The History of the Wenatchi⁽¹⁾
Fishing Reservation
by E. Richard Hart

December 19, 2001

During the next two decades the Wenatchi lived in relative isolation and at peace, insulated from Whites by prominent geography. Early contacts with the United States in the mid-1850s were made under Chief Skamow, but by the late 1850s the responsibility of the chieftainship had passed to Harmelt. Though isolated, Harmelt and the Wenatchi suffered dearly from the effects of smallpox and other European diseases, the population dropping by 1860 to about a quarter of what it once had been.⁽⁸⁾ By 1870 the first White traders had settled in Wenatchi country, and Jesuit missionaries were working hard to convert the tribe. When the great earthquake of 1872 rocked their country, many people were prompted to seek spiritual solace from the Catholic priests. In the following year nearly two hundred Wenatchi were baptized, and by 1874 a mission church was completed at one of the Wenatchi villages.⁽⁹⁾ Though many Wenatchis converted to Catholicism, their traditional lifestyle changed little. They continued to fish at the Wenatchapam Fishery, hunt for deer and other animals, gather berries and dig roots. Their rich native social traditions continued to be passed down from generation to generation, and today tribal members still continue to engage in these traditional tribal activities.

Throughout the early 1870s the Wenatchi remained both independent, yet peacefully inclined toward Whites, continuing to believe that their fishery and homeland had been protected by treaty with the United States. But United States officials seemed now largely unaware that the reservation had been mandated by the 1855 treaty, and by the late 1870s the Wenatchi began to feel pressures from non-Indians and to wonder whether their homes were as secure as they once had believed.

Even before the Nez Perce War, General O. O. Howard and United States officials were laboring to force the Plateau Salish tribes onto reservations-Yakima to the south and Colville to the northeast of the Wenatchi. During the war, Chief Joseph attempted to rally the Salish to join him, but the Salish tribes-Sinkayuse, Chelan, Okanogan, Entiat and Wenatchi-refused his appeals and reported, in 1877, while they were gathered on the council grounds at Wenatchee Flats, that they would remain at peace.⁽¹⁰⁾

After the cessation of Nez Perce hostilities,⁽¹¹⁾ Howard and the United States were even more apprehensive about placing the Plateau Salish tribes on reservations, especially the Sinkayuse, under Chief Moses. The Sinkayuse, now commonly known as the Moses Columbia, lived in the plains, valleys and great coulees to the east of Wenatchi territory. In 1878, with the Nez Perce matter behind him, Howard was intent on seeing a permanent peace arranged with Chief Moses, whom he feared might raise another rebellion, this time among the Salish tribes. Howard called a meeting at Priest Rapids, at which Moses and a number of Salish leaders attended, including Chief Harmelt, who had now taken on the first name of "William."⁽¹²⁾

Encouraged by United States officials, including Howard, Moses asserted for himself the role of spokesman for tribes between Yakima and the Canadian border and the Colville Reservation and the Cascades. At the council held at Priest Rapids in 1878 he lobbied for a reservation that would have included Wenatchi territory, but a local trader and friend of the Wenatchi spoke up, and Howard learned that the Wenatchi had already been promised a reserve. After the council, Howard recommended to Washington that a large reservation be set aside for Moses and his followers, and also recommended that the president formally set aside "the small tract secured to [the Wenatchi] by Colonel Wright, near the mouth of the Wenatchee," also submitting a map showing the location where he thought the Wenatchi reservation was supposed to be located.⁽¹³⁾

After conversion, the Wenatchi had the benefit of advice from priests who better understood the motives of Whites and the United States, and who could interpret political shifts and explain new legislation. One such piece of legislation was the Indian Appropriations Act passed by Congress in 1875, which had in it a provision which came to be known as the Indian Homestead Act, and which allowed Indians the right to make a homestead entry into one hundred sixty acres of the public domain.⁽¹⁴⁾

Jesuit missionary Father Urban Grassi visited with the Wenatchi in 1878 and reported that the tribe "seemed to be under the impression that the Americans wanted them to leave their lands and go to some Reservation, to which they have a great aversion." Father Grassi tried to calm their fears and suggested, undoubtedly referring to the recent passage of the Indian Homestead Act, that "if they would fence up a piece of land, build on it a little house and live peaceably they would never be molested." He said that, "This pleased them."⁽¹⁵⁾ The following year Chief William Harmelt echoed Father Grassi's advice when pressured to move his people to Yakima. He informed a United States military officer that he and the Wenatchi preferred to file the necessary papers to stay in their homes, where they were.⁽¹⁶⁾ However, homesteads at that time required the deposit of fees, which most of the Wenatchi probably could not afford, and also required surveys, which were also expensive and had not yet been done in their area.

During the following year, 1879, General Howard and the United States finally arranged to set aside a reservation for Moses and his followers. At first the crafty Moses had asked for a reservation that encompassed at least a portion of his territory, but he settled for a reservation that would include Methow territory and much of Chelan and Okanogan territory.⁽¹⁷⁾ Howard held a council at which Wenatchi Chief Harmelt was present. Both Howard and Moses encouraged the Wenatchi to move to the new Columbia Reservation. Harmelt professed his friendship with Whites, saying they all couldn't be rascals, but steadfastly refused to move with his people from their homeland.⁽¹⁸⁾ Howard's officers reported that Harmelt was adamant in stating that Moses did not represent the Wenatchi and that they were intent on filing the necessary papers to establish Indian homesteads where they lived.⁽¹⁹⁾ Though by this date the Wenatchi had evidently begun to seriously doubt whether their reservation had ever been set aside, as yet very few Whites were competing for their lands and they still seemed secure in their homeland.

Throughout the early 1880s Wenatchi territory remained largely free of non-Indians. Sam Miller had married an Indian woman and was running a trading post at the mouth of the Wenatchee River, maintaining good relations with the Wenatchi Tribe.⁽²⁰⁾ A few other white men had married Wenatchi women and were living among the tribe along the river. But when Francis Marion Streamer, the transient journalist and Civil War veteran, visited the valley in 1882, the only other non-Indian he reported seeing was Catholic priest Father Grassi. Streamer described the fishing activities of the Wenatchi and visiting guests from other tribes at the Wenatchapam Fishery. Willow weirs were constructed across the river using five hundred poles and involving dozens of Indian men working on the project, including divers. The women constructed drying racks along the banks and prepared the salmon for winter use. Prayers were said to the trees that were cut, and as the first catch was brought into the camps along the river, the people engaged in their annual First Salmon Feast.⁽²¹⁾

In 1883 and 1884 several events transpired that would weaken the Wenatchis' relative insulation from non-Indians. To the north, along the Canadian border, White miners and settlers had lobbied Congress to open the Columbia Reservation. In 1883, Moses again traveled to Washington, D. C., this time with Okanogan leaders Sarsarpkin and Tonasket, and agreed to the opening of the Columbia Reservation. The tribal people who actually lived on the Columbia Reservation (Methow, Entiat/Chelan and Okanogan tribes) were allowed the choice of moving to Colville or staying where they were and taking square-mile allotments. In the same year, a fifteen mile wide strip along the top of the reservation was opened to the miners and settlers.⁽²²⁾ It would be another three years before the proposed allotments were completed and the entire reservation was opened to non-Indian settlement,⁽²³⁾ but the opening of the fifteen mile strip and the anticipation of other lands becoming available encouraged non-Indian movement into the region. This movement of non-Indians into the region was stimulated to an even greater level by the completion of the Northern Pacific railway during the same year.

In order for a settler to file a legal homestead on lands in the public domain, it was necessary to obtain a survey of those lands. That was a relatively inexpensive procedure if a cadastral survey of the surrounding township had already been accomplished. But if the desired homestead was on unsurveyed lands, it was necessary for the prospective homesteader to make a "special deposit" to cover the cost of the survey. In 1879, by an act of Congress the special deposit system was changed to make special deposits negotiable. This amendment to the 1862 Special Deposit Act prompted the organization of a wide-reaching criminal syndicate which sought to take advantage of the system through fraud. By 1883, the "Benson Syndicate" was conducting fraudulent surveys throughout the West, including in Washington. Several fraudulent surveys submitted to the General Land Office by the syndicate in 1883 and 1884 covered portions of Wenatchi territory, including the village and lands of John Harmelt, who had replaced his father as Chief of the Wenatchi.⁽²⁴⁾ Although these surveys are demonstrably fraudulent, they had the effect of opening the area to what were thus questionable homestead entries.⁽²⁵⁾

Chief John Harmelt and the Wenatchi, while clinging to the belief that the United States would honor their treaty reservation, were pragmatic enough to desire to file Indian homesteads. Although such homesteads had been legal since 1875, they required fees that were significant to an Indian living in a traditional resource-based economy. Added to that, the fact that the lands had not been surveyed meant homesteads required a special deposit and were even more expensive, essentially completely out of reach to the Indians.⁽²⁶⁾ Now, with some surveys completed in Wenatchi territory, albeit fraudulent surveys, Chief Harmelt and the Wenatchi, undoubtedly encouraged and helped by the Catholic priests, tried to take advantage of the opportunity and began to file for homesteads on lands near or covering their traditional villages. Eventually, Wenatchis filed on more than thirty homesteads, at least fourteen of them located in townships fraudulently surveyed by the Benson Syndicate.⁽²⁷⁾ Although in 1884 Congress had amended the Indian Homestead Act to waive all commissions and fees for Indians filing homesteads, local land agents still required the Wenatchi to pay improper and excessive fees.⁽²⁸⁾ After the Columbia Reservation allotments had been assigned, in 1886 the reservation was opened for non-Indian settlement. Exaggerated reports of mineral wealth spurred some migration, and the newly-completed railroad made the region much more accessible. Though the Wenatchi were still anticipating (and fervently hoping) that the reservation promised them would be soon fully delivered, on the national level, Congress had served notice with passage of the General Allotment Act that it hoped to see existing reservations opened to non-Indian use.⁽²⁹⁾ Throughout it all, the Wenatchi remained ensconced in their homes along the Wenatchee River. The Catholic mission at Cashmere continued to provide support for them and Father de Rouge traveled through the area from 1885 until his death in 1916. Primarily as a result of disease, Wenatchi population had now been lowered to under two hundred, perhaps only ten percent of what it had been one hundred years earlier.⁽³⁰⁾

