Chapter IV: Asotin County

We have described the topography and climate of this latest of the three children of Mother Walla Walla County, in the first part of this volume. We also gave some of the general facts relative to first discovery and settlement. We find, however, in case of Asotin, as of her sisters, Columbia and Garfield, that the demands of clearness and unity call for some repetition. We shall therefore bring up once more the first comers who have already appeared, besides entering more minutely into the tale of the early days.

We have endeavored to find some distinctive features in the natural conditions, history, or present state of each county in the family. While the physical features and climate of the four counties are essentially the same, each has some characteristic of its own. That of Asotin is the fact of its long frontage on Snake River, extending from the southern boundary across the mouth of the Grande Ronde, the only considerable river in the entire area, facing the entrance of the Kooskooskie or Clearwater and then still providing the margin for the Snake to a point just below the entrance of the Alpowa. With this long river frontage there goes naturally a remarkably varied surface, the most of the county being an elevated plateau running northward from the Blue Mountains, and this is cut up by profound cañons alternating with nearly level plains. While this feature of the uplands is most characteristic, there is an extensive lowland in the triangle beginning with Asotin and including the great area sweeping around to, and for some miles west of, the promontory just opposite the mouth of the Clearwater on which Clarkston is located. This lowland rises by a series of benches toward the west and south to the high prairies, though separated from them by the abyss of Asotin Creek.

As might be expected from such a topography, the scenery of Asotin County is conspicuously grand and beautiful. It would doubtless be acknowledged by residents in other parts of Old Walla Walla County that there is no one view equal from a scenic standpoint to that extending from Asotin to Clarkston, unless it be that fronting the Columbia at its junction with the Snake. On a clear bright day in spring (which comes very early in this favored land) go in a launch from Clarkston to Asotin up the rushing river, look north toward that infinitely varied and curiously sculptured margin with which the vast farming plateau of Whitman and Nez Percé counties fronts the junction of the rivers, then view that superb unfolding of rising prairie on the east with the azure Craig mountains on its edge, then turn your eyes to the frontage of Asotin prairie on the west and view the immediate foreground with that marvellously picturesque "Swallow's Nest" rock parting the two regions of high land and lowland--and you will be dull indeed if you are not entranced and if you do not say: "There must sometime be a race of poets and artists in such a land."

The rythmical native name of Asotin means "Eel," that fish being very common about the mouth of the creek.

Like most Indian words the sound, and hence the spelling, varies. It appears frequently with two s's, that being the spelling for one of the two rival town sites, Asotin and Assotin City, which finally merged into the present city.

The Nez Percé Indians, who ought to be an authority, are said by old-timers to sound it "Shoten." It has frequently been given as "Hashoteen" or "Hasoten" or "Ashoti."

One of the mooted and interesting points in first discovery is whether it was the Asotin or the Alpowa which Lewis and Clark on their return trip from the Pacific in 1806 descended, and hence their route from this region to their appointed meeting place on the Kooskooskie with the "Chopunnish" Indians with whom they had left their horses. The language of the journal of Captain Lewis indicates that, descending the plains, they went "for four miles to a ravine, where was the source of a small creek, down the hilly and rocky sides of which we proceeded for eight miles to its entrance into Lewis (Snake) River, about seven and one-half miles _above_ the mouth of the Kooskooskie." That would obviously indicate the Asotin Creek. But it is improbable that the party would have taken so laborious a route as to have struck the Asotin eight miles above its mouth. Moreover, the general route indicates the Alpowa. Perhaps conclusive in the matter, however, is the fact that the journal of Private Gass states that they kept down a creek "until we came to Lewis River, some distance _below_ the forks of the Kooskooskie" (seeming plainly to mean the junction of the Snake and Clearwater). "After lunch," he says, "we proceeded up the south side of Lewis River about three miles," where they crossed it. Furthermore, Gass says that the next day, being on the north side of Lewis River, "at about ten o'clock we passed the forks, and kept along the north side of the Kooskooskie." In view of these records Elliott Coues, acknowledged to be the authoritative editor of the Lewis and Clark journals, decided that the word _above_ in Lewis' journal is a slip and that below was intended and should be substituted. If we accept this version, we must admit that these first white men were not actually on the site of Asotin. However, it is clear that the region became soon familiar to the trappers. The McKenzie division of the Hunt party in the first descent of Snake River in the winter of 1811-12 evidently passed, though we have no record of their stopping places. Later the Hudson's Bay trappers, Bonneville with his party, and others, made their way down the Grande Ronde and "Wayleway" (Wallowa) and stopped on the Asotin, to proceed thence over the Peola, Alpowa, and Pataha regions, toward Fort Walla Walla, the great emporium of the whole region. The region is historic ground. The "bar" at the mouth of the Asotin seems to have been for many years a favorite gathering spot for the Nez Percé Indians. We are informed by Mr. Edward Baumeister that the Joseph band of Nez Percés claimed the place, and that the disputed possession of it was one cause of the Nez Percé war of 1877, in which Joseph (Hallakallakeen, or Eagle Wing) played so famous a part. Mr. Baumeister states that the Indians had obviously used the point as camping ground for a long time, for at the time of his coming in 1883, the place was covered with "cache-holes" and grave-yards.

