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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 20, 1890)
310 WEST SHORE. these possessory rights? When the government of the United States ex tended its land laws over Oregon and Washington, the Hudson's Bar people began to claim a fee simple In the land they had occupied ; bat they vera soon made to understand that bis gracious majesty could not give what he never possessed, a title to this land ; that our government claimed its right ot eminent domain, not from the treaty of 1840, but from the days of Robert Gray and Lewis and Clark, and finally that our donation laws and preemp tion statutes were for American citizens and not for the gentlemen and adventurers licensed to trade to the Hudson's bay. What bad the priests been doing in the eleven years that had elapsed since their arrival? They bad been performing the usual duties of parish prietts, and, as before stated, real missions bad been opened at the Cowliti, Neequally and on the Tualatin plains. Until Dr. McLoughlin left the ser vice of the Hudson's Bay company and became an American citizen, they bad always held service within the stockade ; bat Sir James Douglas was a zealous Church of England man, and so moved them outside of the fort proper, and read church services to bis Protestant followers in bis own quarters. Yet be built a chapel for the priests (this is the building shown in the large sketch in the center ot this number, made in 1854) and con tinued to pay them their 100 a year. He knew that they well earned this stipend by their restraining Influence over his wild royageun and courier! du Mi and their half-breed families. There was also quite a settlement of Sandwich Islanders, Kanakas, working for the company, and they also had their preacher, " Kanaka William," who also held religious services for bis dusky followers in a cabin, assigned for the purpose bard by the Catholic chapel. When Maj. Hathaway arrived in 1849 with bis two companies, the priests were away and Douglas rented the priests' cabin to the quartermaster, and It was for a time occupied by some officers. There is a report that the church was used as a granary, but General Rufus Ingalls, who was the first post quartermaster, says, that, although he coulJ have had it for the asking, be never rented it nor used it. It is a matter of dispute as to when the priests returned, but it is not questioned that they occasionally held services in their chapel during the joint occupancy of this reservation by the United States garrison and the Hudson's Bay company. After the first log quarters for the garrison were built, the priests' bouse was given np and was occa sionally occupied by a French priest named Brouillet. Soon after the regiment of mounted rifles came, in 1K50, some citizens organized a county government, the district around Vancouver having been designatsd as Clarke county, of the territory of Oregon, the year before, and tried to locate their county seat, not only in the recently declared reservation, but within the limits of the post Itself. They divided the lower grounds of the garrison into town lots and sold them at public auction for (1.00 each, and then ap plied to the first territorial court for an injunction to restrain the post com mandant (Maj. Run) and the post quartermaster (Capt. Ingalls) from pros ecuting the building of the post. The injunction, after due argument, was refused, and the City of Columbia wai not built; but years after, when the mission case came up for trial, it was proved that the priests stood mute when the sheriff was string loan lots on the ground the church subse quently claimed, and denied to the assessor that the church bad any prop erty, real, personal or mixed, But we must turn back again, this time to get our sacerdotal reckonings. As soon as the treaty of 1840 was confirmed the Catholic church transferred this part of the country to an American diocese, that of St. Louis. First the Canadian priest, A. M. A. Dlanchet, was made a vicar general, which cor responds to our military grade of adjutant general, or the Methodist rank of presiding elder. As soon as Washington was made a territory, In 1853, he was made bishop of Nee qually, with a Jurisdiction corresponding nearly with the new territory. In the mean time, Lieut. Col. Bonneville, Fourth In fantry, had assumed command of the post, and one of his first acts was to Invite Fattier Brouillet to take up permanent quarters In the post, and there is a tradition, which can not, however, be verified by positive proof, that Col, Bonneville himself suggested to the Catholics the Idea ot claiming title to this reservation by legislative grant; for, on August 14, 1848, an act of congress was duly approved by the president, which provided, " That the title to the land, not exceeding G40 acres, now (then) occupied u mis sionary stations among the Indian tribes in said territory, together with im provements thereon, be confirmed and established in the several religious societies to which said missionary stations respectfully belong." That was tn the organic act of Oregon territory. In May, ISM, or at soon as a government land otlloe was opened on the north side of the Columbia river, Bishop Blanchet filed his claim under this act. No action was taken on this claim until after the expiration of the Hudson's Bay company's license, in 1859, when the commissioner of the land office acknowledged the claim of the mission and ordered the land to be surveyed and set off to it; then Governor Isaac I. Stephens, of Wash ington territory, protested In behalf of the military reservation, the town of Vancouver and the heirs of one Amos Short. Upon this the commissioner of the general land otlice directed the surveyor general of the territory to make an