1896-06-07-sr-p15-c1-jim-monoghan-first-settler-spokane-area-1860
June 07, 1896 Spokesman-Review Page 15 Column 1:
IN PIONEER DAYS
Reminiscences of Mr. Monoghan, First Settler in This Valley.
HE CAME HERE IN 1860
Two Types of Indian Chiefs---The Peaceful Lot and the Kamiakin --Primitive Agriculture.
[A series of historical and reminiscent articles on early days and old-time folk, They are published in the Sunday and the Semi-Weekly Spokesman-Review. ]
Though the recorded history of our Inland Empire, at which we have glanced briefly, covers almost the duration of this century, and has had its epochs and its characters world-famous for romance and adventure, yet even its more recent “old-timers,” though more replete with embarrassments and perplexities than with picturesque heroism, have yet the charm of a more vivid portrayal by the living participants therein.
The days of blue jeans and embryo politics are lacking in the glamour which surrounds fringed buckskins and social anarchy, but for situations of grim and pathetic humor, for circumstances of mingled opulence and privation the living raconteur of our past has lack of nothing.
The wild beast was exterminated, the Indian had yielded the fight, and, by the feeble new arteries of commerce, the first wave of our present civilization was creeping In, when the present "old residents" of our country came,
Few of them are old, or much past active middle life, as yet, though some, forgetful, or saddened, or despising the day of small things, will not talk much of the shabby past. Others, however, will beguile hour after hour for the half incredulous listener with gleeful tales of times which must have been anything but merry ones. The "Pioneers' Club," just organized, has a duty to posterity, to preserve "in the original" the many quaint and charming details of our history, which its members alone cam furnish in completeness.
One of the earliest settlers of the Spokane country who is still an active factor among us, is James Monaghan, and it is no mark of profanation or disrespect, but only through affectionate western familiarity that even his inferiors in age and station address him as “Jimmie.” He has witnessed the growth of all that now pertains to Spokane and its environment, and will talk of early times in the simple and dignified manner of one who has little to regret or conceal. He is capable of biting sarcasm and subtle humor, but the listener only discerns this after a few shocks, by the augmentation of gravity which accompanies some statement intended to find its mark—like a boomerang—by traveling in a circle.
In 1860, close on the wake of the turbulent days of Indian fighting, Mr. Monaghan came to this country and established a ferry on the newly completed military wagon road where It crossed tho Spokane river, some 20 miles below the falls, and afterwards had charge of the bridge known as the LaPray bridge.
Though surrounded by Indians who were smarting from Colonel Wright's recent chastisement, he lived among them upon terms of peace and neighborliness, though this must have required statesmanship, for he characterizes them all as "peaceable, but sassy."
The chief of the Spokanes at that time was old Lot, father of the present Chief Lot, and Mr, Monaghan recalls the tragedy by which the worthy old chief lost his life in a brush with an unfriendly Snake river tribe. Chief Lot who succeeded and still presides, was a man of high character and "a great head." It is said of him that he never raised his hand against a white man, but won recognition from white settlers and from the government by stubborn adherence to what he claimed as rights for his people,
Gary, the shrewd, eloquent and partly educated Indian, known to all old-timers and to most of us, was even then a sub-chief, and maintained his position-an elective office-until he died a short time ago, Saltese was chief of the Coeur d'Alenes and a neighbor of Mr, Monaghan then, as now, while Tonasket, who died only four years ago, was hy-as-tyee of the Okanagons.
Kamiakin, “the horrible," whose name caused the Catholic fathers to shudder and had children to subside in terror, was the promoter of all the strife between the settlers and Indians, a shining example of depravity. But of quite another type was Kinkinacka, chief of the Colvilles, who, with his tribe, had learned the arts of peace from the missionaries, and had a strong influence for good with the more headstrong Coeur d'Alenes. Of these two tribes, many, even at that time, were church communicants and used to attend the church festivals by hundreds. A thousand or 1500 worshipers was no uncommon sight upon such an imposing occasion as Corpus Christi for the imaginative red man loved them, as always, the mysterious and the spectacular.
Mr. Monaghan recalls the circumstances and dates of those political vicissitudes already mentioned, by which Spokane county and its immediate neighbors took their present places on the map, and remembers well the campaign of ‘68, when the Hon. George Cole, still a resident of Spokane, was elected to congress on the democratic ticket. Colville was the only voting precinct in the whole vast county; and was not then called Colville, but “Pinckney Clty," after Pinckney Lugenbeel, commander of the post at that place,
"The first representative to the legislature from Spokane county” says Mr. Monaghan, “was Judge Watson, On his return from the capital he stopped at my place for several hours, then journeyed on and stopped for the night at Walker's prairie, That night he was shot and killed by a Spokane Indian, The tribe gave up the murderer and he was hanged.”
The nearest white neighbor at the time of the establishment of Mr. Monaghan’s ferry was not close enough to make chicken fences necessary, being at the mouth of the Palouse river, something like a hundred miles away, but in ‘61 came William Newman—after whom Newman's lake was called—to the present site of Sprague, where he kept a station for travelers and government express animals, and was next-door neighbor for a long time,
For neighbors in the other direction there were the distinguished members of the boundary commission and the engineering party in their historic low huts at Marcus, who were there in ‘59, and as long afterward as the boundary question —after the manner of diplomatic affairs and wounded snakes “dragged its slow length along.”
There was also the great concern of the Hudson Bay company at old Fort Colville, located in '39 and managed by that well and favorably known Scotch pioneer, Angus McDonald.
Near Kettle falls—a great Indian fishing resort—was the mission of the Catholic fathers, "fishers of men" as the scripture sayeth, who built there the first church edifice in the county, which still stands.
The Hudson Bay company had a pioneer flouring mill at Meyer's Falls, but the only farming in the country was done by a few Colville Indians, Fish and game Were good enough for all the others.
Wild berries were plentiful; salmon came up the river in numbers to conceal the bottom and line the banks with dead. The camas, the pretty blue flower, of edible root, which is in bloom today on all the moist ground about Spokane, was then abundant enough to take the place of bread, and a meal of several courses was to be had anywhere for the taking.
It was not long, however, until the advance in agriculture justified the erection at the Old Mission, now in Idaho, of another forerunner of our milling industries, in the shape of a primitive affair worked by a horse and sweep. The wheel of one of these ancient concerns was on exhibition here at the Exposition in 1890.
An adventurous spirit, by the name of Douglas, built the first sawmill in the country, on Mill creek, two miles from Fort Colville, and the lumber business being rather slack in those days of tents and wigwams, he supplemented his legitimate industry by running an illicit distillery, which, however, soon fell under the ban of Uncle Sam. The old machinery of the blighted enterprise still stands, or did a few years ago, among other interesting ruins in the woods near the town of Chewelah.
Among the travelers who frequented the military road and crossed Mr. Monaghan’s ferry, even from the first, were numerous miners going to and from the Pend d'Oreille and Columbia river mines, which were in operation at that early date, but the first white people to settle within the present limits of Spokane county were members of the Hudson Bay company who hail a post at the mouth of the Little Spokane, 10 miles below the city, where traces of their old buildings and foundations may yet be seen.
And thus, year after year, the lone white settler in the wilderness waited, with stout heart and hopes deferred, for the better times which have since transpired, but which were then foreseen but dimly, and in contemplating the pioneer's long struggle, we of more comfortable days cannot but feel that "Peace hath her victories no less renown than war."
