John F. Gowey, registrar, and J. R. Hayden, receiver of the United States land-office at Olympia; F. W. Sparling, registrar, and A. G. Marsh, receiver at Vancouver; Joseph Jorgensen, registrar, and James Braden, receiver at Walla Walla; J. M. Armstrong, registrar, and J. L. Wilson, receiver at Spokane; and R. R. Kinne, registrar, and J. M. Adams, receiver at Yakima. Thomas H. Brents was delegate to congress.

In 1887, Eugene Semple of Oregon, democrat, was appointed governor of Washington. Semple had been a newspaper editor, and possessed fair talents, with industry. He found public affairs somewhat disquieted on the questions of statehood and woman suffrage. After the defeat of equal suffrage by the popular male vote of 1878, the legislature had, in 1883-4, passed an act conferring upon women the privilege of voting at all elections. Later, this act was pronounced unconstitutional, and after voting at two elections, serving upon juries, and holding various offices, the women of the commonwealth were disfranchised. But there was a sufficiently strong sentiment in favor of the political equality of the sexes to make it a party question in 1886, the republicans having incorporated equal suffrage in their platform, while a respectable majority in both houses of the legislature were pledged to vote for a bill restoring the woman suffrage law.

Another matter upon which the legislature was divided was the proposition revived to remove the capital from Olympia to some more central location, favorable mention being made of North Yakima 73 and

73 Yakima City was incorporated Dec. 1, 1883. Twelve months later, when it had 400 inhabitants, the surveyors of the Northern Pacific railroad laid out the town of North Yakima, 4 miles distant from the old town, upon a broad and liberal scale, and proposed to the people of the latter that if they would consent to be removed to the new town they should be given as many lots there as they possessed in the old, and have besides their buildings moved upon them without cost to the owners. Such an agreement in writing was signed by a majority of the citizens, and in the winter and spring of 1884-5 over 100 buildings were moved on trucks and rollers, hotels, a bank, and

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Ellensburg. Those who were laboring for this end expected that the long-coveted panhandle of Idaho would be joined to Washington, and intended to use that accession of territory as a lever to effect the removal of the capital east of the mountains. But the people of western Washington strenuously opposed the transference of the government offices to the Yakima valley, and succeeded in preventing it.

The legislature of 1887 appointed a commission to codify the laws of Washington, consisting of W. H. Doolittle of Tacoma, J. H. Snively of Yakima, Thomas H. Came of Seattle, and A. E. Isham of Walla Walla. As the passage of the enabling act rendered it undoubted that the state constitution would differ materially from the organic law of the territory, the commission suspended its labors until the state constitution had assumed definite form, when it reviewed its work.

The corporation law received particular attention, making provision for freights, for the rights of different roads to the use of each other's tracks, and the rights and duties of stockholders. All telegraph and telephone companies were given the right of way on the lines of railroad companies on equal conditions. Railroads might pass along streams, streets, or highways where life and property were not endangered, but the companies must restore either of these to its former condition of usefulness. Every railroad must construct not less than five miles of road each year until completed, or forfeit its charter. Foreign railroads could not enjoy greater privileges than domestic roads. An annual report was to be made by each railroad to the stockholders, subject to the inspection of the secretary of state; besides which a sworn annual statement was required of the officers of each

company.

other business houses doing their usual business while en route. This was a gool stroke of policy on the part of the railroad, general land commissioner, and the company, as it definitely settled opposition, both to the new town and the corporation, which also secured a year's growth for North Yakima in ninety days' time. Subsequently the town had almost a phenomenal growth.

The federal officers during Semple's second term were N. H. Owings, secretary; R. A. Jones, chief justice; W. G. Langford, George Turner, and Frank Allyn, associate justices. Charles S. Voorhees succeeded Brents as delegate to congress.* James Shields succeeded Hayden in the receiver's office of the land department, and John Y. Ostrander was appointed registrar in 1886.

74 John B. Allen, republican, was chosen for congressman by a majority in 1887 of 7,371, over Voorhees, democrat, but was prevented taking his seat in congress by the prospect of the passage of an enabling act.

Among the leading citizens of Washington, in addition to those mentioned elsewhere in this volume, the following residents of Spokane Falls are worthy of note:

J. N. Glover, a Missourian by birth, and, it may be said, the founder of the city, settling there, or rather on its site, in 1873, and purchasing from two squatters named Downing and Scranton the tract of land on which their shanties were then the only buildings. First as the owner of a saw-mill, next as a contractor, then as the leading organizer and president of the First National Bank, and finally as mayor of Spokane, he has won for himself his well-earned wealth and reputation.

