Washburn's 1888 Pursuit on the Skagit River
When a murder investigation in the North Cascades turned into a high-stakes manhunt, local settlers faced a volatile standoff with Indigenous tribes that nearly sparked a regional conflict.
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.
Trouble is brewing on the Skagit River, and the white population at Hamilton is uneasy. The Indian department and the settlers are at odds. It is learned from the following narrative: A year ago, an Indian named Jim killed Bill 'Doc' Bennett, an Indian doctor at the forks of the Skagit. A special officer, Mr. Washburn, was sent from Victoria to arrest the murderer, who had camped twelve miles from Hamilton. It was discovered that Jim had gone to the mountains to elude the officers. The men under Washburn, however, were persistent. They met at Hamilton and awaited the return of the murderer. Jim, having been informed by a friend that the party was nearby, moved into a camp about ten miles below the town. On July 15, an Indian brought the news that Jim was in a camp at Kitaager Knoo's in the mountains. In the morning, three of the party walked down to the camp, which was located at about 20 miles. Jim caught the glimmer of the party and was called on to surrender. He made a dash for the door and ran towards the bank. Washburn fired a revolver at Jim's head, after calling on him to surrender. Washburn then grabbed a Winchester rifle and fired, hitting Jim in the shoulder and one bullet went through his body. Jim fell and expired in short order. The settlers fear the party of whites who killed the Indian will be the victims of retaliation by Jim's friends. The Indians demand that the whites be handed over to them. If the whites refuse to surrender, they threaten to burn down the houses and slaughter every white person in the locality. The river is not navigable for a man-of-war, and the Indians are well-armed and hidden in the mountains.
“The Indians demand that the whites be handed over to them. If the whites refuse to surrender, they threaten to burn down the houses and slaughter every white person in the locality.”
While this 1888 account reflects the dehumanizing language of its time, it depicts a real and tense period of history in the Skagit Valley where local justice and federal authority often collided. Today, the Skagit River is a protected environmental and cultural corridor, a far cry from the frontier instability that defined the region during the height of settler land speculation.
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