Turning from these pre-settlement times to the era of the entrance of permanent residents, we wish to pay our acknowledgments first of all to certain old-time citizens of the country from whom we derived information and received the courtesies which our pioneers know so well how to bestow. Without undertaking to name all to whom we are thus indebted we may especially refer to Mr. Edward Baumeister, Mr. George Sauer, Major Boggan, J. D. Swain, Doctor Fulton, Mr. and Mrs. L. J. Wormell, Mr. John Romaine, Mr. A. J. Crow, Mrs. Lilian Clemans Merchant, Mr. Kay L. Thompson of the _Sentinel_ for use of the files of his excellent paper, and Mr. Charles S. Florence, city clerk of Asotin, for use of city records. Prof. W. J. Jerome has kindly provided information regarding the schools and churches. Mr. and Mrs. F. G. Morrison of Clarkston are the earliest old-timers now living at that comparatively new point and gave valuable information. One of the most interesting of all the old-timers of the entire region is O. F. Canfield of Clarkston, who, though comparatively a new resident of Clarkston, has been familiar with the region since 1847, and is a storehouse of varied information about early days. For more recent history, Messrs. Foster and Westervelt of the Lewiston-Clarkston Company have provided much valuable data relating to the great enterprise of their company, the greatest of its kind in this part of the state. We are indebted to Mr. J. E. Hoobler, Mr. E. E. Halsey, one of our advisory board, and G. L. Ackley, city clerk, for other more recent information about Clarkston. The "History of Southeast Washington," published in 1906 by the Western Historical Publishing Company of Spokane, contains a large amount of valuable matter and to it we make acknowledgment for various data and early statistics.

Mr. Baumeister has directed our attention to the interesting fact that when Asotin was part of Walla Walla County there was a voting precinct opposite Lewiston known as Asotin Precinct. No one lived there at that time, but the precinct was laid out to accommodate miners or packers who might be going to Idaho, but who claimed Walla Walla as their residence.

A view of the beginnings of white settlement in what is now Asotin County following the era of the trappers takes us back to historic times, when Spalding gave Red Wolf (Herminilpip) apple seeds from which trees grew, one of which can still be seen at the mouth of the Alpowa; when Colonel Craig and "Doctor" Newell ranged through the country; and when Timothy, the savior of Steptoe's defeated command, and Tema, his "klootchman," lived on the Alpowa, the "place of rest," as they called it, where this old aboriginal couple lived genuine Christian lives, a good deal better than some of the supposed superior race. Tema is said by Newton Hibbs, as quoted in the "History of Southeast Washington," to have even remembered the coming of Lewis and Clark.