In 1887, Special Agent George W. Gordon reported the first conflict over lands in the Wenatchee Valley between the Wenatchi and a White settler.⁽³¹⁾ The following year Gordon was directed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to investigate Indian fishing rights in the Northwest.⁽³²⁾ While working on the Yakima Reservation, Gordon became familiar with Article 10 of the 1855 treaty, which established the Wenatchapam Fishery Reservation. He then traveled to the Wenatchee Valley to determine exactly where the reservation should be located, and consulted with Whites who lived in the area, who, in turn, described Colonel Wright marking off the boundaries of the reservation around 1855. It was reported to him that one of the Whites, Richard "Dick" Thompson, who had married a Wenatchi woman and lived among the tribe since the 1850s, said he was an eyewitness when Wright "staked off" the reservation around the forks where the Icicle River and Peshastin Creek flowed into the Wenatchee River, and, further, that he could identify where some of the monuments had been located. Another settler reported he thought the reservation was to be in the area of Mission Creek where most of the Indians now lived, and Gordon said Whites there were becoming nervous at the possibility of a reservation in the vicinity. The information from Thompson, however, indicated the reservation had been correctly located by Wright, who marked out its bounds between Icicle and Peshastin, along the Wenatchee River.⁽³³⁾

Gordon noted that the Wenatchi (he called them the "Yakima Indians of the We-nat-chee river") continued to fish at the Wenatchapam Fishery, "by means of traps or wicker work built in the river." He also noted that both Whites and Indians had made homestead entries in the area of Mission Creek. At the fishery he said there were few Whites, and they were "squatters, the lands being still unsurveyed." At Icicle forks, he "found the fishing camps, camp equipage, drying scaffolds and canoes of the Indians, who were absent in the mountains hunting." When Whites told him the Indians also fished further up the Wenatchee River, he traveled eight or ten miles up the river (to the vicinity of Chiwaukum Creek), and found "Indians fishing with extensive traps and drying houses." He asserted that "this was their main fishing ground on the Wenatchee during the last fishing season," but noted that since he had no interpreter he was able to gather very little information from the Wenatchi. He said that four to six hundred Indians gathered in the area to fish each season, a few coming from the west side of the Cascades, some from Yakima, but most from the Wenatchee Valley and Salish camps further north along the Okanogan River.⁽³⁴⁾

Gordon recommended that Wright's correspondence be searched to enable him to reestablish the boundaries of the reservation. If Wright's field notes could not be found, Gordon suggested establishing a commission to determine the correct location for the reservation. Because there were now white settlers near Mission Creek, he said the reservation might better be placed upstream at the forks of the Icicle, where there were few settlers, and they were all squatters, with no rights to the land, or better still, he conjectured, eight or ten miles up river where there were no white settlers at all, but where there were also good hunting grounds. To that point in time, he said, the Wenatchi had not been interfered with, where they fished the Wenatchapam Fishery along the Icicle and Wenatchee Rivers.⁽³⁵⁾

While the Wenatchi continued to utilize the Wenatchapam Fishery without interference, encroachments by Whites into the valley were now causing them to seriously doubt the United States' pledge to guarantee them their lands through a reservation. In 1890, Frank Streamer again visited the fishery at the forks of the Icicle and Wenatchee Rivers, where he talked with Chief Harmelt about "the old Colonel Wright and Sam-ow [Skamow] treaty reservation," watched Wenatchi catch and dry hundreds of salmon, weighing up to forty pounds each, at the fishery, and joined them in feasting.

"A feast of salmon broiled on sticks by the fire in the clear, scarlet-colored meat, is the great repast for delicacy and deliciousness of flavor-all purely salmon-without salt or seasoning of any kind."⁽³⁶⁾

But the following month, Streamer attended a "Grand Medicine Council" of tribal leaders at the traditional Wenatchi gathering place, the Wenatchee Flats Council grounds. Five hundred Indians attended, representing tribes from throughout the region, including Moses Columbia, Chelan, Nez Perce, Spokane, Entiat and Wenatchi. To the north of Wenatchi a White-imagined "Indian Scare" in the town of Ruby and the forced removal of Chelans from their homes at gunpoint, had helped to raise fear among the tribes.⁽³⁷⁾

On August 20, Wapato John, an Entiat leader who could speak English, dictated a letter to Streamer, to be sent to General Howard. He said that the Wenatchi wanted to know what had become of their treaty, which they believed granted them an eight mile square reservation where they lived along the Wenatchee River. They complained that they were not supposed to be charged fees for their Indian homesteads, but that the land office had charged them $22.00, and that Whites were now moving into what they thought were reservation lands. They also mentioned Gordon, and said that he had suggested their reservation should be placed further upstream from where it was supposed to be located, in a place "where a bear could not live." They told Howard they were "very poor, yet they fought for Colonel Wright and Washington City." Now Indian Agents were trying to force them to go to the Colville Reservation, "and forget where we belong...and whether we ever had a good father or mother or whether we [are] only coyotes to be shot at, and corralled [sic] like cayuses."⁽³⁸⁾

United States officials had been fully cognizant of their obligations toward the Wenatchi for over a decade, since before there was a single White entry into the public lands in Wenatchi Territory. General Howard had recommended action in 1879, Gordon in 1889, and now in 1890 Howard again asked Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morgan to take action. Howard reported on Streamer's letter and, calling Morgan a "real friend of the Indians," asked the commissioner to please take action in behalf of these Northwest Indians.⁽³⁹⁾

The anticipated arrival of the Great Northern Railroad in Wenatchi territory finally focused the attention of the delinquent federal government on Article 10 of the Yakima Treaty, forty-three years after its ratification by Congress. James J. Hill had begun construction of what would become the Great Northern Railroad in 1886, and the following year sent Albert Bowman Rogers to scout for a route through the Cascade Mountains. While the Northern Pacific had been completed in 1883, it had left Seattle without a major transcontinental connection. Hill sent Rogers to search for a route through the jagged Cascades to Seattle's port. On July 29, 1887, Rogers encountered a group of Wenatchi fishing at the Wenatchapam fishery, where Icicle Creek met the Wenatchee River. After explaining his objective, to find a route over the mountains, the Indians suggested he follow a route up Chumstick Canyon to Lake Wenatchee, and then on to Cady Pass. Rogers concluded that this route, which paralleled an old Wenatchi trail to the coast, was the best route over the North Cascades.⁽⁴⁰⁾

By late 1889 Hill's chief engineer, John F. Stevens, had been sent to map a rail route over the North Cascades. The letters of Stevens' assistant, engineer C. F. B. Haskell indicate that they first looked at Rogers' route, up Chumstick Canyon to Lake Wenatchee, a route for which Haskell said they would have to "cut a trail."⁽⁴¹⁾ Stevens agreed with Rogers' earlier conclusion that the Wenatchee drainage provided the best opportunity for a route over the mountains, but working with Haskell, in late 1890, designed a slightly different route, up Tumwater Canyon and over what would be named Stevens Pass in honor the engineer.⁽⁴²⁾

In order to acquire a four hundred foot wide right-of-way through unreserved portions of the public domain, the railroad was required to file a map showing a survey of the proposed route with the Secretary of the Interior, who then could approve the route, conveying the right-of-way to the railroad, subject to proof of actual construction.⁽⁴³⁾

Unfortunately for the Wenatchi, the Great Northern route passed directly through the lands that had been ordered reserved for their reservation forty-five years earlier. The railroad was fully aware of the crucial importance of the route over Stevens Pass to its financial success. In August, 1891, it submitted its map of the route from Mission Creek to the Icicle confluence.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Two months later the route was approved by Secretary of the Interior Noble.⁽⁴⁵⁾ The importance of this section of the route to the railroad can be seen by the fact that this map was filed before a route from Spokane to the mouth of the Wenatchee River had been determined.⁽⁴⁶⁾ Although the railroad had determined its route,⁽⁴⁷⁾ it did not submit a map showing the route from the Icicle confluence up Tumwater Canyon.

Between June and December, 1891, Haskell's engineering crew was locating the route through the Wenatchi drainage, and by early 1892 grading for the rails had begun on the west side of the Cascades and between Spokane and the Columbia River.⁽⁴⁸⁾

It had become virtually impossible to ignore the situation. Yakima Indian Agent Jay Lynch was aware of the great importance of fishing rights to tribes in the area, and had recently directed the local United States Marshal to prosecute anyone attempting to interfere with Indians' "exclusive right of taking fish in the streams where running through, or bordering" the Yakima Reservation.⁽⁴⁹⁾ On July 11, 1892 Lynch wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, quoting the text from Article 10 of the 1855 Yakima Treaty, and asking the Commissioner if the Wenatchapam Fishery Reserve had ever been "surveyed and definitely located and marked" as it should have been under the provisions of the treaty.⁽⁵⁰⁾ Finally, the commissioner acted, on September 8, directing Lynch:

"...to visit said fishery, reserved and set apart by said treaty for the use of said Indians, and to fix and determine, as best he could, the boundaries of said tract of land by metes and bounds or by natural objects, that it might be surveyed and marked out, under directions of the President, as the treaty stipulated, and to submit an estimate of the probable cost to have such tract of land as he might designate properly marked out and surveyed."⁽⁵¹⁾

After receiving his instructions, between September 20 and October 2, Lynch traveled about 150 miles to the Wenatchee River drainage and tried to determine the correct location of the Wenatchapam Fishery Reserve. He described the scenery in the drainage as "some of the wildest and I believe the grandest mountain scenery in the world," and said that he had hopes that "what seemed to be a lost Reservation may be again restored to these Indians."⁽⁵²⁾

Nearly three weeks later he submitted his report, claiming to have traveled up the Wenatchee River to the Lake Wenatchee, where he observed two large creeks entering into the river. These, he concluded, represented the "forks" in the treaty, and then he recommended a reservation that took in the head of the Wenatchee River and the next ten miles of the river's length. He noted that there were only three or four white men in that area, who were squatting on unsurveyed lands, with the intent of cutting timber. Reporting the cost of surveying at $18 per mile, he calculated the cost of surveying the reservation at $540 and suggested that the 23,000 acre reservation be immediately surveyed as settlers were bound to arrive in the area via the Great Northern Railroad which would soon be completed through the valley.⁽⁵³⁾

A little less than a month later Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morgan recommended to the Secretary of the Interior that by executive order the president authorize a survey of the reservation, following Lynch's suggestions, but "provided that the lines surveyed and marked out when completed should embrace the whole of the land contemplated to be set apart by the treaty, and approximately near the area named therein." Two days later President Benjamin Harrison approved the proposed order and with his signature, made it law.⁽⁵⁴⁾

