Death of a Frontier Statesman
General Robert Huston Milroy, a veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars and former agent of the Yakima reservation, passes in Olympia.
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.
General Robert Huston Milroy peacefully passed away at his home in Olympia on Sunday morning, surrounded by his family. General Milroy was 74 years of age. In the Mexican war he served as captain of the first regiment Indiana volunteers. At the beginning of the war of the rebellion he issued a call for volunteers and became colonel of the Ninth Indiana volunteers. He served in western Virginia and on February 6, 1862, he became a brigadier general. He was appointed superintendent of Indian affairs in Washington territory and held the office until 1874. In 1875 he was appointed agent of the Yakima reservation and held the place until 1886. General Milroy leaves a wife and three sons to mourn his loss. Two of these sons, Robert B. and Walter J., are residents of North Yakima and members of the bar. Flags in Yakima were at half mast on Sunday and Monday in honor of the dead soldier.
“Flags of Yakima were at half mast on Sunday and Monday in honor of the dead soldier.”
General Milroy’s career spanned the most violent decades of American expansion and Indigenous dispossession. Today, his legacy in Yakima is preserved in the local bar association, yet his tenure as an Indian agent remains a complex part of the historical record regarding the U.S. government's treatment of the Yakama Nation.
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