In 1857 an Indian reservation was laid out by Perrin Whitman, a nephew of Dr. Marcus Whitman, and for a long time a resident of Lewiston. That reservation included most of Asotin, but it was not permanent. In 1863 the boundary line was moved to a point seven miles east of Lewiston, and hence Asotin became open territory. But not for several years was there any permanent resident. Sam Smith seems to have "squatted" in 1861 at a point on the Alpowa near Timothy and kept a little store and sort of stopping place for travelers for the mines. Near the same place, though strictly speaking within the present limits of Garfield County, was D. S. King. He, too, kept a stopping place for travelers. In 1861 also the ferry between Lewiston and the present Clarkston shore was put in by a union of several of the old-timers, Colonel Craig being a leader in the enterprise. This was afterwards known as Pearcy's Ferry. Several settlers were temporarily located on the flat where Clarkston now stands, Robert Bracken apparently being the first. As quoted in the History of Southeast Washington, Mr. Bracken stated that when he first located there in 1862 his nearest neighbor on the south was in the Grande Ronde Valley, 150 miles distant. His neighbors on the north were at about the same distance. There was, of course, quite a little town growing up at Lewiston right across the river. Mr. Bracken's chief business was stock raising and mining. Like most other stockmen he had been nearly broken up by the hard winter of 1861. Mr. Bracken states also that in 1862 Starr and Atwood of Portland had a little sawmill in the timber at the edge of Anatone prairie, and in the fall of 1862 they erected on what is now the site of Asotin the first frame building in the county. Lumber was hauled from that mill to the Snake River and floated to Lewiston, where it brought eighty-five dollars a thousand. An interesting item is contained in the Asotin _Sentinel_ of June 23, 1900, referring to a visit of Henry Leland to Asotin. He was at that time connected with the Washington State Historical Society. He made the statement that he had not been there since, as a boy, he had assisted his father, Alonzo Leland, in handling lumber from a mill situated at the edge of the timber on what became the Pinkham Ranch. According to Mr. Leland the lumber was hauled to Asotin by ox teams and there put into the river to float to Lewiston. In the fall of 1862, a cabin was put up on Asotin Creek by two trappers, whose names are not recalled, but whose cabin stood until about 1881. Following the transient occupation of the Clarkston flat by Mr. Bracken came Doctor Simmons with a partner, Ben Jones, both of whom were subsequently murdered in Montana. Simmons had, however, before going, sold his location to John Greenfield, and he maintained a horse ranch there for a number of years. It was because of the horses being there in such numbers and a good many of them leaving their remains that the name "Jaw-bone Flat" became applied to the flat between Clarkston Heights and the present City of Clarkston. Some, however, affirm that that uneuphonious name was derived from the peculiar contour of the shore at that place.

The earliest permanent settler on the Asotin seems to have been Jerry Maguire. His location was on the creek about three miles above its mouth. According to Mr. Boozer, his son-in-law, now living in Asotin, the location was made in 1866. His attention was mainly given to stock raising, though he engaged also in the business of packing supplies to the mining camps. A little later Thomas Rebusco took up a place on the creek where he raised vegetables, apparently the first in the county, for which there was a great demand in the mines. Another of those earliest settlers on the Asotin was D. M. White, right at the present location of the town. Noble Henry, now living on the reservation in Idaho, took up a residence for a time, beginning in 1868, a "squaw-man." In the early '70s some addition was made, though seemingly in a somewhat sporadic and experimental manner. The man who might be styled the founder of the Town of Asotin was Theodore M. E. Schank. The _Sentinel_ of October 9, 1885, in giving an obituary notice of Mr. Schank, says: "Mr. T. M. E. Schank was born in Christiania, Norway, and emigrated to this country in 1852, and engaged in the harness and saddlery business in New York City. About the year 1854 he, in company with others, left for South America, Mr. Schank locating at Buenaventura, U. S. of Colombia, where he engaged in business. One year after his arrival there he departed for California, where he was successfully engaged in mining for a number of years, from where he drifted to the Puget Sound country, where he engaged in business of various kinds. During the mining excitement of 1860, Mr. Schank went to Lewiston, Idaho, and opened a harness and saddlery shop and did a thriving business." According to the _Sentinel_ Mr. Schank located in 1872 or 1873. His location was on what is now the central part of Asotin, his house still being in existence. It was not till a number of years later that he undertook to start the town, and that is another story. In 1870, Charles Lyon, T. P. Page and George B. Fancher, took claims farther up the creek. Gad Hopwood, William Hopwood, and James Hopwood, Lige Jones and David Mohler, were also among those earliest pioneers. Most of them were bachelors. Mrs. Fancher is said to have been the first white woman in the district.