With his proposed boundaries of the reservation, Lynch intended to include the Chiwaukum fishing grounds described by Gordon in 1889, which were within eleven or twelve miles of the head of the Wenatchee River, but his conclusion that the confluence of Nason Creek and the Chiwawa River with the Wenatchee formed the "forks" in the river was clearly in error, and understood to be in error even by those Whites in the area who opposed the reservation. J. J. Matthews said that he lived seven miles below the lake and that Lynch only came up the river as far as "the old fishery," where the Chiwaukum flowed into the Wenatchee. There, because of high water, he turned back and produced his proposal using a defective map.⁽⁵⁵⁾ James H. Chase and other Whites who had recently moved to the area also pointed out to the commissioner that Lynch's reservation was many miles upstream from where the traditional fishery was located.⁽⁵⁶⁾

The Commissioner of the General Land Office moved quickly. In December the office instructed the Surveyor General of Washington to let a contract.⁽⁵⁷⁾ President Harrison had been defeated in the national election in November and would soon be replaced by Grover Cleveland. Even though Agent Lynch had incorrectly placed the reservation at least fifteen miles from where should have been correctly located, probably in order to protect White squatters, he was still worried that the next administration would be even less sympathetic to the Indians. Anxious about the lack of a survey, he wrote to the Commissioner on December 20, saying:

"I trust this matter can be permanently settled during the present administration, and if there is anything more I can do to assist in the matter for these Indians, please instruct."⁽⁵⁸⁾

But it took the Surveyor General of Washington until May, 1893 to let a contract with Deputy Surveyor Oliver B. Iverson to survey the "Wenatshapam Fishery Reserve."⁽⁵⁹⁾ The Harrison administration had not moved fast enough and in June Agent Lynch was replaced by Agent L. T. Erwin before the survey could be completed.⁽⁶⁰⁾

In the meantime, the survey of the reservation was to be further jeopardized by actions of the Great Northern. As 1892 came to a close, James J. Hill was desperate to complete his rail line over the Cascades. With the Northern Pacific verging on bankruptcy, Hill feared it would lower its rates to better compete against the Great Northern. The nation was teetering on the brink of a national economic depression. Hill, the industrialist, fumed, was furious at delays, and was nearly hysterical when he learned the railroad would not be finished earlier in 1892. Hill relentlessly pushed thousands of workers to finish the line over the Cascades in the dead of winter, until at last the final spike connecting the rails to the west coast was driven on January 6, 1893.⁽⁶¹⁾

The railroad line had been built, but in its frantic rush to drive the final spike, the right-of-way for the railroad through the crucial Tumwater Canyon section had not been obtained from the United States. The railroad had failed to file a map of this section of the route with the General Land Office, a procedure required in order to obtain its four hundred foot wide right-of-way.⁽⁶²⁾

In March, 1893, before the contract with Iverson had been let, James H. Chase wrote to Hill informing him of the pending action to survey the Wenatchi reservation. Chase told Hill that the reservation, as described by Lynch, would encompass eight miles of the railroad's tracks and would block the use of 23,000 acres of good timber. He also asserted that Whites already claimed all of the area.

"I have thought it probable that this matter was of sufficient interest to the road to interest you and possibly to have you take such steps in the matter as will cause the Govt. to fully investigate it before any thing more is done, and finally to drop it altogether."⁽⁶³⁾

Hill directed his Secretary to respond to Chase, saying that "he expects to be in Washington in the latter part of this month, and will then take the matter up with the Department."⁽⁶⁴⁾

It was not until June, 1893, that the first passenger service from St. Paul to Seattle was to begin, and engineer Stevens recalled work on the line over the summit continuing until October of 1893.⁽⁶⁵⁾ So when Deputy Surveyor Iverson finally arrived to survey the Wenatchapam Fishery Reserve, the railroad's men were still working on the line, even though the Great Northern did not have a valid easement or right-of-way through much of the land that had been designated as a reservation nearly forty years earlier, in 1855.

After consulting with the Surveyor General, who instructed him to run the reservation lines parallel with the river, rather than as a rectangle, Iverson and his crew began working on August 10. He completed a preliminary survey of the exterior bounds, bounds that would include ten linear miles of the Wenatchee River where it leaves Lake Wenatchee, generally southward towards Tumwater Canyon. He had already begun the final survey when Agent Erwin arrived.⁽⁶⁶⁾

Erwin concluded that the reservation "ran across the railroad,"⁽⁶⁷⁾ and ordered Iverson to move the reservation boundaries another ten miles up into the mountains.

"You will discontinue your present survey of the Wenatshapam Fishery Reserve, and begin at a point westerly by meanders of the shore of the Lake Wenatchee one mile from where the Wenatchee River leaves the same, running thence south one mile, thence east six miles; thence north six miles, thence west six miles, thence south to the place of beginning."⁽⁶⁸⁾

Iverson and his crew went back out and destroyed the monuments that had been created and the trees that had been scored to mark the bounds of the reservation described in his contract. Iverson then surveyed a new line to match the reservation ordered by Erwin, the southern boundary of which was now some twenty-five miles up the Wenatchee River and far away from the actual Wenatchapam Fishery. When he finished, he provided a "General Description" of the newly surveyed reservation. Iverson must have been well aware that the "Wenatshapam Fishery Reserve" was supposed to protect an important Indian fishery. In his description he pointed out that only "a few salmon" made it past Tumwater Falls to go further up the Wenatchee River, and they "are so battered up as to be unfit for food." He said that there were trout to be found in Lake Wenatchee and in the rivers flowing through the reserve as surveyed, but that they did "not appear to be abundant or easily caught."⁽⁶⁹⁾

While the reservation was being surveyed in its new location, now high in the mountains, Chief Harmelt and a Wenatchi delegation sought out Erwin and met with him. They protested the location of the reserve and said that it should be further down the river, "below Icicle." Erwin admitted the reservation was being surveyed in the wrong location, but claimed to have nothing to do with its placement. Although he had just moved the reservation from the location identified by Agent Lynch, and ordered the surveyor to destroy the survey makers already set, Erwin told Harmelt and the Wenatchi, "I have no power nor authority to change the location." He told the Indians that former agent Lynch had located the reservation and there was nothing he could do about the location.⁽⁷⁰⁾

After Chief Harmelt protested to Agent Erwin about the mis-location of the survey, he sought out a sympathetic White, F. D. Schnebly, in Ellensburg and had him draft a letter to the Post Commander at Fort Vancouver. Two Wenatchis, probably Harmelt and an associate, then traveled to the post and delivered the letter, in which they claimed the right to a reservation below Icicle, not above. The Army first forwarded the letter to the agent at the Colville Reservation, but when he reported that he knew nothing of the claims, it was forwarded to Erwin on the Yakima Reservation. The military authorities at Fort Vancouver later reported they heard nothing back from the Yakima Agent.⁽⁷¹⁾

Even before the survey was completed, Whites in the area began to protest against the reservation's very existence.⁽⁷²⁾ In response, new Commissioner of Indian Affairs Browning suggested that Whites submit a petition to him, which he could then use to facilitate a cession of the reservation.⁽⁷³⁾ At about the same time, Agent Erwin reported to the Commissioner that the Wenatchapam Fishery Reserve had been surveyed. But Erwin used the same subterfuge with the Commissioner that he had used on Harmelt and the Wenatchi. He told the commissioner that he had been visited by "quite a number of Wenatshapam Indians," who were "protesting against the location of the fishery at Lake Wenatchee," and said that it should be located "further down the river." In that, Erwin was honest, but he went on, saying, "As I had no discretion to change the location, it has caused much dissatisfaction."⁽⁷⁴⁾ The commissioner fixed on this piece of misinformation in recommending to the Secretary of the Interior that the United States seek a cession of the reserve. Even before the reservation survey was submitted to the General Land Office for approval, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs asked the Secretary of Interior for authority to seek a cession of the reserve, claiming the reservation had been mislocated by former Agent Lynch, and using that mislocation as justification for the cession.⁽⁷⁵⁾

On October 2, 1893, the Secretary of the Interior authorized negotiations to obtain a cession of the reserve, before the survey had been submitted to the general land office, let alone certified as accurately representing the mandated description in Article 10 of the 1855 treaty.⁽⁷⁶⁾ The Commissioner and Secretary gave the appearance that they were unaware that Article 10 of the 1855 Treaty provided for a reservation specifically designated for the benefit of the Wenatchi Tribe,⁽⁷⁷⁾ and arranged for a cession council instead with the Yakima Tribe. But they did recognize that the Wenatchi should participate in the council and be parties to any agreement. In mid-October, 1893, they appointed Yakima Agent L. T. Erwin, together with Special Agent John Lane to represent the United States at the cession council.⁽⁷⁸⁾

When former Agent Lynch learned that the survey had placed the reservation up in the mountains at Lake Wenatchee, he wrote to complain about the whole affair. He said the survey had resulted in a great injustice, and that the reservation he had described included salmon fishing grounds about ten miles below the lake. He said the Indians were "astonished and bewildered" that there was now a move to get them to cede the reservation.

"I do not think I can give you a clearer idea of the situation than to quote the remarks of an old Indian in making his argument to me in behalf of their old fishery: 'Does our Great Father at Washington think a salmon is an eagle that lives on top of a mountain, or does he think a salmon is a deer that lives in the woods and hills, or does he think a salmon is a mountain goat that lives among the rocks of the snow-covered mountains?'"

Lynch said the old Indian told him they wanted their salmon fishery on the river, not on a mountain lake containing little trout. He said that the Whites were driving them away from their legitimate fishery reserve, which was given to them a long time ago by Governor Stevens.⁽⁷⁹⁾

Erwin and Lane opened their cession council with Yakimas and Wenatchi on December 18, 1893. Chief John Harmelt and the Wenatchi had traveled over the mountains in cold weather through deep snow to reach the council, which Erwin introduced by saying he wanted to hear "especially from those who come from the Wenatchee who live in the neighborhood of this fishery."⁽⁸⁰⁾ But then Erwin was yet again dishonest with the Wenatchi. He again admitted that the reservation had not been properly located, and again said former agent Lynch was responsible and that he, Erwin, had not had the authority to change the location of the reservation. He recalled meeting Harmelt and the Wenatchi the previous summer near Lake Wenatchee when Harmelt told him that "no Indian could live there because the snow was too deep." Again, Erwin admitted the reservation was clearly misplaced, but did not reveal to the Indians that he, himself had ordered that the reservation boundaries be moved to that location in the mountains. Then Erwin suggested to the Wenatchi that their only alternative was to sell the improperly located reserve.

"Now the question then resolves itself into this: Would it not be wise to sell the fishery not properly located; a piece of land that might get into the courts and if it did get into court you might lose all your rights. To avoid all this, the Government sends Special Agent Lane with a proposition to buy it."⁽⁸¹⁾

With this statement, Erwin made a calculated effort to mislead the Indians. He claimed that since the reservation was improperly located it might be illegal, yet indicated that the Indians had only the choice of selling the reservation, not the choice of rejecting the sale and having it properly located. In fact, the General Land Office later did reject the survey as invalid,⁽⁸²⁾ which indicates how central Erwin's misrepresentation was to the outcome of the negotiations.

