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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1858 | 5 |
| 1859 | 9 |
| 1860 | 2 |
16 stories matching import
- The Fur Company’s Land Empire Is Declared Public Domain
A letter from Washington City reports that the Hudson’s Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural companies’ territorial claims have been ruled forfeit, opening their Nisqually and Fort Vancouver lands to American survey and settlement.
- The Hudson's Bay Company Puts a Price on Washington Territory
A proposed £500,000 sale of the company's Puget Sound land claims alarmed settlers and left Congress uncertain about who really owned the ground.
- Gold Dust at the Foot of Mount Baker
A steamer passenger's letter reports that Whatcom merchants have bought gold from Indigenous prospectors—and that plenty more may lie near Bellingham Bay.
- A Plan to Move Indigenous People to San Juan Island Stirs a Border Dispute
A Victoria proposal to resettle Native people on disputed San Juan Island draws a sharp warning from Washington Territory.
- The Surrender Demand That Came Before Peace
Father De Smet escorts Kamiakin, Skloom, and other chiefs to Vancouver to meet Gen. Harney—but the terms are blunt: the 'ringleaders' must be handed over first.
- Col. Wright's Column Drives Spokane Fighters Across the Plains
An 1858 campaign report describes a running fight on the Spokane Plains—and the violent logic of dispossession behind it.
- A Territorial Legislature Grants a Divorce
In 1859, Alice Davis asked Washington's lawmakers—not a court—to end her marriage, and the House obliged by an 18-to-3 vote.
- Gold in the Wenatchee, but the Miners Were Told to Leave
Pearson's party returns to Steilacoom after Indians warn them off the new gold fields; a handful of dirt shows a dollar's worth of gold.
- The Wharf, the Steamer, and the Grudge
A Puget Sound steamer damages Steilacoom's private wharf; the repairs are made, but the landings become a running feud between a steamboat captain and the town.
- Six Hours, Sixteen Thousand Feet: Puget Sound's Lumber Boom
A correspondent touring the Sound in 1860 marvels at new sawmills at Utsalady and Port Gamble, where wild country is being turned into lumber camps and the Territory is already boasting of a manufacturing future to rival the older states.
- Speculators Send a Surveyor to San Juan, and a Boundary Dispute Turns Hot
Americans from Victoria and Puget Sound move to preempt land on the disputed island, betting that U.S. jurisdiction will follow—and warning that trouble may follow first.
- The Territory’s Muskets Were ‘About as Dangerous at One End as the Other’
A Pierce County taxpayer audits the 1859 Legislature: condemned arms, a new enrolling clerk, and the old habit of hoping Congress will pay.
- The Wagon Road That Would Bind Puget Sound to the Columbia
Vancouver residents petition Congress for $50,000 to build a military road to Steilacoom, arguing it would open trade and settle the country between the Columbia River and Puget Sound.
- Gold in the Wenatchee—and a War Warning at Fort Simcoe
A hard-riding express reaches Steilacoom with word of 300 miners in the new Wenatchee and Naches diggings—and a settler's letter warning of a wider Indigenous war over the invasion.
- The Winter War Blueprint: An 1858 Campaign to Subdue the Tribes
A field letter from the Indian war in Oregon and Washington urges the Army to occupy the Colville Valley, cut off Indigenous trade, and expel missionaries and Hudson’s Bay Company employees.
- The Senate Ratifies the Treaties That Remade the Northwest
Ratified in 1859, the 1855 treaties with tribes across Oregon and Washington promised annuities, schools and mills while ceding millions of acres to settlement.