or after they were dead, but was told by the Indians that they had been killed. As God sees me, this is the truth."

Leschi, a convert to the Christian religion under the teaching of the Catholic priests, then made the sign of the cross and repeated the words, "Ta-te mono, Ta-te lem-mas, Ta-te ha-le-hach, tu-ul-li-as-sist-ah"-There is the Father, this is the Son, this is the Holy Ghost, these are all one and the same, Amen.

By a vote of 986 to 549 Governor Stevens at the July, 1857, election was chosen territorial delegate to Congress. Lafayette McMullen, of Virginia, was appointed governor of the territory and was occupying that office when Leschi's conviction was confirmed by the Supreme Court. The change in governors had not brought a change in sentiment-the old partisan fight still raged with Leschi as one of the pawns. Governor Stevens, to punish former employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, had supplanted civil law by that of the military branch of government. This action had tended to break down respect for all law. Leschi's trial threw the regular-army faction into the camp of the Hudson's Bay Company, to which was also joined the force of those settlers who blamed Governor Stevens and his treaties for the Indian war. Political partisanship, a desire for revenge, and the necessity of justifying the treaties and the action of the volunteer forces backed by Stevens, supplanted justice. The administration was democratic. Many of those engaged in the defense of Leschi were whigs. One side needed a scapegoat-Leschi would supply that need. The other was determined to prevent the carrying out of the plan, and justice fled.

The sentence of the court was that Leschi should be hanged on January 22d, between the hours of 10 o'clock a. M., and 2 o'clock P. M. Frank Clark, the whig attorney of Leschi, induced an Indian to swear out a warrant for the arrest of George Williams, sheriff of Pierce County, and C. McDaniel, his deputy, on the charge of selling liquor to the Indians. The warrant was issued by J. M. Bachelder, United States commissioner, who also held the position of sutler at Fort Steilacoom, and at 10 o'clock on the morning of the day set for the execution of the Indian, Fred Kautz, deputized United States marshal for the occasion, took the two men into custody and locked them up in the Steilacoom jail. Williams refused to deliver the death warrant to other officials; the time set for the execution passed and Leschi's life was saved.

Mass meetings were held. Resolutions condemning the military officers at Fort Steilacoom, the sheriff of Pierce County, Doctor Tolmie, Frank Clark, in fact all those having anything to do with the defense of the Indian or the prevention of his execution, were passed. These meetings brought a prompt reply from the military officers who, obtaining possession of an idle printing plant at Steilacoom, began the publication of a four-column, four page paper called the Truth Teller. The paper, "devoted to the dissemination of truth and suppression of humbug," was edited by "Ann Onymous" and contained signed articles written by Kautz, McKibbin and Shaaff, of the regulars; Williams, the sheriff; Bachelder, the United States commissioner; Frank Clark, Leschi's attorney; and Doctor Tolmie. But two numbers of the Truth Teller were issued. They contain the "other side" of the story and in many ways contradict the news published by the Pioneer and Democrat, the only other paper in the territory at that time and the organ of the Stevens-McMullen faction.

In an effort to obtain a pardon, the friends of Leschi now appealed to Gov

ernor McMullen. Doctor Tolmie, in a lengthy letter to the governor, reviewed the history of the war, gave the Indians' side of it and said that he had "known Leschi since 1843, as a well-disposed, peaceable Indian, of superior ability” who had made a peace with Colonel Wright-a peace which the civil authorities refused to recognize-and closed his appeal with the words:

"Our territory needs population, and the sooner its good name is re-established as a safe field for immigration, the better will it be for all those whose interests. lie on this portion of the American continent." The appeal was made in vainLeschi was again sentenced to the gallows. In order that the execution might be accomplished as quickly as possible, the Legislature passed a special act suspending certain laws in conflict with the holding of special sessions of the Supreme Court and providing that that court "hold a special session on or before the first Thursday of February." This act was adopted February 3d and the next day Judges Chenoweth and McFadden opened the court and sentenced Leshchi to hang February 19th. Everybody in the territory was tired of the quarrels. Some of Leschi's friends even had made up their minds his execution would be bestit would at least put an end to the questionable proceedings.

