The Battle for the Territorial Capitol
A legal and political standoff over the physical location of the territorial capital and library forces an Acting Governor to weigh state law against federal fiscal crisis.
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.
The decisions of Governor Turney and Chief Justice Hewitt, relating to the removal of the Executive Office and Territorial Library, we take from the Vancouver Chronicle. Secretary L. Jay S. Turney wrote: 'I have no right, as a public officer, to receive contributions for any such purpose. And I have been unable to find any law conferring any such authority. But if we had funds, legally raised and on hand to defray the expenses of removal, there is not now time to remove, and get things ready by the meeting of the next Legislature.' Chief Justice Hewitt ruled: 'It is not alleged in the affidavit first that the Relator ever requested the Librarian to remove said Library to the city of Vancouver, and second that no money was ever tendered by the Relator or any one else to the Librarian to defray the expense of removing said Library... therefore the motion is overruled.'
“I am to take things as I find them.”
The scramble to keep the capital in Olympia is a foundational chapter in the city's identity. This 1861 legal maneuver shows that Olympia's dominance as the seat of government was far from guaranteed in its early years.
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