WEST SHORE.
811
they were living In most friendly relations wilh the fathers. All, saints and
sinners, were braying the same dangers and enduring similar hardships.
On their part our simple-minded, missionaries fell easily into the comfort
able conviction " That the world was made for the saints, they were
therefore Q. E. D."
Daring the civil war the post of Vancouver barracks was in charge of
volunteer troops, but was reoccnpied by regular troops in I860. The double
occupation and official courtesy status continued until 1880, when a ruler
arose who knew not Joseph. Soon after General Nelson A. Miles assumed
command of the department the records show that vigorous investigation
was started to ascertain the precise relations which had subsisted between
the so called mission of St. James and the Hudson's Bay company. This
resulted In securing a number of letters and affidavits from officials and con
fidential servants of the company, all to the effect that there never had been
any divided control between the mission and the company; that the au
thority of the company over this post was absolute and undivided ; that they
fed, housed and paid the priests and indignantly denied that the latter ever
exercised any authority which could have given them any rights under the
law of 1848. Bat General Miles was relieved of the command of this depart
ment before he could force an Issue. In the meantime the grind In the
circumlocution office went on and the cause remained suspended, like Mo
hammed's coffin, between heaven and earth. After the lapse of thirty-eight
years, the spell was at last broken, by the post commander tearing down
the fence around the five acres held by the church within the government
reservation, and, indeed, invading the half acre itself. This was done to
force the church to take the hot end of the poker. As the authorities In
Washington would not take action, this trespass on the mission ground left
Its representatives no alternative but to ask a restraining order, or Injunc
tion, from the courts. To do this they had to bring a suit and in doing so,
had, of course, to set forth In full, their title to the property they claimed.
The mills of the gods grind slowly, yet It was a great point gained that this
case was at last thrown Into the hopper. For years the bishop of Nesqually
(Washington territory) had been clamoring for a decision, but at this junc
ture he discovered that h wished a department and not a judicial decision.
He wrote to General Sheridan asking that the action of the post commander
might be disapproved. Fortunately "Little Phil's" sense of duty was
stronger than religious or personal predellctions. In answering the bishop
he tamed upon him St Matthew's text, " For all they that take the sword
shall perish with the sword " by saying " Bishop, you have appealed to the
law and by the law you mast abide," so, of course, the contest went on.
First came an order restraining the military authorities from exercising
control over that part of the reservation In dispute (430 acres) and giving
twenty days in which to show cause why this Injunction should not be made
perpetual. Accordingly the department and post commanders and post
quartermaster had to go to Olympia to show cause why. There they met
the U. S. district attorney who had been instructed to Intervene In behalf
of the United States. Then the church filed a complaint, or bill in equity,
which, stripped of Its legal verbiage, amounted to this: That the bishop
was, by statute of the territory, a corporation sole; that as such he repre
sented the mission of St. James; that this mission having been an actual
mission In the Indian tribes on August 14, 1848, was entitled to 040 acres of
land. That the Hudson's Bay company, having only a license to trade with
the Indiana, had no right to acquire a title in fee simple In this particular
640 acres; that as the company had, under the treaty of 1840, a right of
occupancy until the expiration of Its license In 1859, they, the plaintiffs,
were debarred until that time from making good their title. The complaint
then recited at length the decisions and counter-decisions of the surveyors
general, the attorneys general, the commissioners and secretaries, and
finally set forth, that they had to bring a suit in equity because the secre
tary of the interior had made a mistake In law; that he wis right In his
decisions as to the questions of fact which Induced him to offer them a
patent for a half acre, but wrong in not extending his ruling to the whole
640 acres. Therefore they claimed that the court was bound by the decision
of the secretary as to facts and also bound to correct his erroneous decision
as to the law. Here was a brilliant piece of legal legerdemain, worthy of
the united talents of churchmen and lawyers, a bold attempt " to tangle jus
tics In her net of law." The complaint wound up with the statement, " That
the defendants, John Gibbon, T. M. Anderson and R. T. Yeatman, officers
and soldiers of the United States army, on or about ths 4th day of January,
1887, and on divers days and at divers times thereafter, accompanied by
soldiers under their command and acting by their authority and direction,
entered upon that portion of said four hundred and thirty acres of land
which has so been In the exclusive occupancy and possession of said church,
and of plaintiff as Its lawfully appointed agent to hold such possession, and,
pretending to be thereunto authorised by said war department of ths United
States, forcibly tore down and removed fences and enclosures of plaintiff
thereon, of long standing, and dag up and plowed ths soil, and cut down
and destroyed valuable trait-bearing orchard trees, and also ornamental
trees; planted and growing thereon, the property of ths plaintiff aad of said
Catholic church ; and said defendants 'are threatening, Intending and pro
ceeding to, and will, unless enjoined and restrained from so doing, cut down
7" mmJ vaiuaoie n, orchard and ornamental trees npon
said premises," and so on to the end, claiming all sorts of damaites and
costs.