Although there is no documentary evidence available to demonstrate that Erwin was paid to defraud the Wenatchis, Erwin's own statements and his close association with the Great Northern Railroad and local Whites suggest that the motivation for his duplicity was not merely to obtain good favor with railroad officials and endear himself to White squatters.

The Yakimas seemed unmoved by Erwin's representations. Old Captain Eneas said he could recall the words said at the 1855 treaty council, and that the reservation was set aside to provide for the Wenatchis' homes and to protect their fishery. He said he could not vote to take away their reservation, concluding, "I am not going over to my friend's house and throw him off his place and tell him I would get rich and fat off his place."⁽⁸³⁾ He told Erwin that it was for the Wenatchi to decide what to do. It was their reservation, and not the Yakima's. It was time for the Government "to treat these Wenatchee Indians right."

"You talk to these Wenatchee Indians and ask them what they want for that land, but not the Yakimas. That is all I have to say."⁽⁸⁴⁾

After Joe Stwire, another Yakima leader, also told the Erwin and Lane that any decision must come from the Wenatchi, Lane asked Chief Harmelt to speak. Harmelt began, saying "I did not come here to lie to anybody. I have come here with a true, honest heart." Then he gave a detailed account of the reservation and of the tribe's dealings with Colonel Wright and Captain Archer in the 1850s, and of the Wenatchis' efforts in behalf of Whites over the years. Harmelt concluded:

"Last year a paper came and said 'The Wenatshapam Reservation will be renewed.' All the Indians were glad. We thought we would find our country now. We are treated poorly by the whites in that country. If we lived in our own reservation, we would be all right, therefore I am here to talk about it."

"We don't want to sell this reservation. That is all I have to say."⁽⁸⁵⁾

Erwin relentlessly cajoled and pressured Chief Harmelt, who responded by saying, simply, "We want to have our own, that is all." Eventually, Erwin took a different tack, himself relenting to Harmelt's demands. Erwin said that now he wanted to fix things so the Wenatchi would be satisfied. Yakima Joe Stwire produced a copy of the map made by Stevens in 1857 which verified that the Wenatchapam Reserve was meant to include the Icicle forks. Erwin then suggested that if the Indians would cede the reservation, as surveyed, the Wenatchi would each receive an allotment of up to 160 acres where they now lived, within what should have been the legitimate boundaries of the reservation, between Icicle and Mission Creek, and that they would retain their fishing rights. Since there were approximately 180 Wenatchi still living in the Wenatchee Valley, this meant the Wenatchi were being promised between 14,400 and 28,800 acres of allotments along the river (80 acre allotments of farmland or 160 acre allotments of grazing land). This prospect seemed to please the Chief Harmelt, and to somewhat satisfy the Yakimas, who persistently demanded that the Wenatchis' treaty rights be respected. At this point in the proceedings, Harmelt and the other Wenatchi set out for home, to discuss the proposal with their people, and with the expectation and promise that Erwin would meet with them "in a short time" to arrange the Wenatchi allotments.⁽⁸⁶⁾

On December 21, 1893, Erwin and Lane adjourned the cession council until early January and wired the Commissioner to say they believed they had reached an agreement. Some of the Yakimas, now believing that the Wenatchis' treaty rights had been guaranteed, were willing to discuss a price for the Wenatchapam Reserve, and suggested $1.50 an acre (Lynch suggested it was worth $10-20 an acre), but the Commissioner would not approve that amount. The two agents reconvened the council on January 6, 1894, this time without inviting the Wenatchi to attend. The Yakimas again demanded and received assurances that the Wenatchis' treaty rights should be protected. Charley Skummit rose to speak and pointed out, "You said you would allot this land where they lived." Then added, "Everybody heard it." Erwin assured them that each of the Wenatchi would receive an allotment, a total of at least 10,000 acres, he said, and then emphasized to the Yakimas that the agreement would "not interfere with their [the Wenatchis'] rights at all." Finally the Yakimas agreed to cede the Wenatchapam Reserve for a total payment of $20,000.⁽⁸⁷⁾

Most of the pertinent correspondence relating to the Wenatchapam Fishery Reserve was forwarded to Congress by the Interior Department prior to the ratification of the cession on August 15, 1894.⁽⁸⁸⁾ What was not forwarded to Congress was the official notification of the Commissioner of the General Land Office that the survey of the reservation had been rejected, as being "directly contrary to...instructions, and in variance with the description of the boundaries of said fishery."⁽⁸⁹⁾ Commissioner Lamoreux had demanded that the survey make "secure to the Indians ten miles or more of the Wenatchee River within its limits," but (despite the continuing controversy in the General Land Office over the fraudulent surveys of the Benson Syndicate) had waived the necessary field examination because, as he understood it, the reservation was to be ceded and "the object to be obtained by said survey will have been otherwise secured to the Indians."⁽⁹⁰⁾ In other words, since the Wenatchi were to receive between fourteen and twenty-nine thousand acres of allotments, and the reservation was to be ceded, a field examination was unnecessary. However, even with those facts in mind, when he finally saw the survey and reviewed the Iverson field notes, which were not submitted until May, 1894,⁽⁹¹⁾ he rejected the survey. It becomes doubly clear how dishonest Erwin was with the Indians. Not only did he change the location of the reservation, but he changed it so radically that the General Land Office completely rejected the survey.

Not surprisingly, the Great Northern Railroad came to the defense of both the survey and Deputy Surveyor Iverson. The railroad's chief engineer, John F. Stevens, wrote to the surveyor general supporting Iverson's survey, and directed his chief draughtsman to submit letters. The railroad also submitted a detailed map of the area, showing its route through the Chiwaukum fishing grounds that Lynch had tried to make a part of the reservation.⁽⁹²⁾ Erwin, too, wrote to Commissioner Lamoreux, for the first time admitting he ordered the reservation moved, and defending that action on the basis of a supposed conflict with the railroad.⁽⁹³⁾

With congressional ratification of the Wenatchapam cession, and the receipt of the railroad letters in support of the misplaced survey, Commissioner Lamoreux yielded, and in September authorized payment to Iverson for the survey, but noted that his acceptance of the survey would "only extend to the payment of the account of the deputy."⁽⁹⁴⁾ Similarly the plat filed with the surveyor general indicated the map was "accepted only so far as payment of account," indicating the lands had never been formally withdrawn from the public domain.⁽⁹⁵⁾ Thus, as far as the General Land Office was concerned, the United States never complied with the 1855 treaty by setting aside the Wenatchapam Fishery Reserve which was required under the terms of by Article 10.

The United States was fully aware of its obligations under the ratified agreement with the Yakimas. The Indian Office directed Erwin to see to it that each Wenatchi Indian would receive an allotment of from 80 to 160 acres, depending on the percentage of grazing and agricultural land within the allotment boundaries, as provided for under the act passed by Congress ratifying the agreement. Erwin was provided with enough blank allotment forms to provide for 24,000 acres of allotments and told to see to it that the congressionally-mandated allotments were made.⁽⁹⁶⁾

Erwin had intentionally misrepresented himself to both the Yakima and to the Wenatchi, concealing and not disclosing information that was central to the Indians' understanding of their options, inducing the Indians to rely upon his statements when deciding whether or not to surrender their legal right to the Wenatchapam Fishery Reserve. Now he was being entrusted by the United States to see to it that the Wenatchi received an equivalent amount of allotted acres, where they lived, along the Wenatchee River. It is not surprising that he failed to make a single allotment.

Erwin's report to the commissioner again contained gross misrepresentations. He claimed that the lands demanded by Wenatchi had "been settled and occupied by Whites for more than twenty years."⁽⁹⁷⁾ In fact no Whites had made any legitimate entries in Wenatchi territory until 1884 (ten years earlier), and most of the land within the Wenatshapam fishery area remained open and unclaimed. Both Gordon and Streamer, in 1889 and 1890, reported very few Whites in the valley and hardly any in the upper valley, this, not to mention the fact that the few Whites who were actually homesteading in the lower valley were taking advantage of fraudulent surveys that had been conducted there.

Erwin reported that when they learned that the Yakima had ceded their reservation, the Wenatchi indignantly pointed out "it was their Fishery, and their property, and that the Yakima Nation of Indians, had absolutely no right nor title to any of it." Erwin said that when the Wenatchi had been told all the details of the cession they absolutely refused to deal with him, even to give him their names.⁽⁹⁸⁾ Erwin's dwindling credibility was further undermined by the submission of petitions containing the signatures of over two hundred Yakimas, who also pointed out that the reservation had been surveyed in the wrong location, who claimed that Erwin had told them 10,000 acres would not be ceded and would be provided to the Wenatchi, and who asserted Erwin had lied to them about the price that would be paid to them per acre. "We think," the Yakimas concluded, "...our Agent should not be party to the fraud."⁽⁹⁹⁾

Chief Harmelt and the Wenatchis also tried to explain their understanding of the situation to authorities in Washington, D. C. On September 4, 1894, Harmelt again sought out F. D. Schnebly in Ellensburg and asked him to write another letter in behalf of the Wenatchis. In this letter, Schnebly indicated that Harmelt's understanding of the 1894 agreement was that Erwin was to have surveyed for them an eight square mile reservation on the Wenatchee River (where they now lived), below the new town of Leavenworth. He said that this reservation was to be in lieu of the one promised to them by Colonel Wright nearly forty years earlier.⁽¹⁰⁰⁾

With no allotments made, the Indian Office attempted another tack. The commissioner authorized Erwin to pay each of the Wenatchi living in the Wenatchee Valley $9.30 for their rights to the ceded reservation.⁽¹⁰¹⁾ Eventually, Erwin was able to provide a census of 180 Wenatchi still living in the Wenatchee Valley.⁽¹⁰²⁾ Chief Harmelt later provided a moving description of how Erwin took him into a stable and tried to force him to take his $9.30, which he refused.⁽¹⁰³⁾ Erwin's exceptionally venal efforts failed and no allotments were made. Still, the Wenatchi clung to their meager possessions and handful of Indian homesteads.