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*

In a depression in the plains about a mile east of the present day Steilacoom hospital, a gallows was built. William Mitchell, deputy sheriff of Thurston County, to whom had been assigned the execution, appointed Charles Grainger as executioner. On the morning of February 19, 1858, Mitchell, Grainger and a posse of twelve deputies, took the Indian from the jail and hanged him. Grainger later gave the following details of the event:

"I felt that I was executing an innocent man. I had had charge of Leschi for two weeks before he was taken to Steilacoom. He was cool as could be—just like he was going to dinner. On the scaffold he thanked me for my kindness to him. He said again that he was not guilty; that Rabbeson had lied when he said he saw him in the swamp, and that he would meet him before his God and he I would tell him there he lied. He said he was miles away when Moses was killed.

"Leschi was a square-built man, and I should judge would weigh about one hundred and seventy pounds. He was about five feet six inches tall. He had a very strong, square jaw and very piercing, dark-brown eyes. He would look almost through you, a firm but not a savage look. His lower jaw and eyes denoted firmness of character. He had an acquiline nose, and different kind of features than these flathead Indians-more like the Klickitats. His head was not flattened much, if any at all. He had a very high forehead for an Indian.

"I saw Leschi in 1853 at McAllister's on the Nisqually. McAllister told me he was a good, faithful Indian. George McAllister and Joe Bunton both told me that Leschi met them on the way and helped them.

"He did not seem to be the least bit excited at all, and no trembling on him at all-nothing of the kind, and that is more than I could say for myself. In fact, Leschi seemed to be the coolest of any on the scaffold. He was in good flesh and had a firm step and mounted the scaffold without assistance, and as well as I did myself. I felt then I was hanging an innocent man, and I believe it yet."

Death by hanging is a dreadful death to an Indian. Leschi, at the foot of the scaffold, looked up at the noose. Calmly he climbed the ladder and took his place on the trap. For about fifteen minutes he prayed. His last words were that he

bore malice toward none save one man and on him he invoked the vengeance of heaven. But few Indians were present. Some of these tenderly removed the body from the scaffold, placed it in a box and took it away. Three days later the body was buried in a secluded spot where it lay for thirty-five years, or until July 4, 1895, when the Indians re-buried the bodies of both Leschi and Quiemuth on the Nisqually reservation near their old homes.

The re-burial services were conducted by the Indians, Henry Martin, a Nisqually, opening with a brief statement. The entire proceedings were conducted in the Indian tongue, both Nisquallies and Puyallups taking part. Hymns, sung to gospel tunes, and prayers by the various members and speeches in which the Indians told of deeds performed by Leschi and Quiemuth and events of the war. George Leschi, in the course of his remarks, said:

"Governor Stevens tried to cut down our reservations. The white men wanted our lands and tried to move our people to the salt water, but Leschi was our chief and he told the governor our people would not leave the land of our fathers. We did not want to go. We had always lived here, long before the white men came, and we wanted to die here. The governor could not understand Leschi, and told him he wanted our land and our people must go to the salt water. It was then that Chief Leschi went out, but he did not go out to kill. He did not want to do that. He only wanted to keep the governor from sending him and our people away from our homes. Then Governor Stevens sent men out to bring him back, and it was then they tried to take him that war broke out and James McAllister was killed."

The procession consisting of more than one mile of carriages, buggies, wagons, people of horseback and people on foot, moved from the church to the new grave four miles distant. Many white people attended the simple ceremony at the grave beneah the firs in which were laid the bones of the two chiefs.

CHAPTER XVIII

LIBERAL OREGON LAND LAW COMPARATIVELY EASY TO FOLLOW IN OREGON BUT NOT IN WASHINGTON-HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY SEEKS TO EXPAND TO SOUTHWARD OF NISQUALLY RIVER-COLONEL EBEY SENT TO ESTIMATE VALUE OF HUDSON'S BAY HOLDINGS GOVERNOR STEVENS SETS $300,000 AS VALUE OF PROPERTY IN

WHOLE OF WASHINGTON-LEGISLATURE MEMORIALIZES CONGRESS BEGGING TO BE FREED FROM "O THIS UPAS"-HUDSON'S BAY PEOPLE FILE CLAIMS REACHING $4,970,036.67, but after lonG INVESTIGATION THE TOTAL IS CUT TO $650,000

AND PAID-EDWARD HUGGINS BECOMES AMERICAN-TELLS OF PROFUSE PASTURAGE ON PLAINS AND OF HUNTING WILD CATTLE.

