Marshal-John P. Justice. Treasurer-H. E. Johnson. Assessor-M. W. Davis. Surveyor-A. L. Knowlton. Council Sig. Schwabacher, N. T. Caton, M. C. Moore, I. H. Foster, John Stahl. 1873 Mayor-E. B. Whitman. Recorder-I. D. Sarman. Marshal-John P. Justice. Treasurer-H. E. Johnson. Surveyor-A. L. Knowlton. Council-M. C. Moore, N. T. Caton, I. H. Foster, Wm. Neal, John Fall. Mayor-James McAuliff. 1874 Marshal-John P. Justice. Recorder-O. P. Lacy. Treasurer-C. T. Thompson. Assessor-J. B. Thompson. Council-F. G. Allen, Z. K. Straight, Wm. Kohlhauff, Ed C. Ross. 1875 Mayor-James McAuliff. Marshal-John P. Justice. Recorder-J. D. Laman. Treasurer-F. Kennedy. Assessor-S. Jacobs. Council-O. P. Lacy, Ed C. Ross, M. Belcher, J. D. Laman, Wm. Kohlhauff. Mayor-Jas. McAuliff. Marshal-John P. Justice. Treasurer-H. E. Holmes. Assessor-S. Jacobs. 1876 Council G. P. Foor, Wm. Kohlhauff, A. H. Reynolds, O. P. Lacy, M. Belcher. It remains in this chapter to speak of the events leading to the division of Old Walla Walla County. The first movement in that direction originated at Waitsburg. That active place, in the center of one of the fairest and most fertile tracts in all this fertile region, had come into existence in 1865. We find an item in the Statesman of June 30, 1865, to this effect: "Waitsburg is the name of a town just beginning to grow up at Wait's Mill on the Touchet. The people of that vicinity have resolved to celebrate the coming 4th, and are making arrangements accordingly. W. S. Langford of this city has accepted an invitation to deliver the oration." In 1869 a sentiment developed that the large area south of Snake River, 3,420 square miles, was too large for a single county, and that it was only a question of time when there must be another county. Not seeming to realize that if such event occurred the natural center must be farther east than Waitsburg, the citizens of the "Mill Town" pushed vigorously for their project of division, with their own town as the seat of a new county. A petition signed by 150 citizens was conveyed to Olympia by a delegation who presented it to the Legislature. Though their effort failed it served to keep the plan of division alive, and with a rapid flow of immigration into the high region of the Upper Touchet, the movement for a new county constantly grew. We have already spoken of the early locations on the Touchet and Patit. In 1871 and 1872, there became a concentration of interests which made it clear that a town would develop. It became known as Dayton from Jesse N. Day. Here was a location more suitable geographically than Waitsburg, and sentiment rapidly gathered around Dayton as the natural vantage point for a new county. Elisha Ping was chosen to the Territorial Council in 1874 to represent Walla Walla County, and as a citizen and prominent land owner of Dayton he became the center of the movement. The first boundary proposed called for a line running directly south from the Palouse ferry on Snake River to the state line, thus putting Waitsburg just within the new county. This was not acceptable to that place. If it could not be the county seat, it preferred to play second fiddle to Walla Walla rather than to Dayton. Mr. Preston went to Walla Walla to represent the Waitsburg sentiment. As a result a remonstrance against county division was prepared and forwarded to the Legislature. Representatives Hodgis, Lloyd, Lynch and Scott took positions in opposition to division. A. J. Cain and Elisha Ping conducted the campaign from the standpoint of Dayton. It became a three cornered combat in the Legislature. The Walla Walla people, as almost always is the case in a growing county, though it is very poor and selfish policy, opposed any diviThe Waitsburg influence was for division provided it could have the county seat but otherwise opposed, and the Dayton influence was entirely for division with the expectation that Dayton would become the county seat. Like most county division and county seat fights, this was based mainly on motives of transient local gain and personal advantage, rather than on broad public policy for the future. But so long as human nature is at such a rudimentary stage of evolution it would be too idealistic to expect otherwise. But whether with large motives or small, the final outcome, as well as the subsequent divisions by which Garfield and Asotin were laid out, was for progress and efficiency. Walla Walla interests were overpowered in the Legislature and a bill creating Ping County was duly passed. This, however, encountered a snag, for Governor Ferry vetoed it. Another bill, avoiding his objections, naming the new county Columbia, was finally passed and on Nov. 11, 1875, Columbia County duly came into existence, embracing about two-thirds of Old Walla Walla County, being bounded by Snake River and the state line on the north, east and south, and by Walla Walla County on the west. The history of the erection of Garfield and Asotin counties will belong properly to a later chapter, and with this final view of old Walla Walla County as it had existed from 1859 to 1875, we pass on. CHAPTER IV THE EARLY TRANSPORTATION AGE It is but trite and commonplace to say (yet these commonplace sayings embody the accumulated experience of the human race) that transportation is the very A. B. C. of economic science. There can be no wealth without exchange. There is no assignable value either to commodities or labor without markets. New communities have always had to struggle with these fundamental problems of transportation. Until there can be at least some exchange of products there can be no real commercial life and men's labor is spent simply on producing