Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 1 / Embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties

by William Denison Lyman

In the early times they seem to have had a frank and outspoken and energetic manner of writing about each other, and the inference is plain that they talked in a similar way. Each man had ready access to his hip pocket, and was commonly qualified to support his views by force of arms when necessary. We find as a sample a discussion between Sheriff E. B. Whitman and certain critics in the Statesman of May 30 and June 13, 1863. It pertains to the arrest of one Bunton. An address signed by sixty-nine residents of the Coppei appears in the earlier issue. In it is charged that a flagrant and wilful murder had been committed by William Bunton on the person of Daniel S. Cogsdill and that Sheriff Whitman made no effort to arrest Bunton, and when, at the instance of citizens, Deputy Hodgis arrested Bunton, and delivered him to Whitman that the latter was too merciful to the prisoner to put him in jail; "but at the request of Bunton put him in charge of a lame or a crippled man, with, as we believe, the intention of his escape." They therefore declare that they have no protection when the high and responsible office of sheriff is filled by the friends of murderers and thieves. They therefore recommend that the commissioners should remove said Whitman and appoint "Deputy Hodgis or some other good man."

Sheriff Whitman makes in reply a lengthy and moderate explanation, the main point of which was that the county jail was so insecure that by the advice of Judge Wyche he put Bunton in the hands of J. O. Putman, one of the signers of the above statement, and that after some trouble Bunton got away. In the issue of June 13, the citizens returned to the attack with renewed energy, and this brought from Mr. Whitman a vitriolic response. He begins: "Editor Statesman: As your columns seem to be at the disposal of parties who may wish to belch forth personal slander, persecution, malignity, and falsehood, it is but just that the party vilified should have the opportunity of replying through the same medium. Upon reading the article, dated at Coppei, I thought I would let the matter rest upon its own merits, as the style and manner in which it is written shows that it originated from a vindictive, mischievous, and depraved appetite for notoriety, which at times controls men of depraved tastes." Among the sixty-nine signers of the document were some who were, as also Sheriff Whitman himself was, among the most worthy of the foundation builders, and who now all rest in honored graves. We are giving the incidents here as a historical curiosity, and as showing how men's minds were keyed up in those days of war and vigilantes to a high pitch.

EFFORT TO ANNEX WALLA WALLA COUNTY TO OREGON

One of the most exciting political questions of the sixties was that of annexation of Walla Walla County to Oregon. We find in the Statesman of October 20, 1865, a report of a mass meeting of October 18, at which resolutions were passed advocating the annexation and inviting the people of Oregon, through their Legislature, to unite in the movement, and also calling on the representatives and senators from Oregon and the Territorial Delegate, A. A. Denny, to use all honorable means to induce Congress to take that action. They mention, which is historically interesting, that the people of Oregon in accepting their Constitution had done so with the understanding that the line should follow the natural boundary of the Columbia and Snake rivers. The convention also censured Judge J. E. Wyche, judge of the First Judicial District of Washington Territory, located at Walla Walla. The committee composing the resolutions consisted of J. H. Lasater, A. Kyger, and Drury Davis. J. H. Blewett introduced a resolution calling on President Johnson to remove Judge Wyche. The resolution was lost. A committee consisting of A. J. Cain, A. L. Brown, and H. P. Isaacs was appointed to draft petitions, one to Congress and the other to the Oregon Legislature, looking to the execution of the plan.

In the same issue of the Statesman a call appears for a meeting to "take such steps as they may deem proper to frustrate the designs of those who would saddle upon the people of this county a proportion of the debt of the bankrupt State of Oregon, with her peculiar institutions."

It is asserted that Anderson Cox was the prime mover in the annexation project, though his name does not appear in the report in the Statesman. The Oregon Legislature was nothing loth to add this desirable section to the limits of the mother state and duly memorialized Congress to that effect. Years passed by, and in 1875, just after county division had been effected, Senator J. K. Kelly of Oregon introduced a bill providing for the submission of the question to the people of Walla Walla and Columbia counties. This bill failed, as did also one to the same effect in the House by Representative LaFayette Lane of Oregon. The failure of the annexation plan produced additional activity in projects looking to statehood. There was during that period (and it has not entirely ceased to this day) a good deal of friction between the Walla Walla section and the Puget Sound section. The former had early commercial and political relations with Portland of a far more intimate nature than with the Sound. The majority of the leading business men were from Oregon. The common feeling was that the Sound was very selfish and narrow in its dealings with the eastern section, desiring its connection mainly for taxation purposes. It was largely from that feeling that annexation projects arose. The Sound, on the other hand, had accused the Walla Walla section of being disloyal to the state and seeking local advantage. Opposition in the territory therefore delayed action. According to statements made by Hollon Parker to the author a number of years ago, he himself made a special trip to Washington to head off the movement. At any rate, it was never carried. Walla Walla County had at the time of the presidential election of 1876 a sufficient majority of Democrats to have toppled the slight scale by which Hayes held the presidency over Tilden, and if the county had been in Oregon Tilden would have had a majority and the Electoral Commission would never have been created, and quite a section of national history would have had another version.

In 1865 the Territorial Delegate was Arthur Denny of Seattle. The Statesman refers to him as the "Abolition Candidate." Passing on to 1867 we find national, state, and local affairs of a very strenuous nature. Perhaps the insertion here of extracts from a book written by the author sometime ago will convey a clear view of the course of events in the elections of 1867 and 1869.

POLITICAL REVIEW

A review of the political situation in 1867 shows that there was an extraordinary interest and activity in the ranks of both the democrats and the republicans. The principal point of contest and interest was in the selection of a delegate to Congress, each party having a number of aspirants for the important office. The people east of the Cascades felt that they were entitled to have a candidate selected from their section of the territory, inasmuch as the honor had hitherto gone to a resident of the Sound country. From the eastern section of the territory were five democrats and two republicans whose names were prominently mentioned in this connection, and while the republican convention for Walla Walla County sent an uninstructed delegate to the territorial convention, a vigorous effort had been made in favor of the candidacy of Judge J. E. Wyche. At the county democratic convention the delegates chosen were instructed to give their support to W. G. Langford, of Walla Walla, so long as seemed expedient. They were also instructed to deny their support to any candidate who endorsed in any degree the project of annexing Walla Walla County to Oregon. In the territorial convention Frank Clark of Pierce County received the nomination of the democracy for the office of congressional delegate, the balloting in the convention having been close and spirited. The republican territorial convention succeeded in running in the proverbial "dark horse," in the person of Alvin Flanders, a Walla Walla merchant, who was made the nominee, defeating three very strong candidates.

Owing to the agitation of the Vigilance question, referring to diverging opinions of the citizens as to the proper method of administering justice, the politics of the county were in a peculiarly disrupted and disorganized condition, and the Vigilance issue had an unmistakable influence on the election, as was shown by the many peculiarities which were brought to light when the returns were fully in. The democrats of the county were particularly desirous of electing certain of their county candidates, and it is stated that the republicans were able to divert many democratic votes to their candidate for delegate to Congress by trading votes with democrats and pledging their support to local democratic candidates. The fact that such bartering took place is assured, for while the returns gave a democratic majority of about two hundred and fifty in Walla Walla County for all other officers, the delegate received a majority of only 124. This action on the part of the Walla Walla democrats secured the election of the republican candidate, whose majority in the territory was only ninety-six.