Three years later, in 1897, Indian Inspector W. J. McConnell arrived at the Yakima Reservation to investigate complaints from the Indians there, including complaints regarding Erwin. McConnell confirmed to the Secretary of the Interior that the "Indians had just cause for complaint" against Erwin.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ When the normally staid McConnell heard the Yakimas tell him the story of the Wenatchapam Fishery Reserve, he blew up, writing directly to the Secretary of the Interior. McConnell recounted the history of what he called an "outrageous" effort of the United States to obtain a cession of the Wenatchapam Fishery Reserve, and referred to a recent council where the Yakima Eneas summarized what had happened, by saying, "We have stole the money from the poor Indians of the Wenatchee and has made enemies between me and that man [Erwin].⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ McConnell did not mince his words in demanding that the United States be held accountable for its actions against both the Wenatchi and the Yakimas.

"Are we a nation of thieves and unmitigated scoundrels? Are we devoid of all sense of honor? Does seventy millions of people because of their superior numbers and intelligence propose, little by little to deprive the sorely depleted tribes in the West of the small patrimony their more magnanimous conquerors the early settlers in this country gave them? or more properly speaking allowed them to retain. After wresting from them the heritage which had descended to them from generation to generation.

"Will the interest of private individuals or the greed of corporations be allowed to sully our nation's honor? Must men like myself who assisted in redeeming the wilderness and who are to-day powerless to undo the wrongs which were partially of our doing, bow our heads in humiliation at the recital of the falsity of the promises we have made?"⁽¹⁰⁶⁾

The Indian Office response to McConnell's question as to whether theirs was a nation of thieves and unmitigated scoundrels, was that it was the Wenatchis' own fault that they had lost the reservation, as they had "slept upon their rights by failing to have said fishery definitely located..."⁽¹⁰⁷⁾

Although with another change in administration the following year, Erwin was replaced by former agent Lynch, it would be two years before any effort was made to provide the tribe with their promised allotments. Chief Harmelt and several other Wenatchi leaders continued to protest their loss of land and rights, traveling to Washington, D. C. to air grievances on at least two occasions, and petitioning the government in 1899 and 1900.⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ In response to the work of Harmelt, as well as to the complaints from Whites, who wanted the Indians removed from the valley altogether, early in 1900 the Department of the Interior finally sent an allotting agent, William E. Casson, to deal with the Wenatchi.

Between 1900 and 1902, Casson did his best to convince the Wenatchi not to take allotments in the Wenatchee Valley, but to move either to the Colville or Yakima Reservation. The Wenatchi continued to resist, but more and more Whites were moving into the valley and good agricultural land was becoming more scarce. In the end, Casson laid one more layer of deceit over Wenatchi lands. Although the Wenatchi were eligible for allotments of at least 24,000 acres of grazing land, Casson only arranged for twenty-two allotments with a total of about 2,800 acres. That might have been a small positive step for the Wenatchi but for the fact that Casson and the Indian Office also allowed all of the 2,800 acres of Wenatchi Indian Homesteads to be converted from trust to fee patent status. Most of these patent conversions were done illegally, without the approval of the individual Indians. Within a few years, largely as a result of taxes and fees that were imposed, all of the Wenatchi Indian homesteads were lost to Whites. While the Wenatchi were supposed to have gained 24,000 acres of land, their net gain from Casson's work was zero.⁽¹⁰⁹⁾

Casson's repeated declarations that there was insufficient land to provide the Wenatchi allotments was clearly in error. In 1905 more than half of the 64 square miles of reservation centering on Icicle was still unsurveyed and available to allotment. Much of this remains public land to this day. In 1905 only a handful of legal entries had been made by Whites. At least 36% of the lands desired by the Wenatchi (over 14,000 acres) were still available in that year. Today, 28% (or over 11,000 acres) is still public land.⁽¹¹⁰⁾

Against overwhelming odds, Chief Harmelt remained in the Wenatchee Valley, and continued to petition the government and protest the mistreatment of his people. In 1910 he petitioned the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, asking for some sort of redress for the wrongs suffered by his people.⁽¹¹¹⁾ By the 1920s the Wenatchi in the Wenatchee Valley were nearly destitute and suffering from disease and lack of food. Many families were forced to move to the Colville Reservation.⁽¹¹²⁾ Still, Harmelt clung to the belief that the United States would eventually respond to the tribe's claims. Chief Harmelt's continuing efforts led to a "Grand Pow-Wow" in 1931, at which nearly two hundred fifty Wenatchi voted to hire an attorney to pursue a claim against the United States.⁽¹¹³⁾ John Harmelt (who was now in his 80s) represented the Wenatchi at a major council in 1933, detailing the history of the Wenatchapam Reserve and demanding action from the superintendents of both the Yakima and Colville Reservations.⁽¹¹⁴⁾ Momentum built for a contract and the jurisdictional legislation necessary to file a lawsuit against the United States. In 1933 attorney Frederick Kemp was retained by the Wenatchi and submitted a contract to the Indian Office for approval, stating:

"The purported consent to the sale of this Wenatchee Fishery at a tribal meeting at Yakima was a pure fraud on the Wenatchee Indians to whom this fishery right and the township reservation was of special benefit."⁽¹¹⁵⁾

But no action on the contract was taken for two years and after Indian Commissioner John Collier learned that Wenatchi at Colville opposed his proposed Indian Reorganization Act constitution, the department killed the proposed contract in 1935.⁽¹¹⁶⁾ Kemp shot back a furious letter to Collier:

"Frankly, in my opinion the Government, itself, should have investigated this claim of the Indians by its own special agents and investigators many years ago, and made restitution for these Wenatchee Indians. For the Government was a party of the fraud that was practiced on them."⁽¹¹⁷⁾

It is tragically ironic that it was on Independence Day, 1937, that a fire destroyed John Harmelt's home in the Wenatchee Valley, killing both him and his wife.⁽¹¹⁸⁾

Only 480 acres of Wenatchi land remains in trust in the Wenatchee Valley today, of what should have been at least 24,000 acres. Yet, unbent by the failure of the United States to respect their rights, the Wenatchi continue to press for recognition of their fishing, hunting and gathering rights in the heartland of their aboriginal territory.⁽¹¹⁹⁾ Paramount among those rights are salmon fishing rights on the Wenatchee River near the Icicle forks.

--------

Any measure of tribal life must necessarily be a measure of tribal tradition, as that is the cement that holds tribal structure together. Among people of Wenatchi descent on the Colville Reservation today, tribal tradition continues at all levels of culture-social, religious, and political. The tribe continues to maintain the knowledge necessary to traditional subsistence survival, continues a close attachment to and interrelationship with its aboriginal territory, and is organized by mutually held customs and beliefs, which include cultural understandings of tribal philosophy, folklore, religious activity, and political structure.

Wenatchi religious activities continue through all seasons of the year. The same songs that were sung by their ancestors in mat lodges on the banks of the Wenatchee River are still sung at winter dances today. Stick games are played while people sing other songs passed down from generation to generation. Other songs and prayers accompany the First Roots Feast, the First Salmon Feast and the First Berry Feast each year. And children are still taught Wenatchi stories about Coyote, Kingfisher and Mole.

Traditional hunting, fishing and gathering practices are particularly important to the tribe. Traditional subsistence activities continue. People dig camas and bitterroots in the spring. They hunt for deer and gather huckleberries in the mountains in the late summer. And the graves of their ancestors are cleaned and decorated each year. It is central to tribal needs, to be able to fish at their centuries old fishery at the forks of the Icicle and Wenatchee Rivers.

Far from pessimistic, Wenatchis today say their hard work and persistence in seeking recognition of their rights will pay off and that victory is now within sight. They say that the United States ultimately must recognize the rights that were guaranteed them in 1855 and again in 1894, the rights Chief Harmelt fought for, the rights Wenatchis have asserted throughout the 20th century.

1. Although better known in the literature by the Sahaptin name "Wenatchi," the tribe today, as one of the Colville Confederated Tribes, also uses its own Salish name for itself, "P'squosa."

The spelling for "Yakima" has been retained here to remain historically consistent with cited documents. In recent years that tribe has revised the spelling of its name to "Yakama."

2. Iverson, Oliver B., U. S. Deputy Surveyor. "Field Notes of the Survey of Wenatshapam Fishery Reserve." Office of the U. S. Surveyor General, State of Washington, December, 1893. Surveyor Fieldnotes, Oregon State Office Information Access Center, Bureau of Land Management, Microfiche, Volume 103, pp. 1-42, in which is pasted Erwin to Iverson, August 18, 1893.

Erwin to Iverson, August 18, 1893, copy, BIA, Yakima Indian Agency, Press copies of letters sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1882, 1914; Box 12, 1891, 1893; National Archives--Pacific NW Region [hereafter NA-PNW].

3. Doty, James and Isaac I. Stevens. "Official Proceedings at the Council held at the Council Ground in the Walla Walla Valley with the Yakima Nation of Indians and which resulted in the conclusion of a Treaty on the 9^th day June 1855," Documents Relating to the Negotiation of Ratified and Unratified Treaties with Various Tribes of Indians, 1801-1869, Record Group [hereafter RG] 75, Microcopy T-494, Roll 5, Ratified Treaties, 1854-1855, National Archives [hereafter NA].

Stevens, Isaac Ingalls. The True Copy of the Record of the Official Proceedings at the Council in the Walla Walla Valley, 1855, (edited by Darrell Scott). Ye Galleon Press: Fairfield, Washington; 1985, p. 69.

Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. II. "Treaty with the Yakima, 1855," (12 Stat., 951) Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office [hereafter GPO], 1904, pp. 698-702.

4. Ray, Verne F. "Ethnohistorical Notes on the Columbia, Chelan, Entiat, and Wenatchee Tribes," Interior Salish and Eastern Washington Indians IV. Garland Publishing Inc.: New York, 1974; pp. 424-426, described the Wenatchi village at the fishery, and the other uses of the landscape in the area.

Streamer, Francis Marion. "Life. Celestial and Terrestrial. And Walks and Talks of Francis Marion Streamer." Vol. II. 1890, pp. 5-6, 327 and transcriptions from pp. 36, 323 and 364. Streamer Collection, original and on Microfilm, Washington State Historical Society; Tacoma, Washington. Streamer provided vivid descriptions of fisheries in the 1880s and 1890s.

Streamer, Francis, Marion. Miscellaneous Notebooks and Correspondence. Streamer Collection, original and on Microfilm, Washington State Historical Society; Tacoma, Washington.

5. Proceedings of Council between Moses, other Indians, and General Howard, at Priest Rapids, September 7 and 8, 1878. RG 75, Office of Indian Affairs, 1824-1880, Microcopy No. M 234, Roll 918, NA.

United States. Senate. "Letter from the Secretary of the Interior, Transmitting A copy of an agreement with the Yakima Nation of Indians, and a draft of a bill to ratify same," March 19, 1894. Executive Document No. 67, 53rd Congress, 2nd Session, [hereafter SED 67] esp. pp. 25-26.