the articles needful for daily bread, clothing and shelter. Most of the successive "Wests" of America have gone through that stage of simple existence. Some have gotten out of it very rapidly, usually by the discovery of the precious metals or the production of some great staple like furs so much in demand and so scarce in distant countries as to justify expensive and even dangerous expeditions and costly transportation systems. During nearly all the first half of the nineteenth century the fur trade was that agency which created exchange and compelled transportation. After the acquisition of Oregon and California by the United States there was a lull, during which there was scarcely any commercial life because there was nothing exchangeable or transportable. Then suddenly came the dramatic discovery of gold in California which inaugurated there a new era of commercial life and hence demanded extensive transportation, and that was for many years necessarily by the ocean. The similar discovery in Oregon came ten years later. As we saw in Chapter Twd of this part there came on suddenly in the early '60s a rushing together in old Walla Walla of a confused mass of eager seekers for gold, cattle ranges, and every species of the opportunities which were thought to exist in the "upper country." As men began to get the measure of the country and each other and to see something of what this land was going to become, the demand for some regular system of transportation became imperative. The first resource was naturally by the water. It was obvious that teaming from the Willamette Valley (the only productive region in the '50s and the first year or two of the '60s) was too limited a means to amount to anything. Bateaux after the fashion of the Hudson's Bay Company would not do for the new era. Men could indeed drive stock over the mountains and across the plains and did so to considerable degree. But as the full measure of the problem was taken it became clear to the active ambitious men who flocked into the Walla Walla country in 1858, 1859, and 1860, and particularly when the discovery of gold became known in 1861, that nothing but the establishment of steamboats on the Columbia and Snake rivers would answer the demand for a real system of transportation commensurate with the situation. To fully appreciate the era of steamboating and to revive the memories of the pioneers of this region in those halcyon days of river traffic, it is fitting that we trace briefly the essential stages from the first appearance of steamers on the Columbia River and its tributaries. To accomplish this section of the story we are incorporating here several paragraphs from "The Columbia River," by the author: The first river steamer of any size to ply upon the Willamette and Columbia was the Lot Whitcomb. This steamer was built by Whitcomb and Jennings. J. C. Ainsworth was the first captain, and Jacob Kamm was the first engineer. Both of these men became leaders in every species of steamboating enterprise. In 1851 Dan Bradford and B. B. Bishop inaugurated a movement to connect the up-river region with the lower river by getting a smali iron propeller called the Jason P. Flint from the East and putting her together at the Cascades, whence she made the run to Portland. The Flint has been named as first to run above the Cascades, but the author has the authority of Mr. Bishop for stating that the first steamer to run above the Cascades was the Eagle. That steamer was brought in sections by Allen McKinley to the Upper Cascades in 1853, there put together, and set to plying on the part of the river between the Cascades and The Dalles. In 1854 the Mary was built and launched above the Cascades, the next year the Wasco followed, and in 1856 the Hassalo began to toot her jubilant horn at the precipices of the mid-Columbia. In 1859 R. R. Thompson and Lawrence Coe built the Colonel Wright, the first steamer on the upper section of the river. In the same year the same men built at the Upper Cascades a steamer called the Venture. This craft met with a curious catastrophe. For on her very first trip she swung too far into the channel and was carried over the Upper Cascades, at the point where the Cascade Locks are now located. She was subsequently raised and rebuilt, and rechristened the Umatilla. This part of the period of steamboat building was contemporary with the Indian wars of 1855 and 1856. The steamers Wasco, Mary, and Eagle were of much service in rescuing victims of the murderous assault on the Cascades by the Klickitats. While the enterprising steamboat builders were thus making their way upriver in the very teeth of Indian warfare steamboats were in course of construction on the Willamette. The Jennie Clark in 1854 and the Carrie Ladd in 1858 were built for the firm of Abernethy, Clark and Company. These both, the latter especially, were really elegant steamers for the time. The close of the Indian wars in 1859 saw a quite well-organized steamer service between Portland and The Dalles, and the great rush into the upper country was just beginning. The Senorita, the Belle, and the Multnomah, under the management of Benjamin Stark, were on the run from Portland to the Cascades. A rival steamer, the Mountain Buck, owned by Ruckle and Olmstead, was on the same route. These steamers connected with boats on the CascadesDalles section by means of portages five miles long around the rapids. There was a portage on each side of the river. That on the north side was operated by Bradford & Company, and their steamers were the Hassalo and the Mary. Ruckle and Olmstead owned the portage on the south side of the river, and |