Aside from rearing stock and putting up the little sawmills on the edge of the timber, there had as yet been no thought of utilizing the vast upland prairies of the major part of Asotin. As described earlier, those prairies were cut up by the swift descending tributaries of the Asotin, spreading out fan-like and dividing the highland into a series of prairies. There was a luxuriant growth of bunch-grass all over that wide expanse. The decade of the '70s had been a great time for development of wheat raising on the Walla Walla and Touchet. There had been some beginnings on the Pataha and Deadman. The idea had rather suddenly seized the minds of many men that where bunch-grass would grow so well wheat and barley would also grow. As a result of this sentiment the later '70s witnessed the greatest rush for homesteads as yet seen in the Inland Empire. Not alone south of Snake River, but into Whitman and Spokane counties and in the Big Bend country, the settlers poured in a steady stream. Having for a number of years thought of the high prairies and rolling hills which make up the larger part of Eastern Washington as suited only for pasture, the eager land hunters now suddenly became possessed of a land fever and by hundreds and thousands ran out their lines and set up their homes. It was a great time. Many suffered hardship, having to live in "dug-outs," and being scantily supplied with food and clothes. But it was just simply the great American story over again, and in that rush for land we read the very key to American life and progress, individual freedom and personal ownership of land and the instruments of wealth. There is really no way to cultivate genuine ambition and the qualities of true democracy except by the ownership of land. Where the bulk of the population are hired "hands" or day laborers, economic servitude is inevitable. Either State Socialism or personal ownership of land by the bulk of the people is what we must come to in this country. It looks very much as though we as a nation were at the deciding point. If big corporations, railroad monopolies, Weyerhaeuser timber syndicates, oil trusts, are to acquire the bulk of the land, it is either socialism or serfdom. The American people can take their choice. The rush for land is the evidence of their preference. So long as there is land distribution, as in the decade of the '70s, the American ideal is safe.

Among other regions which witnessed that land rush were the prairies of Asotin. It is safe to say that the majority of the families that located there (and the same is true of the larger part of Eastern Washington) made their locations in 1876, 1877, 1878 or 1879.

Most of the names now borne by the different sections of the Asotin lands are those of the first settler in each tract. The easternmost of the ridges is known as "Montgomery Ridge," from B. C. Montgomery, who, with Samuel and William Galloway, John Galloway, James T. Maness, and John Bushnell, was the first to locate there. Among other prominent settlers still living are George Sauer, George and William Appleford, the Stones and McMillans, W. J. Boggan, and C. A. Hollenbeck. The next ridge westward was known as "Weisenfels Ridge," from J. A. Weisenfels. On this ridge also located the Mathenys and the Flocks. One of the marked characters there was J. N. Boggan.

The largest expansion of the prairie is Anatone Flat. Various explanations are given of this fine sounding name, some rather far-fetched and fantastic, as the one that one of the earliest settlers pronounced "any town" with rather a Hibernian accent, from which his neighbors whimsically constructed the name. Mr. Baumeister understands it to be the name of the Indian wife of one of the settlers. Another gives it as the name of a pretty Indian girl who lived there in early times. Mr. A. J. Crowe gives as his opinion that Anatone is the Nez Percé word for cold or clear spring and thinks that it refers to the spring of very cold, pure water which makes its way directly through the Town of Anatone.

We will not undertake to give a complete enumeration of the early settlers on Anatone Prairie. Most of them came in 1877-8-9. Several families there locating have been represented by members prominent in the official, business, or educational life of the county. In the natural progress of events a number have transfered their homes to the Town of Asotin. Among those early residents and families we note the names of Charles Isecke (the pioneer merchant of Anatone), Pinkham, Shumaker, Woods, Robison, Sangster, McIntosh, Tuttle, Puffer, Carter, Dodson, Farrish, Perciful, Forgey, Whiton, Trescott, Welch, West, Skinner, Wormell, Romaine, and various others.

The "Ayers Ridge" was first settled by Ben Ayers. The "Meyers Ridge" was first settled by Charles Meyers.

The "Cloverland Flat" had for its first settler and builder of the first house Brad Hodges. J. D. Swain, coming in 1878, built the second cabin. Mr. Swain is now living in Asotin. He had a varied and typically pioneer career. Born in New Hampshire he went first to California, thence to Oregon, where he lived ten years on French Prairie near Salem, then settled on the Patit near Dayton in 1874, from which place he went to Cloverland in 1878. He was chosen county commissioner of Garfield County in 1882, and resigned on the movement for the erection of the new county of Asotin, and of that he became one of the first commissioners. Like several others of his vicinity he lived in three counties, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin, without changing his residence.

Among the other prominent early settlers of Cloverland Flat we find the names of Petty, Wamsley, Fine, Walter, Sergeant, Philips, Johnson, Morrow, Barkly, Trent and Heltorf.

A special point of interest is connected with D. T. Welch, for the reason of his determined effort to locate the county seat at Theon, on Anatone Prairie. He had a sightly place and saw a city in his mind's eye growing up there. The old-timers did not always realize that the chief city of any given area must inevitably seek easy and cheap transportation facilities, either navigable water or railroads. No town on the Flats could compete with one on the river.

