A Son of the Clallam Chief Goes to Court to Settle His Brother's Estate
In what the paper calls the first case of its kind in the country, an Indigenous man asks a Port Townsend judge to let him administer his late brother's estate — a son of the Duke of York.
Port Townsend, April 30.—Special.—The first instance in this country of an Indian petitioning the superior court for the appointment of administrator of an estate was recorded in the parlor of Judge De Lacy, of this city. Harley York appeared before the court for permission to administer upon the estate of his deceased brother, Charley York, son of the late Duke of York, head chief of the Clallam tribe of Indians. The estate consists of property valued at a few hundred dollars.
“The first instance in this country of an Indian petitioning the superior court for the appointment of administrator of an estate.”
An Indigenous man turning to the settler courts to settle his brother's estate was remarkable enough in 1895 to be called a national first, a small assertion of legal standing at a moment when Native people were being pushed off their lands. The Clallam and their descendants — today the Jamestown S'Klallam and other bands — continue to press questions of sovereignty, property and inheritance in their own right.
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