Streamer, Francis Marion. "Life. Celestial and Terrestrial..."Vol. II. 1890.

Streamer to Major General O. O. Howard, Governor's island, New York City, August 20, 1890, Streamer Letters, MSS., Archives of the Washington State Historical Society.

John Hermilt and Louis Judge to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, January 3, 1910, CCF 1907-1939, 5330-1910-300 Yakima, RG 75, NA.

Judge, Louis. "Wenatchee Indians Ask Justice," The Washington Historical Quarterly, Vol. XVI. No. 1 (January, 1925), pp. 21-28.

Scheuerman, Richard D. (ed) The Wenatchi Indians: Guardians of the Valley. Fairfield, Washington: Ye Galleon Press, 1982, pp. 79-82.

Hackenmiller, Tom. Wapato Heritage: The History of the Chelan and Entiat Indians. Point Publishing (Wenatchee, 1995), p. 60.

Gordon, George W. "Report on the 'Wenatshapam Fishery' and Reservation guaranteed to the Indians of the Yakima Reservation, on the Wenatshapam River (now We-nat-chee) in Washington Territory," February 6, 1889. RG 75, BIA, Yakima Indian Agency, Copies of letters sent to the CIA, 1877-1921, Box #300 (Entry 91); NA-PNW.

Wenatchis say a more correct spelling for Skamow's name would be "Pschamouch."

6. SED67, pp. 24-34.

Raufer, Sister Maria Ilma, O.P., Black Robes and Indians on the Last Frontier: Introduction of Catholicism into the Colville Country (Colville, Wash.: Statesman Examiner Publishing, 1992) [first published 1966], reproducing Chief John Wapato to Frank M. Streamer, August 20, 1890; p. 76.

Judge,"Wenatchee Indians Ask Justice." pp. 20-28.

Hermilt, John and Louis Judge to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, May 18, 1899, RG 75, NA.

Tonner to Secretary of the Interior, March 11, 1898, M-1070, Yakima Agency, RG 48, Microfilm Roll 59, NA.

7. Lansdale to Archer, March 18, 1859; Fort Dalles Papers, Huntington Library; San Marino, California.

8. Chalfant, Stuart A. "Material Relative to Aboriginal Land Use and Occupancy by the Columbia Salish of Central Washington," Interior Salish and Eastern Washington Indians IV. Garland Publishing Inc.: New York, 1974; pp. 281-282, citing Teit and Mooney for some of his information, and listing epidemics of 1782-3, 1800, 1825, 1830-32, 1846, 1847, and 1852-3.

Chance, David H., "Influences of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Native Cultures of the Colville District," Northwest Anthropological Research Notes, vol. 7, no. 1, part 2, Moscow, Idaho, 1973, p. 27, estimated that the 1783 epidemic may have killed half the population of tribes in the area.

Mooney, James. "The Aboriginal Population of America North of Mexico," Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 80, Number 7, February 6, 1928, pp. 14-16.

9. Linsley, D. C. "Lake Chelan and Agnes Creek in 1870: A Journey up Lake Chelan by Indian Canoe," Northwest Discovery, Vol. 2, No. 6, 1981, pp. 382-401. Linsley described the trading post that had been established by Jack G. Ingram and a Mr. McBride.

Splawn, A. J., Ka-mi-akin: The Last Hero of the Yakimas (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1958) [1st printing 1917], pp. 328-329, described the earthquake.

Graham, Patrick J., ed., Colville Collection: Book I (Colville, Wash.: Statesman Examiner, 1989), pp. 67 and 113. Photographs of the Catholic mission as it looked before and after reconstruction in the 1930s.

Raufer, Black Robes and Indians on the Last Frontier...," pp. 38 56-57, 78-81, and 83-86. Father Grassi's reports of his visits to the Wenatchi in 1873 and 1874 are published in the Woodstock Letters.

Ruby, Robert H. and John A. Brown. Half-Sun on the Columbia: A Biography of Chief Moses. University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1965, p. 58.

Ruby, Robert H., and John A. Brown, Dreamer-Prophets of the Columbia Plateau: Smohalla and Skolaskin (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), pp. 68 and 155-156.

Scheuerman, The Wenatchi Indians, pp. 104-112.

10. Splawn, A. J., Ka-mi-akin: The Last Hero of the Yakimas. Portland, Oregon: Kilham Stationery & Printing Co., 1917, pp. 336-338.

11. Josephy, Alvin M., Jr., The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1965, provides an excellent account of the Nez Perce War.

12. Proceedings of Council between Moses, other Indians, and General Howard, at Priest Rapids, September 7 and 8, 1878. Letters Received, 1878 Washington Superintendency W 2064 (2), Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, RG75, NA.

13. United States, Secretary of War, Report of the Secretary of War; Being Part of the Message and Documents Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress at the Beginning of the Third Session of the Forty-Fifth Congress in Four Volumes. Volume 1, Washington: GPO, 1878, pp. 207, 210-213 and 234-235.

Proceedings of Council between Moses, other Indians, and General Howard, at Priest Rapids, September 7 and 8, 1878. Letters Received, 1878 Washington Superintendency W 2064 (2), Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, RG75, NA.

"Map Showing Territory desired by Chief Moses as a Reservation," General Land Office Map, Washington Territory, 1876; RG 75, NA. Copy located as Petitioner's Exhibit 465a, Dockets 224-161, Records of Indian Claims Commission, RG 279, NA.

Wilbur, James. "A Rough Sketch of the Surrounding Country...," circa 1878, RG75, Bureau of Indian Affairs, RG 75, NA. Although Howard misidentified the location of the reservation by a few miles, the Yakima agent was able to correctly locate where the reservation was to be.

14. Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. I. (Laws) "The Indian Homestead Act, 1875," Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1904, p. 23. (18 Stat., 402; March 3, 1875)

Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers and the Indian, 1865-1900. University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1976, pp. 232-234, who noted that relatively few Indians across the country took advantage of the law.

15. G., U. S. J. Letter. Woodstock Letters: A Record of Current Events and Historical Notes connected with the Colleges and Missions of the Soc. of Jesus in North and South America. Vol. VII, Woodstock College, 1878, p. 178.

16. Green to AAG, October 6, 1879, Records of the U. S Army Commands, Department of the Columbia, Letters Received, Entry 715, Box 59, #3879, RG 393, NA

Palmer, Gary B., "Ethnohistorical Report on Columbia, Entiat, Chelan, and Wenatchi Peoples of Colville Confederated Tribes," for The Colville Confederated Tribes, June 18, 1991, pp. 3.1-3.5.

17. "Memorandum of an Agreement with Chief Moses," April 18, 1879, Special Case 65 Relating to the Columbia (Moses) Reserve, Intruders, Mines and Mineral Claims, RG 75, Bureau of Indian Affairs, NA (microfilm).

Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. I. (Laws) Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1904, p. 904. Executive Orders of April 19, 1879 and March 6, 1880. The southern boundary was expanded by the 1880 order to the south shore of Lake Chelan when it was clear the Northern Pacific land grant would not conflict with that southern boundary.

18. United States, Secretary of War, Report of the Secretary of War; Being Part of the Message and Documents Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress at the Beginning of the Second Session of the Forty-Sixth Congress, in Four Volumes, Vol. 2, House of Representatives, Executive Document 1, Part 2, 46th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington: GPO, 1880). United States Serial Set, No. 1903, War 1879, Fiche 2-3, p. 153.

Wood, C. E. S. "An Indian Horserace," Century Magazine. January, 1887 (as reprinted in Okanogan County Heritage, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Dec., 1963), pp. 3-7.

Ruby and Brown. Half-Sun on the Columbia, p. 163.

Scheuerman, The Wenatchi Indians, pp. 112-115.

19. Palmer,"Ethnohistorical Report...,"pp. 3.1-3.5, quoting Green to AAG, October 6, 1879, Records of U. S. Army commands, Pt. I, Department of the Columbia, Letters Received, RG 393, Entry 715, Box 59, #3879, NA.

Cook to AG, Department of the Columbia, Vancouver Barracks, October 12, 1879, transcript from Colville History Office.

20. United States Army Corps of Engineers, The Symons Report on the Upper Columbia River & the Great Plain of the Columbia, by Thomas William Symons, (Fairfield, Washington: Ye Galleon Press, 1967) [Senate Document 186, 47th Congress, 1st Session], p. 43. Symons reported "one settler" at the mouth of the Wenatchee.

21. Streamer, Francis, Marion. Miscellaneous Notebooks, July, 1882.

Briley, Ann. Lonely Pedestrian: Francis Marion Streamer. Fairfield, Washington: Ye Galleon Press, 1986, p. 89-92.

Streamer,"Life. Celestial and Terrestrial...,"Vol. II. 1890.

22. Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. II (Treaties). "Agreement with the Columbia and Colville, 1883," Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1904, pp. 1073-1074.

Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. I. (Laws) Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1904, pp. 904-915.

23. Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. I. (Laws) Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1904, p. 224.

24. Fields, James R. "The Benson Surveys," Engineering Field Notes, Volume 22 (September-October, 1990), pp. 1-8.

White, C. Albert. A History of the Rectangular Survey System. Washington, D. C.: Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior, 1991, pp. 157 and 159.

Dunham, Harold Hathaway. Government Handout: A Study in the Administration of the Public Lands, 1875-1891. New York: Edwards Brothers, Inc., 1941, pp. 76-77.

Stewart, Lowell O. Public Land Surveys: History, Instructions, Methods. Ames, IA: Collegiate Press, 1935 (reprinted by Meyers Printing Co., Minneapolis, 1976), p. 66.

Holcomb, Charles. Township No. 23 North, Range No. 19 East, commenced September 14, 1884, completed September 20, 1884, approved by the Surveyor General of Washington, December 17, 1884; Plat Map, Bureau of Management archives; Portland, Oregon.

Holcomb, Charles. Township N. 24 North, Range No. 19 East, commenced July 24, 1884, completed July 30, 1884, approved by the Surveyor General of Washington, December 17, 1884, Plat Map, Bureau of Management archives; Portland, Oregon.

25. United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region (Craig Holstine, ed.), "An Historical Overview of the Wenatchee National Forest," Eastern Washington University Reports in Archaeology and History 100-80 Archaeological and Historical Services, November, 1994, pp. 3.4-3.6.

Rea, Dave. "Old, Faulty land surveys haunt Chelan County," Wenatchee World, October 7, 1980.

Holm, Chuck. Memorandum to Files. July 20, 1980, WA5 Allotment Files, Realty Office, Colville Confederated Tribes.

Berry, Fred. Map. Partial Resurvey of T23N, R19E, 1910, Dominic, WA5, Wenatchee Allotment Files, Colville Tribal Realty Office.