At the preliminary hearing the post commander made the point that
the Roman Catholic church was a foreign corporation and therefore could
not claim the benefit of the mission clause in the law of 1848. The lawyers
received the proposition as a jest and the court "smiled and passed the
question by," but the point was destined to receive mora serious atten
tion. At this hearing In chambers, February, 1887, the court dissolved
the injunction as to all except the five acres actually enctosed. At the
spring session of the court held at Vancouver in April, 1887, the answer of
the respondents was filed and the law points argued In demurrer before
Judge Allyn. At this hearing all the points of the complainant's demurrers
were overruled, the Injunction dissolved as to all except the forty-six-one-hundredths
of an acre, and the testimony was ordered to be token before a
commissioner and then submitted for consideration at the next session of
the court. It now became evident that the crucial question was this : Wsre
the priests at ths Hudson's Bay post of Vanoouvsr acting as missionaries to
the Indians on August 14, 1848T To meet this question, the writer hunted
up dotens of old settlers snd wrote scores of letters. Out of the whole num
ber there were few who had personal knowledge of facta transpiring
prior to August, 1848; nevertheless, when the time came, both the church
and the military had mustered quite a number of witnesses.
The leading witnesses for the church were a Father Joseph Joset, an
old Jesuit priest who succeeded Father DeSmet In his mission In the Cceur
d'Alene country, Joseph St. Germain and Marcel Beroler, old Canadian
French trappers and wurwri du fxn'i, August Itochon, a servant of ths
priests Blanchet and Demers when they cams here In 1838, Mary Petraln, a
wife of one of the old Hudson's Bay company's servants, Mary Proulx, ths
first woman married In the church, and, finally, one Francis A, Chamber
lain, an employs of the Hudson's Bay company, the only ons who testified
In favor of the mission. They were a queer looking lot, antiquated and
awkward, soiled, snuffy and redolent with a rather too pungent odor of
sanctity. By their talk and manner they recalled the traditions o( a buried
past. If they had all floated down the Columbia In a canoe, with red blank
ets around tbem, It would have seemed natural and proper. The leading wit
nesses for ths defenss were John Stensgair and Napoleon McQlllvray, old
Hudson's Bay company servants, Wm. II. Gray, the historian of Oregon
and an early pioneer, Wm. U. Dillon, Peter W. Crawford and Silas D. Maion,
Charles J. Bird and John J. Smith, county officials and surveyors, Louisa
Carter and Sarah J. Anderson, women who came out as early as ths Whit
man massacre, and, finally, General Rufus Ingalls and Mr. Lloyd Brooks,
who represented the quartermaster's department. These witnesses wsre
also advanced In years, but they looked like people who had kept Uj with
the procession. The first set of witnesses swore positively that the mission
people were entirely Independent of the Hudson's Bay company and Intent
solely on ths ssvlng of souls. Ths worldly witnesses swore point blank,
tint ths priests were paid and willing servants of ths company, and that It
was the trappers who converted the Indian women and that the church hers
was not a mission, but a congregation. Ths contradictory character of the
evidence recalled at times FallstafTs cynical apothegm, as to the world be-'
ing given to lying. The trial also brought to light ths fact, that the record
of the first Injunction suit against ths post authorities had been cut out of
ths first record book of the county court and ths book Itself thrown In ths
river; but It was recovered, water-stained and mutilated. The testimony of
the old witnesses was, apart from its legal value, very Interesting. It re
called the feudal ways of the old Hudson's Bay barons, ths contrasted sav
agery and gentleness of the Indians, ths wild ways of ths pioneers, the sea)
of the priests, ths earnestness of the Protestant missionaries. Ons of the
questions at Issue was: What was ft mission? Ths answer revealed by a
strange aids light, Die difference In ths motives and methods of the Cathollo
and Protestant missionaries. To the first mission meant a cross raised In
the shadow of the woods, ths baptism of ths savages and ths saving of souls.
To ths latter a mission meant work, the virtue of water was cleanliness, and
the savage was to be Christianised by first being civilised.
Of one of the witnesses for ths government, It Is just to pay ft tribute of
well deserved respect. General Rufus Ingalls was ths post and department
quartermaster during the entire development it this controversy. Whoever
else may have been careless and confiding, cortalnly he never was ; lis was
always vigilant and vigorous in maintaining the rights of the government,
and his testimony for the defense bad no uncertain sound, Ths caas cams
up for trial on its merits, that Is, on the evidence, snd not merely on the
law points, before the district court at Vancouver at ths spring term In 18H8.
It wu argued by District Attorney W. II. White for ths government and by
Wballey, Bronaugh A Nortlmp,- counsel for the church. It was decided
by Judge Allyn In favor of the defendants. Appeal was then taken to the
supreme court of the territory of Washington, and It came up for hearing In
January, 1889. After full argument the court decided that ths plaintiff had
legal remedies for all wrongs complained of and should not have brought