Investigation, which he did at Vancouver in April, 18t0. But dur ing this investigation the military authorities stood mute and took no part. D -urveyor general, did not make hi, report until 1862 It was, without any reservation whatever, in favor of the mutton claim This decision wa, reversed the next year, 1863, by the commissioner o the gen eral land office; from this decision the church authorities appealed to the secretary of the interior, employing General Charles Ewing, a brother-la-law of General Sherman, as their attorney in Washington. In May, 1864, Attorney General Bates gave an opinion that " The validity of the mission claims all depends on matters of fact, possession, occupancy and the time thereof." He concluded by holding, "That these points should be de cided by courts of law and not by executive officers." In 1871 the subject was again referred to the attorney general for an opinion. On January 29, 1873, the opinion was given by Assistant Attorney General W. H. Smith, to the effect " That as the mission claim was opposed by the military reser vation claim, by the Vancouver town site claim, and by the donation claim of the Short heirs, as to the remainder of the 640 acres not embraced in the reservation claim; that the church (as the representative of the religious society called the St. James mission) was only entitled to the land actually occupied by the church building, to-wit: Fortyfour-one-hundredths part of an acre." ' Here it is necessary to explain that in laying off the military reserva tion, Colonel Bonneville, then in command of the poet, took a comparatively narrow river front and ran his lines back about a mile and a half on the magnetic meridian. The representatives of the mission, with more wis dom, located their claim so as to have a mile frontage on the Columbia river, and locating their square mile, so as to embrace 430 acres of the lower and only improved part of the military reservation, the improved part of 'that claim and all of the part of the town of Vancouver lying between the west boundary of the reservation and the main street of the town, making in all their 640 acres. In fact the mission people made several experimen tal locations, before they finally settled down on the one which they thought would most decidedly give them the better of the Philistines. From the lines of their first survey, it would appear probable that the priests only at first intended to apply for a donation claim, but upon inspiration finally de termined to claim under the legislative grant of 1848. To resume the narrative of proceedings, the Hon. B. H. Cowen, acting assistant secretary of the interior, acting on the opinion of Asst. Attorney General Smith, decided that the so called mission was entitled to forty-four-one-handredths part of an acre and no more, and instructed the surveyor gen eral of the territory of Washington to survey and set aside so much for them, for which a patent would be tendered, or if the applicants were not satisfied with this, giving them sixty days in which to appeal. The grounds upon which this ruling was made, were in substance, that the land said to have been occupied by the mission was not set forth by specific boundaries, was not enclosed or even marked by blazes on trees or other marks and that the only occupancy proved was as to the land covered by the church. It was not until August 28, 1883, that the survey of the half acre, or to speak by the card .46,346 part of an acre, was certified. Within the sixty days al lowed, the church authorities appealed. Hereupon the commissioner re fused to issue the patent which had been tendered. For a time a languid correspondence was kept up by the representatives of the mission, first with the interior department to get a reversal of its adverse decision and then with the war department to get the secretary of war to take favorable action on a report Col. Hardie, A. I. G., bad once made in their favor. But the claim had by this time gotten into the hands of the Tite Barnacles and into the circumlocution circle and all any one could learn was that the cause was now suspended on a question of courtesy between the interior and the war departments. The mission, however, could well affjrd to play a waiting game; wit nesses die, but the church lives in wcuo urcuforum. Then, t x, the priests had been doing much better in the field than in the cabinet. Col. Bonne ville had brought them back and allowed them to enclose for their own nse five acres in the midst of the reservation. With his consent (Gen. Ingalls testifies) a house was built for the new bishop and gardens and orchards were planted. Indeed, Bonneville and Brouillit got along as pleasantly and convivially as Robin Hood and Friar Tuck. Even when Col. Tompy Morris took command this amiable armed neutrality continued. An aban doned suttler's store was given to tome sisters of charity who had braved the dangers and the hardships ot the wilderness. Then is no doubt but that these excellent women did better work and kept a mora orderly house than their predecessors. Gaining confidence as time went on, the church put np a large, two story frame building on the five acres and called it the College of the Holy Augeis. This wis done while Lieut. Col. A. J. Dallas was in command of the post. If some of the early post commanders seemed some what careless of the rights of the government, It is fair to say that no one back in the fifties could realize that in a single generation lots would be selling for nearly two thousand dollars In Vancouver, and that acre property In the vicinity would run up to a thousand; nor could those who lived In the old log houses they built themselves well foresee that the government would one day make Improvements here worth half a million. Then, too,