The Battle for the Timber Claim

Seeing an article in the last issue of your paper in regard to the late contested land case between myself and one John Drew Gowan, and as you credit the article to the Portland press, and as that paper has misrepresented the case, I would like to have it corrected. In the article it was stated that Mr. Gowan made valuable improvements on the claim prior to my filing on it under the timber land act, which was over one year from the time of his pre-emption filing, and he never lived on it, nor has he up to the present time. It is very curious that that particular 160 acre tract could not be taken under the timber act when thousands of acres of land of the same class of land has been gobbled up and patents issued for the same from the General Land Office. Just on the land claimed by me, on the other side in the same section and for miles on each side, the land is all taken under the timber act, and it is land of the same class as the land claimed by me, covered with some of the best timber that ever was seen or ever grew out of the ground. As for the soil, it is just the same as thousands of acres that have been logged off and then left to waste, the parties owning it refusing to pay taxes on it, considering it worthless, but when Gowan took this tract he did not take it for a home, but took it for timber, the same as plenty of others have done before him. - Alexander Spithill, Mukilteo, June 23, 1883.