The Pig War's Lingering Ghost
Decades after the 'Pig War' nearly ignited a conflict between the U.S. and Britain, Colonel Granville O. Haller presents a historical accounting of the San Juan Island boundary dispute to the Washington State Historical Society.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Following is the paper on 'The San Juan Island Imbroglio,' read before the State Historical Society at Tacoma, April 21, by Colonel Granville O. Haller: The popular version of the San Juan Island imbroglio on the American side was due somewhat to the aversion of our pioneers to British presumption. The idea of General Harney bearding the British lion humored our American egotism to a degree that will render a conservative history, however true, very tame, if not repugnant to the patriotic pioneers of 1859. The difficulty of the 1846 treaty lay in the language describing the channel: 'thence southerly through the middle of said channel.' This language might well mislead a person into taking the Straits of Rosario for the missing link. However, the Canal de Haro was the intended boundary. In 1853, the Hudson Bay Company placed a large flock of sheep on their farm on San Juan Island, named Bellevue. When the assessor of Whatcom County visited to collect taxes, the company refused to pay, claiming British sovereignty. The sheriff levied on the flock and sold some thirty head. This escalated into an international question. President Pierce's Secretary of State, William L. Marcy, instructed the territory to abstain from all acts on the disputed grounds which might promote conflict until the boundary could be settled, yet the ambiguity left residents in a precarious status of dual claim.
“The idea of General Harney bearding the British lion humored our American egotism to a degree that will render a conservative history, however true, very tame.”
The 'Pig War' of 1859 is one of the most famous incidents in Pacific Northwest history—a tense standoff that began with a shot pig and ended with the peaceful arbitration of the San Juan Islands boundary. Today, San Juan Island is a popular tourist destination, but the friction between international interests and local autonomy over land rights remains a recurring theme in the region's development.
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