26. Paul W. Gates. History of Public Land Law Development, Arno Press, New York, 1979, p. 394, reported that land office fees of about $18.00 were required.

Survey rates per mile were set by statute. In 1893, in the State of Washington, in certain instances, surveyors could charge up to $25 per linear mile (27 Stat., 592).

Lynch to Commissioner, October 24, 1892, BIA, Yakima Indian Agency, Press copies of letters sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1882, 1914; Box 12, 1891-1893; NA-PNW, reported that survey rates were about $18 per mile, meaning a homestead survey would cost about $18.

Thus an Indian attempting to file a homestead on unsurveyed lands prior to 1884 would have had to have paid out approximately $36.00, an amount virtually impossible for an Indian living in a traditional lifestyle without any waged-base economy.

27. Watkins, Marilyn. "Homesteads and Allotments of the Wenatchi," Hart West & Associates, July 10, 1998, produced for the Colville Confederated Tribes, esp. pp. 7-13 and 90-92.

28. Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. I. (Laws) Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1904, pp. 23; the "Indian Homestead Act of 1875," (18 Stat., 402; March 3, 1875).

Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. I. (Laws) Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1904, pp. 23; "Indian Appropriations Act, July 4, 1884," (23 Stat., 96).

Prucha, American Indian Policy in Crisis...,p. 234. These homesteads could be proved up to fee simple titles after twenty-five years.

Streamer to Howard, quoting Wapato John, August 20, 1890, Streamer Letters, MSS., Archives of the Washington State Historical Society.

Paul W. Gates. History of Public Land Law Development, Arno Press, New York, 1979, p. 394.

29. Washburn, Wilcomb E. The American Indian and the United States: A Documentary History--Volume III. Greenwood Press, Publishers: Westport, Connecticut; 1973; pp. 2188-2193, reprinting the General Allotment Act (Statutes at Large, XXIV, pp- 388-91) with attached commentary.

30. Raufer, Black Robes and Indians on the Last Frontier, pp. 95-97 and 101.

31. Geo. W. Gordon, Special Agent, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 5, 1887; RG 75, Letters Received, 1887, NA, who reported it was on surveyed lands and thus could be settled by examining the land office records.

32. Upshaw, Acting Commissioner, to Secretary of Interior, June 27, 1888, RG 393, Part 1, Department of the Columbia, Letters Received, Entry 715, 1888-1649, NA.

Vilas, Secretary of Interior, to Secretary of War, July 13, 1888, RG 393, Part 1, Department of the Columbia, Letters Received, Entry 715, 1888-1793, NA.

33. Gordon, George W. "Report on the 'Wenatshapam Fishery' and Reservation guaranteed to the Indians of the Yakima Reservation, on the Wenatshapam River (now We-nat-chee) in Washington Territory," February 6, 1889. RG 75, BIA, Yakima Indian Agency, Copies of letters sent to the CIA, 1877-1921, Box #300 (Entry 91); NA-PNW.

Briley, Lonely Pedestrian, pp. 89 and 151-152. Thompson was born about 1811 in Virginia and died on Bonaparte Creek on June 3, 1894. Streamer had written a biographical sketch of the man in an attempt to obtain a pension for him.

Archer, J.J., to Captain Pleasonton, January 2, 1859, A4, RG 393, Pt. 1, Department of Oregon, Entry 3574, Letters Received, 1858-61, Box 1, NA, discussed a "Thomasson," who was married to an Indian woman and in the area in the 1850s, almost certainly Richard Thompson.

Archer To Captain, January 1, 1859, Fort Dalles Papers, Huntington Library, is a copy of the same letter in Archer's hand.

Rogers, Albert Bowman. Diary. Transcribed by Emily Rogers Valentine. Accession Number 642, Folder Number 392A; Manuscripts, Special collections, University Archives; Allen Library, University of Washington, p. 73, met Dick Thompson coming over the Wenatchi trail to the coast in 1887.

34. Gordon, George W. "Report on the 'Wenatshapam Fishery' and Reservation guaranteed to the Indians of the Yakima Reservation, on the Wenatshapam River (now We-nat-chee) in Washington Territory," February 6, 1889. RG 75, BIA, Yakima Indian Agency, Copies of letters sent to the CIA, 1877-1921, Box #300 (Entry 91); NA-PNW.

35. Ibid.

36. Streamer, Francis Marion. "Life. Celestial and Terrestrial. And Walks and Talks of Francis Marion Streamer." Vol. II. 1890. Original on file, microfilm, Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, pp. 5-6 and 327.

37. Streamer to Howard, August 20, 1890, Streamer, Francis, Marion. Miscellaneous Notebooks and Correspondence. Streamer Collection, original and on Microfilm, Washington State Historical Society; Tacoma, Washington.

Streamer to Howard, November 20, 1890, Streamer, Francis, Marion. Miscellaneous Notebooks and Correspondence. Streamer Collection, original and on Microfilm, Washington State Historical Society; Tacoma, Washington.

Streamer to General O.O. Howard, November 20, 1890, RG 75, Special Case 177, NA. [WX279]

Setin, Henry, to Post Adjutant, Fort Spokane, August 2, 1890, RG 393, Part 1, Department of the Columbia, Letters Received, Entry 715, 1890-2232, NA.

Cole to Commissioner, July 21, 1890, 10334-1891, incl. #8, RG 75, Special Case 177, Long Jim, Kultus Jim, Wenatchi Bob, NA.

Okanogan Independent. Glimpses of Pioneer Life of Okanogan County, Washington. Okanogan, Washington, 1924, p. 78.

38. Streamer to Major General O. O. Howard, Governor's island, New York City, August 20, 1890, quoting Wapato John, Streamer Letters, MSS., Archives of the Washington State Historical Society.

Raufer, Black Robes and Indians on the Last Frontier, p. 76, reproducing Chief John Wapato to Frank M. Streamer, August 20, 1890.

Hackenmiller, Wapato Heritage, pp. 126-131.

Ruby and Brown, Half-Sun on the Columbia, pp. 271-273.

39. Howard, O. O., to General Morgan, September 3, 1890; RG 75, L-R, CIA, National Archives.

40. Malone, Michael P. James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996, pp. 102-112. Hill's rails followed much of the route identified by Governor Stevens nearly four decades earlier.

Hayes, Derek. Historical Atlas of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1999, pp. 146-147, reproducing maps of the 1853 Stevens route and the route and grant of the Northern Pacific.

Rogers, Albert Bowman. Diary. Transcribed by Emily Rogers Valentine. Accession Number 642, Folder Number 392A; Manuscripts, Special collections, University Archives; Allen Library, University of Washington, pp. 60-64, and 80, who also noted Wenatchi berrying above Lake Wenatchee.

Roe, JoAnn. Stevens Pass: The Story of Railroading and Recreation in the North Cascades. Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1995, pp. 53-54.

Armbruster, Kurt E. Orphan Road: The Railroad Comes to Seattle, 1853-1911. Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1999, 27, 163-164.

Linsley,"Lake Chelan and Agnes Creek in 1870..." Linsley had attempted, but failed, to find a route over the North Cascades for the Northern Pacific in 1870. He did reach the vicinity of White Pass.

41. Haskell, Daniel C. (ed.) "On Reconnaissance for the Great Northern: Letters of C. F. B. Haskell, 1889-1891," Bulletin of The New York Public Library, Volume 52, Number 2 (February, 1948), p. 130.

42. Stevens, John F. An Engineer's Recollections. McGraw-Hill Publishing Company: United States, 1936, pp. 27-30.

Stevens, John F. "Great Northern Railway," The Washington Historical Quarterly, Vol. XX No. 2 (April, 1929), pp. 111-113.

43. "An Act granting to railroads the right of way through the public lands of the United States." Statutes at Large, Vol. XVIII.-Part 3; Washington: GPO, 1875 (18 Stat., 482). The lands could not have been previously reserved for any other purpose.

44. Lawrence to Commissioner, General Land Office, August 12, 1891, RG 49, Division F, Entry 571, Box 35, Number 102858, NA.

"Great Northern Line, Pacific Extension, Station 270 to Station 1167 + 88," Map, dated June 22, 1891; filed July 20, 1891; approved by the Secretary of the Interior, October 1, 1891; RG 49, Bundle 227B, 1891/93498, NA; College Park, Maryland.

45. Secretary of Interior Noble to Commissioner of General Land Office, October 1, 1891, RG 49, Division F, Entry 571, Box 35, NA.

Register to Commissioner of General Land Office, December 15, 1891, RG 49, Division F, Entry 571, Box 35, NA.

46. Lewty, Peter J. Across the Columbia Plain: Railroad Expansion in the Interior Northwest, 1885-1893. Washington State University Press: Pullman, 1995, pp. 158-160. The railroad first proposed a route through Wilbur and Coulee City, but Hill eventually approved a more southerly route, via Odessa.

Register to Commissioner of General Land Office, December 15, 1891, RG 49, Division F, Entry 571, Box 35, NA.

Haskell,"On Reconnaissance for the Great Northern...," pp.125-140.

47. Gault, J. H. "Map of the Wenatchee Valley," December 25, 1891. Also certified with statement Helena, Mont., March 5, 1892, HLH. Certified by S. G. Watson to be "a correct tracing of a blue print Map given me by E. H. Bickler Chief Enginer [sic] of the Pacific Extension of the Great Northern Ry." RG 49, Entry 180, Records of the Mail and Files, Misc. Letters Received, 1801-1909, Box 4037, 1894-96764, NA. By December 25, 1891, the railroad had determined its route up Tumwater Canyon, and through the Chiwaukum fishery on its way to Stevens Pass, and was fully aware of the location of the Icicle Forks.

48. Haskell,"On Reconnaissance for the Great Northern...," pp. 137-138.

Lewty, Across the Columbia Plain, pp. 164-165.

49. Lynch to Simmons, Deputy U. S. Marshal, April 27, 1892, RG 75, BIA, Yakima Indian Agency, Press copies of letters sent, 1886-1913; Box 25, 1890-1893; NA-PNW.

50. Lynch to Commissioner, July 11, 1892, "Wenatshapam Fishery Reserve" Special Case 183, RG 75, NA.

51. Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. I. (Laws) Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1904, pp. 926-927.

52. Lynch to CIA, October 4, 1892, BIA, Yakima Indian Agency, Press copies of letters sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1882, 1914; Box 12, 1891-1893; NA-PNW.

53. Lynch to Commissioner, Yakima Oct. 24, [189]2 Hon. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Washington, D. C., BIA, Yakima Indian Agency, Press copies of letters sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1882, 1914; Box 12, 1891-1893; NA-PNW.

Lynch to Surveyor General of Washington, October 17, 1892, RG 75, BIA, Yakima Indian Agency, Press copies of letters sent, 1886-1913; Box 25, 1890-1893; NA-PNW, requesting an estimate of surveying costs.

54. Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. I. (Laws) Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1904, pp. 926-928.

55. J. J. Matthews to Secretary of the Interior, July 6, 1893, as found in SED67, pp. 9-10.

56. James H. Chase to Secretary of the Interior, June 30, 1893, Chase to Commissioner, August 28, 1893, and petition, as found in SED67, pp. 7-8 and 11-13.

57. M. M. Rose, Asst. Commissioner of the General Land Office to Surveyor General of Washington, December 5, 1892, RG 49, Entry 478, Letters Sent to the Surveyor General of Washington, Volume 76, pp. 57-58, NA.

M. M. Rose, Asst. Commissioner of the General Land Office to Surveyor General of Washington, December 5, 1892 (second letter of same date), RG 49, Entry 478, Letters Sent to the Surveyor General of Washington, Volume 76, p. 58, NA.

58. Lynch to Commissioner, December 20, 1892, as found in SED67, p. 5.

59. Shaw to Iverson, enclosing Contract No. 408, with attached map, May 5, 1893, RG 49, Oregon, Series 22, Box 48, Contracts 33, Thompson file, Seattle Federal Archives and Records Center (Sandpoint), National Archives.

60. Lynch to James, December 26, 1893, RG 75, Special Case 183, NA. In this letter Lynch explained that he was removed as agent by the President in June, 1893.

Kvasnicka, Robert M. and Herman J. Viola (eds.). The Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 1824-1977, containing "Thomas Jefferson Morgan, 1889-1893," by Prucha, Francis Paul and "Daniel M. Browning, 1893-1897," by William T. Hagan. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979, pp. 193-209. Grover Cleveland replaced Benjamin Harrison as president in 1893. Cleveland immediately replaced Thomas Jefferson Morgan with Daniel M. Browning as Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

61. Lewty, Across the Columbia Plain, p. 234.

Hull, Lindley M., ed., A History of Central Washington: Including the Famous Wenatchee, Entiat, Chelan and the Columbia Valleys... (Spokane: Shaw & Borden Co., 1929), pp. 343 and 383-84. The railroad workers also brought smallpox to the area.

Gellatly, John A., A History of Wenatchee: "The Apple Capital of the World" (Wenatchee, Wash.: Wenatchee Bindery Printing Company, 1960)p. 19-21, 24-25, 34.

Holstine (ed.), "An Historical Overview of the Wenatchee National Forest," p. 3.29.

Armbruster, Orphan Road, pp. 167-169 and 172.

62. "An Act granting to railroads the right of way through the public lands of the United States." Statutes at Large, Vol. XVIII.-Part 3; Washington: GPO, 1875 (18 Stat., 482), provided the authority for the right-of-way and requirements for obtaining it.

Register to Commissioner, March 19, 1928; Right-of-Way File No. 016256, Bureau of Land Management; Spokane, Washington.

Township 26 North, Range 17 East, Tract Book, Bureau of Land Management; Spokane, Washington.

Township 26 North, Range 17 East, Plat Book, Bureau of Land Management; Spokane, Washington.

"Great Northern Railway Peshastin to Winton Revision, Amended Definite Location, Chelan Co., Wash.," Map submitted March 18, 1928, approved March 2, 1931; Right-of-Way File No. 016256, Bureau of Land Management; Spokane, Washington. A right-of-way from Peshastin to Winton was not obtained until 1931!

Roe, Stevens Pass, pp. 34, 61-62 and 92-99. The original route went up Tumwater Canyon. In 1925 an easier rail route was completed up Chumstick Canyon, bypassing Tumwater.

63. Chase to Hill, March 31, 1893,Minnesota Historical Society; St. Paul, Minnesota. Great Northern Railroad. Subject File #1783, Indian Reservation on Wenatchee river, 1893.

64. Secretary to the President to Chase, April 14, 1893 [copy], Minnesota Historical Society; St. Paul, Minnesota. Great Northern Railroad. Subject File #1783, Indian Reservation on Wenatchee river, 1893.

65. Malone, James J. Hill, pp. 147-150.

Martin, Albro. James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest. Minnesota Historical Society Press: St. Paul, 1976, p. 396.

Lewty, Across the Columbia Plain, pp. 164-169.

Stevens, An Engineer's Recollections, pp. 31.

Stevens,"Great Northern Railway," pp. 111-113.

66. Iverson, "Field Notes of the Survey of Wenatshapam Fishery Reserve."

Iverson to Watson, August 1, 1894, RG 49, Entry 180, Records of the Mail and Files, Misc. Letters Received, 1801-1909, Box 4037, 1894-96764, NA.

Amos F. Shaw, Surveyor General of Washington, to Iverson, August 1, 1893, RG 49, Entry 180, Records of the Mail and Files, Misc. Letters Received, 1801-1909, Box 4037, 1894-96764, NA.

67. Erwin, L. T. to W. P. Watson, August 2, 1894, RG 49, Entry 180, Records of the Mail and Files, Misc. Letters Received, 1801-1909, Box 4037, 1894-96764, NA. Erwin suggested that Iverson had joined him in the decision to change the reservation, but Iverson made it clear in both his field notes and his correspondence, that the decision had been made by Erwin.

68. Erwin to Iverson, August 18, 1893, as found in:

Iverson, "Field Notes of the Survey of Wenatshapam Fishery Reserve."

Also found in:

Erwin to Iverson, August 18, 1893, copy, BIA, Yakima Indian Agency, Press copies of letters sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1882, 1914; Box 12, 1891, 1893; National Archives--Pacific NW Region [hereafter NA-PNW].

69. Iverson, "Field Notes of the Survey of Wenatshapam Fishery Reserve."

70. L. T. Erwin to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, September 1, 1893, and, The Council Proceedings, December 18, 1893-January 6, 1894, as found in SED67, pp. 12 and quoted at 25 and 27.

71. Schnebly, F. D., Ellensburg, Washington, to Post Commander, Fort Vancouver, Washington, September 4, 1894, RG 94, Office of the Adjutant General, Document File, 5607 AGO 1894, National Archives, Washington, D. C.

72. For instance, see:

Chase to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, August 28, 1893, RG 75, Special Case 183, NA. [WX183]

SED67, pp. 7-10.

73. Browning to Chase, July 18, 1893, as found in SED67, pp. 8-9.

74. L. T. Erwin to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, September 1, 1893, as found in SED67, p.12.

Erwin, L. T., "Report of Yakima Agency," August 27, 1894, in United States, Department of the Interior, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1894 (Washington: GPO, 1895), 325-27, provides no further details on the survey.

75. Wm. P. Watson, U. S. Surveyor General of Washington to Commissioner of the General Land Office, March 28, 1894, RG 49, Entry 180, Box 39455, #36147, NA.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Secretary of the Interior, September 19, 1893, as found in SED67, pp. 13-14.

76. Sims to Commissioner, October 2, 1893, as found in SED67, pp. 14-15.

77. Doty, James and Isaac I. Stevens. "Official Proceedings at the Council held at the Council Ground in the Walla Walla Valley with the Yakima Nation of Indians and which resulted in the conclusion of a Treaty on the 9^th day June 1855," Microcopy T-494, Ratified Treaties, Roll 5, Ratified Treaties, 1854-1855, NA.

78. D. M. Browning, Commissioner of Indian Affairs and Wm. H. Sims, Acting Secretary of the Interior to John Lane, Special Agent, and L. T. Erwin, Indian Agent, October 13, 1893, as found in SED67, pp. 15-17.

79. Jay Lynch to Hon. Darwin R. James, December 26, 1893 and other correspondence, as found in SED67, p. 25.

Lynch, Jay, "Report of Yakima Agency," July 28, 1893, in United States, Department of the Interior, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Sixty-Second Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior, 1893 (Washington: GPO, 1893), p. 340. Lynch's motives may also be suspect, since before leaving the agency he reported that he believed the Indians would be willing to dispose of the reservation, "if the matter were properly presented" to them.

80. The Council Proceedings, December 18, 1893-January 6, 1894," SED67, p. 25.

81. Ibid., p. 25.

82. S. W. Lamoreux, Commissioner, General Land Office, to U. S. Surveyor General, July 18, 1894, "Sale of the Wenatshapam Fishery," Special Case 183, RG 75, NA.

Assistant Commissioner, General Land Office, to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July 18, 1894, "Sale of the Wenatshapam Fishery," Special Case 183, RG 75, NA.

83. The Council Proceedings, December 18, 1893-January 6, 1894," SED67, p. 25.

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid., pp. 26-27.

86. Ibid., pp. 27-32. [WX209]

Erwin to Commissioner, April 29, 1896, enclosing "Census of the Wenatchee Indians made by L. T. Erwin, April 16, 1896," RG 75, L-R, CIA, NA. The Erwin census of 1896 showed there were, indeed, 180 Wenatchi living in the valley.

Stevens, I. I. "White Swan Map," July 12, 1899, Map 1689 ½, Tube 345, National Archives.

87. Jay Lynch to Hon. Darwin R. James, December 26, 1893 and the Council Proceedings, December 18, 1893-January 6, 1894, SED67, pp. 25 and 33-36.

88. Kappler, Charles J. Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. I. (Laws) Washington, D. C.: GPO, 1904, pp. 529-531. [WX100]

United States. Statute. "An Act Making appropriations for ... the Indian Department and fulfilling treaty stipulations...," Statutes at Large, Vol. XXVIII, Washington: GPO, 1895, pp. 286 and 320-321 (28 Stat., 320). [WX 195]

Congressional Record-Senate, Volume 26, Part 8, July 18, 1894, p. 7629, provided the only reference in the Congressional Record to the ratification, which was merely to add a heading to the section dealing with the agreement. There was no debate in either house of the Congress over ratification of the 1894 agreement.

89. S. W. Lamoreux, Commissioner, General Land Office to U. S. Surveyor General, July 18, 1894, "Sale of Wenatshapam Fishery," Special Case 183, RG 75, NA.

Assistant Commissioner, General Land Office to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, July 18, 1894, "Sale of Wenatshapam Fishery," Special Case 183, RG 75, NA.

Neither of these letters were forwarded to Congress for review prior to ratification of the 1894 agreement.

90. L. W. Lamoreux, Commissioner of General Land Office, to Surveyor General of Washington, April 30, 1894, RG 49, Entry 478, Letters Sent to Surveyor General of Washington, Vol. 76, pp. 316-317, NA.

Commissio