The Oregon donation land law of September 20, 1850, granted every male white settler in the territory 320 acres of land. It further provided that if the settler married before December 1, 1850, the wife should be entitled to an additional 320 acres in her own name. It was a generous provision for the encouragement of settlement. In Oregon, proper, little difficulty was met by the settlers in establishing their rights to the lands upon which they made improvements. North of the Columbia, however, the land was held by three claimants—the Indians, the British corporations and the actual settlers. The Stevens' treaties put an end to the Indian claim.

So far as Americans were concerned, the joint occupancy treaties of 1818 and 1827 were inoperative north of the forty-ninth parallel. Oregon extended to Alaska; the treaties covered the entire country; nevertheless before the negotiation of the boundary treaty of 1846, the little settlement at Tumwater contained the only Americans in the entire country. The practical closing of the country to settlement was not due to any violation by Great Britain of treaty stipulations; but to the desire of the Hudson's Bay Company to retain its exclusive and profitable fur trading privileges. The boundary treaty confirmed to the British corporations their buildings and lands; provided for the purchase of the same by the United States; but failed to define the boundaries of the lands.

The indefinite language of the treaty led to friction between the companies and the American settlers. Doctor Tolmie, with the object of strengthening the title, or extending the limits, of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company claims at Nisqually, drove a herd of cattle to the south side of the river. The settlers sent a sharply worded protest giving the company one week in which to remove the cattle. The meeting, of which this protest was the result was held in Tumwater, November 5, 1848, the notice being prepared by I. N. Ebey, A. B. Rabbeson and S. B. Crocket. At both Nisqually and Vancouver Americans squatted upon the rich lands claimed by the companies. They were ordered off their claims and appealed to the Federal Government for protection, though in several

instances the settlers with their own rifles undertook to defend what they believed were their rights.

Under instructions from Secretary of State W. L. Marcy, Governor Stevens, upon his arrival in the territory, began an investigation of the claims of the two companies and his report, filed June 21, 1854, said the companies made extravagant claims-even to the extent of the whole of Washington north and west of the Columbia. The Hudson's Bay Company alleged that its charter from the British Government gave it an exclusive right to trade in the district and practical sovereignty over the country. In his report Governor Stevens said: "As this is manifestly inconsistent with the purpose of the treaty, the term 'possessory' must be one of limitation," and the claimants stood on the same footing as property owning subjects of other lands ceded to the United States and therefore limited to lands actually enclosed and cultivated and the buildings thereon. Under the most liberal interpretation of the treaty, the companies' rights were mere rights of occupancy and automatically would end with the termination of their charters. Their title was not transferable.

Governor Stevens sent Col. I. N. Ebey to Fort Vancouver with instructions to make a valuation of the Hudson's Bay holdings. His report is interesting as it shows that at the treaty date, 1846, the Hudson's Bay Company was cultivating about two hundred and fifty acres, at the fort, and about two thousand acres near the mill some miles up the river. The grist mill, built in 1836, had fallen to decay and was of little value. The sawmill was built after the signing of the treaty. Ebey estimated the value of the Vancouver holdings at $32,000, a figure which the governor raised to $50,000. Of the fort buildings Ebey said:

"The Hudson's Bay Company have a stockade fort, on the inside of which are ten houses, eight of which were erected before the treaty of boundary between the United States and Great Britain, and two have been erected since. There are about twenty cabins built outside the enclosure, and a large warehouse near the bank of the river. The buildings on the inside of the enclosure are so old, and the timbers and materials of which they are constructed so decayed, as to render them almost wholly valueless. The cabins on the outside of the enclosures are, with few exceptions, built of slabs, and were erected by the servants of the company for their own convenience; they are mostly old, dilapidated huts, most of which are untenanted and are left to decay."

Evidences of intended abandonment were visible everywhere. Buildings had been allowed to decay; fields were no longer cultivated; fences were down and most of the live stock removed. The land, which a few years earlier had been the scene of so much life and industry, was producing little more than a large number of claimants. Among these Bishop Blanchette claimed the old fort site as a Catholic Mission. This claim was pressed before the Department of the Interior and the United States courts for many years and led to much litigation. The mission tract of land was also claimed by James Graham, chief clerk of the company at Vancouver and a naturalized citizen. Clark County, under a law granting counties the right to file pre-emption claims to 160 acres of land for county seat purposes, claimed this amount of the old fort site and sold lots for which the authorities accepted payment. Over all these claims the United States made a military reservation of one square mile. Similar conditions were found to exist at other points—the land which the company had grazed and cultivated

Vol. I-12