ing tlie proposition in consideration of larger privileges being 
extended to the New England fishermen in the waters bordering 
the maritime provinces in British America, Whilst the diplomats 
feasted and regaled their boon companions over “ the good time 
coming,” a few hardy pioneers from the Wallamct “ crossed the 
Rubicon,” and entered the promised land on Puget Sound, 
“They came, they saw, they conquered,” and laid deep the 
foundations of the future State of Washington. 
“ Those pioneers, God bless their memories, were living wit¬ 
nesses to the integrity of American claim to this territory. . . 
Each in proper person bore testimony that the voyage of De 
Fuca, the labors and discoveries of Gray and Kendricks in the 
‘ Columbia ’ and ‘Washington/ should not pass for nought. 
After they had threaded their wearisome way to the Columbia, 
occupying the whole season, yet the pioneers to Puget Sound 
were ready, at the opening of the next season, to renew their 
journey and carry northward to these shores their families and 
their household gods.” — Evans. 
After toils and privations, the early pioneers founded an im¬ 
perishable civilization in the sunset land, in accomplishing 
which many of them “ fell by the wayside,” some, through 
savage perfidy, suffered “many deaths,” some perished by flood 
in the frail canims, while seeking the needs of life, and others 
died in humble cabins. “Heaven’s register alone contains the 
record; humble was their lot, unheralded and modest as was 
their labors, unmissed though they departed from this scene, 
yet the world received benefit by their having lived in it. Here 
and there deserted cabins silently attest what these heroic, self- 
sacrificing men undertook. What risks the pioneers incur; 
these lost of earth are entitled to gratitude; their labors and 
their loss hallow the past of Puget Sound, teach us more 
thoroughly to appreciate the Present, and remind us of our duty 
to those who in time succeed us.” Such is the pen-picture of our 
early settlers, drawn by Hon. Elwood Evans, himself an early 
pioneer to our territory, and a prominent “ hero in the strife.” 
From humble beginnings small colonies became stronger, an¬ 
nually replenished by streams of determined emigrants seeking 
homes and a country in the region of the setting sun. Those 
heroic patriots, reared under the drippings of Freedom’s sanctu¬ 
ary, immediately implored Congress to extend self-government 
to them, which was organized in 1853, with the classic name of 