One of the most interesting of the old-time achievements was that of William Farrish, who still lives in Asotin and who gave the author his own personal account of it. In 1878 he conveyed a portable sawmill from Asotin to the timber line just beyond Anatone. There was no graded road up the long ridge and he was compelled to push and pull the huge weight right up the rough ridge by "hitching up all the oxen and horses in the country"--as he expressed it--and propelling the mill by sheer power. It was a great task and at several places the mill came very near getting away and starting down hill. But muscle and brain and perseverance triumphed, and the mill reached its destination.

The mill was located just at a exciting time for the settlers. In 1877 the great "Joseph" war of the Nez Percés had occurred. Up to that time there had been friendly relations between the whites and Indians. The old-timers relate many interesting stories of the general good will manifested by the Indians on Anatone. Mrs. Merchant of Asotin, to whom we are indebted for one of the most interesting of our special contributions, a daughter of the Clemans family, relates how, as a little girl, she was accustomed to be on a most friendly footing with the many Indians who would pass through Anatone on their immigrations from river to berry patches and hunting grounds. When the flame of war suddenly burst forth in '77 over the ownership of Wallowa, a good many of the Asotin branch of the Nez Percés joined the hostiles. The followers of Timothy and Lawyer, true to their traditional friendship for the whites, stood steadfastly by their old policy. Although the hostile Nez Percés did not cross to the west side of the Snake River, the settlers expected them. Some abandoned their homes. The house of Jerry Maguire was transformed into a fort, and the settlers on the creek gathered there for defense. But 1877 passed, the expected savage foray did not materialize, and the settlers resumed their locations. Then in 1878 came the even more savage Bannock war. The scene of it was far distant, but the settlers again became fearful of attack by fragments of unfriendly natives roaming around in the Blue Mountains and Wallowa. It was just at that time of trepidation that Mr. Farrish dragged his mill to the timber line. It arrived opportunely. The first work for it was to cut lumber for a stockade for defense against Indian attack. The structure was laid out somewhat less than a mile west of Anatone on the land of John Carter. Fortunately it was not needed, but it has historic interest.

Another of the important settlements was Peola, on the high land between the waters of the Alpowa and the Asotin. It belongs rather to Garfield than to Asotin, but extends into both counties. It is a fertile region, of essentially the same soil, climate, and conditions as the Anatone and other flats. F. G. Morrison and John B. Dick were among the leading pioneers of that region.

ESTABLISHMENT OF ASOTIN COUNTY

Such may be said to have been the beginnings of what became Asotin County. As easily seen, it possessed a unity of its own and within a year of the setting apart of Garfield from Columbia, agitation for similar action for Asotin arose. As the reader will recall from the chapter on Garfield County, Assotin City was a candidate for county-seat of that county. Outrun by Pomeroy in that race, the next logical step was a new county. The first active movement looking to the new county concentrated at Theon. Mr. Welch, as related, had ambitions for that point both as the business and official head of the new county. As a result of a mass meeting at Theon, Jackson O'Keefe of Assotin City was delegated to visit the Territorial Legislature in the session of 1883 in the interest of a bill for the erection of a new county. There seems to have been little organized opposition. The minutes of the house show that there was some discussion over the name. Some advocated the name of Lincoln, and in fact the bill first passed in that form. The council on October 18th passed an amendment to use the name of Asotin, and two days later passed the amended bill. On October 27, 1883, the governor, W. A. Newell, signed the bill, and Asotin (spelled with one s) became the fourth of the group produced by the fission of Old Walla Walla.

We find some interesting records and comments on this notable event in the _Asotin Spirit_. This pioneer paper of the place, it should be noted, had been moved to Asotin from Pataha, where it had been known as the _Pataha Spirit_. The first number was on Friday, October 25, 1883. The publishers were J. H. Ginder & Co.

In commenting on this notable event the _Spirit_ notes the fact that it is left to the judgment of the appointed commissioners to choose the temporary seat as between Assotin City and Asotin, and that it can be moved at the next general election by a two-thirds vote of the county. The _Spirit_ continues: "Early Wednesday morning a crowd assembled at Mr. Schank's new store building and the flag was brought out. As the national emblem was run up the pole three hearty cheers for Asotin County went up from the hearts as well as the throats of the assembly. And now that the efforts of this people have been crowned with success, so far as division and temporary location of county seat are concerned, we should not allow ourselves to be lulled into a masterly inactivity and deceive ourselves with the idea that nothing more is to be done, for as sure as we do what we have done will be undone."

As a matter of historical reference, it is well to preserve the legislative act of the territory establishing the county:

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An act to create and organize the County of Asotin: