Of this second remarkable case we shall give but a brief account. Its singular features will appear as we proceed.
A man was shot in a saloon brawl in Colfax, lingered on some days and then died. There was mixed evidence as to who fired the fatal shot, but one of the drunken crew named Hill was charged with the offense and arrested. Feeling was high in Colfax, and Hill's lawyer, the famous Tom Griffiths of Spokane, regarded as one of the greatest criminal lawyers at that time and a prominent politician, secured a change of venue to Dayton. Associated with Mr. Griffiths was J. K. Edmiston, a leading lawyer of Dayton, one of the most prominent citizens and of the highest type of man. Mr. Edmiston seems to have sincerely believed that Hill was innocent. Griffiths made every effort to get Dr. Van Patten of Dayton to testify that a wound of the nature of that received by the murdered man was not necessarily fatal, but that death was the result of drugs administered after the wounding. Dr. Van Patten declared that only six per cent of the wounds of that type had resulted in recovery. He was not called to the witness stand. A Doctor Harvey of Spokane was brought down as an expert witness, and having taken the stand swore that there was evidence that bichloride of mercury had been used with the wounded man, and that death resulted from that and not from the pistol shot. Griffiths worked this testimony with his accustomed skill and success, and the verdict rendered let Hill off with a sentence of six months in the county jail.
Dr. Van Patten remembers that in conversation with Mr. Edmiston, upon the announcement of the verdict, he said, "You have got Hill off with a light sentence, but it will do him little good if he is ever taken to Colfax." Within two weeks after Hill had been returned to the Colfax jail the doors were broken in, the prisoner was hurried into the yard by a group of determined men, and there he was swung from a rope in front of the courthouse.
It would not be safe to venture an opinion as to the rights and wrongs of that Hill tragedy, but on the surface it looks a good deal like one of those cases of "expert testimony" which is sometimes the legitimate parent of lynching cases.
CHAPTER III
GARFIELD COUNTY
It has been remarked by various philosophers at various times concerning various subjects that like causes produce like effects. The same causes which led to the establishment of Columbia County from the eastern two-third of the Old County of Walla Walla operated within a short time to cause a movement for another division, and that yet again to another, insomuch that Garfield and Asotin became political entities. Some petty local jealousies and selfish scheming almost always play their part in county divisions and county-seat fights. Yet it would be very superficial to attribute to these less worthy motives the main influences. The fundamental causes after all have usually been the progressive growth of population and the differentiation of industry, whereby there arises some real need of new lines and more convenient official centers.
The pressure of those conditions began to be felt in the northern and eastern parts of Old Columbia County almost as soon as it was fairly organized. It was soon discovered that the Touchet region was one natural unit and the eastern and northeastern part of the county was another; or rather two, for almost immediately the same line of reasoning led to the conclusion that the Asotin country was naturally a separate unit from that of the Pataha.