His first message to the Legislature at Olympia (1854) was a map of the future and a prophecy. It was a call for roads, schools, a university, and immigration. The seal of Washington was made to bear the Indian word Alké—"by and by"—or "in the future." It also was a prophecy.
He created the counties of Sawanish, Whatcom, Clallam, Chehalis, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum, Skamania, and Walla Walla. Olympia was fixed upon as the seat of government, and measures were taken by the Government for the regulation of the Indian tribes.
Stevens was the military leader of the Indian war. He reduced the tribes to submission, and secured a permanent peace. He was elected to Congress as a Territorial delegate in 1857, and sought at Washington as earnestly as on the Puget Sea the interests of the rising State.
He was a man of great intellect, of a forceful and magnetic presence—a man born to lead in great emergencies. He carried New England ideas and traditions to the Pacific, and established them there for all time to come, creating there a greater New England which should gather to its harbors the commerce of the world.
Governor Stevens was a conservative in politics, but when the news of the fall of Sumter thrilled the country, he said to the people of Olympia, "I conceive it my duty to stop disunion." He went to Washington and entered the Union service.
He fell like a hero at Chantilly, and under the flag which he had taken from his color-bearer, who had received a mortal wound. His was a splendid career that the nation should honor. We recently saw his sword and historic pictures at the home of his widow and son at Dorchester, Mass., and were impressed with these relics of a spirit that had done so much for the progress of the country and mankind.
The State of Washington is his monument, and progressive thought his eulogy. His great mind and energy brought order out of chaos, and set the flag in whose folds he died forever under the gleaming dome of the Colossus of American mountains and over the celestial blue of the Pacific harbors of the Puget Sea.