In connection with the First National Bank should be mentioned Horace L. Cutter, who was also one of its organizers. A native of Cleveland, O., in 1871 he removed to Colo, on account of his health, and in the following year to Cal., where for eight years he was secretary of the San José Savings Bank. Settling at Spokane Falls in 1882, he was appointed cashier and manager of the First National, and has since been a promoter of several leading enterprises, as the electric light and cable-road companies. He was also one of the founders of the board of trade, of which he is treasurer, and of the public library, of which he is president.

The president and manager of the Traders' National Bank is E. J. Brickell, a native of Ind., but most of whose lifetime has been passed in Ill. and Nev., where he engaged in merchandising and lumbering. In 1884 he settled at Spokane, where he is now the owner of one of the largest hardware stores. Among the directors of this bank, and its former vice-president, is R. W. Forrest, a Pennsylvanian by birth, and now one of the capitalists of Spokane, where his residence dates from 1879.

Others deserving of notice are Col D. P. Jenkins, a native of O., and a lawyer by profession, who, after serving almost throughout the civil war, resumed practice, first in Tenn. and Ind., and later in Colo and W. T., whither he removed for his health's sake, settling at Spokane in 1879; J. D. Sherwood, a son of the late B. F. Sherwood of San Francisco, and who, as one of those who established the electric-light works, as president of the cable company, and in connection with other enterprises, has helped to build up his adopted city; W. Pettet, an Englishman, who visited California in 1846, and in 1886 made his permanent home at Spokane, where he purchased the first electriclight plant and organized the company by which it was operated; E. B. Hyde, a native of Wisconsin, who came to Spokane in 1881, two years later building, in conjunction with others, the Union block, and since that date adding a number of handsome edifices to the improvements of the city; W. M. Wolverton, a native of Ia, who, in 1881, the year after his arrival, erectel the first brick building in Spokane, where, until retiring from business in 1886, he was the owner of a flourishing hardware store.

CHAPTER IX.

PROGRESS AND STATEHOOD.

REMARKABLE GROWTH OF THE TERRITORY-DEMAND FOR STATEHOOD-ENABLING ACT-STATE CONVENTION-CHARACTER OF THE DELEGATESCONSTITUTION RATIFIED-WAITING FOR A PROCLAMATION-MEETING OF FIRST STATE LEGISLATURE-CHARACTER OF MEMBERS-UNEXPECTED DELAY OF THE PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION-ELECTION OF SENATORS.

FROM 1880 to 1888 the progress made in Washington was phenomenal, and was felt in every direction -in commerce, manufacture, banks, corporations, schools, growth of towns, improved styles of building, construction of railroads, mining, agriculture, and society. New towns had sprung up among the firs and cedars, the Puget Sound country, and out of the treeless prairies almost in a night; and hitherto unimportant villages had become cities with corporate governments, grand hotels, churches, colleges, and opera-houses.

The board of trade of Tacoma in 1886 declared that "the commercial independence of Washington territory accompanying the completion of the direct line of the Northern Pacific railroad to tide-water should be supplemented by its political independence as a state of the American union. Admission cannot in decency be delayed many years longer, whatever party influences may sway congress. The census of 1890 will show a population within the present limits of the territory exceeding 200,000, and a property valuation of at least $200,000,000.”1 Governor

The state auditor in November 1889 reported the resources of the commonwealth from taxes, liceuses, prison labor, etc., at $372,866.35.

Squire had said in a report to the secretary of the interior that among the reasons for the admission of the territory were the "sterling, patriotic, and enterprising character of its citizens; its present and prospective maritime relations with the world; its position as a border state on the confines of the dominion of Canada, the most powerful province of Great Britain; its wealth of natural resources and growing wealth of its people; the efficiency of its educational system, requiring that its school lands should be allotted and utilized; its riparian rights should be settled, capital and immigration encouraged, and the full management and control of municipal and county affairs should be assumed by the legislature, which is not allowed during the territorial condition."

Governor Semple, in his report for 1888, gave the population as 167,982, showing that the prophecy of the board of trade was not an over-estimate of the probabilities. The taxable property was given at $84,621,182, or a gain of $65,698,260 in ten years, which being taken from the assessment roll was considered conservative enough for the minimum; for as the governor quaintly remarked: "Whatever clse an average American citizen may neglect, he never forgets to beat down the assessor." The revenue produced by a tax of two and a half mills was $212,734.92, showing the ability to erect and maintain the necessary public works as they should be required. There were in the territory in operation 762.2 miles of standard gauge railroads belonging to the North Pacific railroad company; and 282.6 miles of the same gauge belonging to the Oregon railway and navigation company; the Seattle, Lake Shore, and Eastern railroad company operated 58 miles of standard gauge road; the Columbia and Puget Sound railroad 44.5 miles; and the Puget Sound and Gray's Harbor railroad 10 miles -making in all 1,157.3 miles of broad-gauge railways. In addition, there were 40 miles of narrow-gauge road, divided between the Olympia and Chehalis valley, the