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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1858 | 6 |
| 1859 | 5 |
| 1860 | 5 |
| 1861 | 2 |
18 stories matching week
- The Mail That Stopped Coming to Puget Sound
For more than ten days no mail arrived from California or the Atlantic states. Steilacoom’s editor blamed a federal order in San Francisco and wondered how long the town could keep publishing.
- The Schooner That Never Came Back
A Steilacoom resident and a captain vanish after leaving Port Townsend; a rumor from Vancouver Island speaks of a wreck and murder.
- A Rumor of War on the Snake River
The Puget Sound Herald casts doubt on its own report of a battle between Col. Steptoe and Indigenous fighters, noting that no reliable account has arrived.
- The Farmer and the Unruly Ox
A cautionary tale of how cruelty toward livestock backfires on the master.
- The Case of the Missing Boarder
A Steilacoom landlady finds herself in a tangle of confusion when a new arrival is mistaken for a long-lost acquaintance.
- Seeking Justice for the Murdered Schooner Crews
Authorities in Victoria and Washington Territory coordinate to track down those responsible for the brutal killing of crews on the Blue Wing and Ellen Marie.
- The Battle for the Capitol Grounds
A public dispute erupts between the Acting Governor and a Capitol Commissioner over the bidding process for clearing the grounds in Olympia.
- Gold Fever on the Wenatchee: Steilacoom Miners Strike It Rich
A party of miners returns with rich specimens from Rock Creek, touching off a run on provisions, passengers—and town lots.
- 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 Vultures on Steilacoom's Streets
A furious 1858 editorial accuses local authorities of letting California gamblers plunder the town in plain sight.
- Judge Chambers’s New Mill Turns New Dungeness Wheat Into ‘Superb’ Flour
A newspaper tour of the just-finished grist mill found machinery ‘complete in every particular’ and a cleaning apparatus that astonished the visitors.
- Gold Fever Empties the Army Posts—and Leaves Steilacoom’s Mail in a Canoe
A steamer from the north brings word of rich surface diggings on the Fraser and Thompson rivers, soldiers deserting lower Puget Sound posts, and Steilacoom cut off from its mail.
- 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.
- A Boomtown Year: Steilacoom Runs Out of Empty Houses
In its first-anniversary survey of Puget Sound, the Herald finds every vacant building in Steilacoom filled — and thirty new ones thrown up in eight months.
- The Killer Who Walked Into the Council and Bared His Breast
On San Juan Island, a man accused of killing a chief's son returned to face tribal justice—and his family watched him offer his own heart to the dead man's brother.
- 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 Land Office Money That Never Reached the Books
Register Isaac W. Smith accuses Receiver Selucius Garfielde of holding land-claim payments on private deposit and refusing to account for them—an 1861 public audit fight in Washington Territory.
- 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.