majority of them did not favor slavery and to a considerable extent had left slave states to get rid of it, yet they were mortally afraid of "nigger equality." When the war broke out there was a considerable element that were carried so far by their hatred of abolitionists that they even became rank "Secesh." That, however, was a temporary sentiment. The feeling of union and the preservation of an undivided nation gradually asserted itself, and by the time the war was half through democrats as well as republicans stood firmly on the platform of the maintenance of the Union. One of the best expressions of that sentiment is found in the resolutions of the democratic convention on May 23, 1863, reported in the Statesman of the 30th. We find these expressions: "That the democracy are unalterably attached to the union of these states." "That the right of secession is not reserved to the States." "That the Federal Government has a right to maintain the constitution and enforce the laws, if need be, by force of arms, and so far as the acts of the present administration tend to these desirable ends, it has our cordial support and no further." Then as an offset, the fourth resolution declares: "That the democracy of Washington Territory view the declared intention of such men as Horace Greeley and Charles Sumner-who desire the prosecution of the present civil war for the abolition of slavery, and who utterly scout the idea of any peace which is not founded on the condition that the social fabric of the insurgent states is to be totally uprooted-with abhorrence."

A good evidence of this is the inability of men brought up with certain views and prejudices to grasp the logic of events. Then as since, "there are none so blind as those that won't see." That sentiment was also well shown in the continuance of the campaign of 1863, in which Geo. E. Cole of Walla Walla was democratic candidate for Territorial Delegate. An editorial in the Statesman of June 5, 1863, commends Mr. Cole as a Union man and a democrat. In the same issue appears the resolutions of the Clarke County Democratic Convention which had been adopted in substance by the territorial convention which nominated Mr. Cole, and to which the democrats of Walla Walla pledged themselves at a ratification meeting on July 11th. As showing the stamp of thought prevailing at that time in the party, it is of interest to read these resolutions:

"Resolved, That the democracy (of Clarke County) are for the Union, and the whole Union, and in favor of the vigorous prosecution of the efforts of the Government in crushing the present unholy and wicked rebellion, when such efforts are not actuated by any other motives than a single desire to maintain the honor and dignity of the nation and enforcement of the laws. That we are opposed to the conclusion of any peace involving in its terms the acknowledgment of the so-called Southern Confederacy, and that we hereby pledge ourselves, come weal or woe, in life and death, now and forever, to stand by and defend the flag of our country in its hour of peril."

It is indeed one of the most significant evolutions in American history; that of the gradual passing over from a support of slavery by the larger part of the democratic party to a stage where they no longer supported that "sum of all villainies" and yet had a profound hatred of “abolitionists," to the point where they perceived that the maintenance of the Union was the great essential, whether slavery was lost or saved, and yet further to the point, which many reached, of an unflinching support of Abraham Lincoln in his abolition as well as Union.