The Legal Battle Over a Pioneer’s Legacy

The fight over the estate of John T. Wilbur, the Skagit County pioneer, is by no means finished. The contest brought by his Indian widow on behalf of herself and children against the white widow is yet to be decided. The property involved consists of two ranches, valued at about $5,000 each, of 160 acres, one above Mount Vernon on the Skagit, and the other a short distance below that place. In 1868, Wilbur, then a single man, married Kittie Follinabie, a Swinomish Indian woman, according to the peculiar customs of the tribe, and they lived together until 1876, during which time three children were born to them. After eight years, Wilbur cast off Kittie and installed in her place Sarah J. Wilcox, whom he brought from the East and married after the law at La Conner. Kittie, through an interpreter, told how she and Wilbur would visit the mound of their deceased daughter and mourn. When asked why she left the house as soon as her white rival appeared, Kittie said: 'I was only a squaw, while he was a white man and she was a white woman, and I knew I stood no show. So I took my two babies and went to my father's.' The attorneys for Kittie argue that the marriage was celebrated in due form and according to the tribal custom, and therefore is valid at common law and the children legitimate. If this contention is established, the conclusion follows necessarily that the subsequent marriage with the white woman is invalid.