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326, he became one of a town company at Port Angeles, and after a good deal of quarrelling with other officials and the proprietors of Port Townsend, finally succeeded in removing the office to the new site, being sustained by the authorities at Washington, D.C., in his action. But now behold the punishment which follows naughty deeds. In his absence, and during the winter rains of 1863, a land-slide occurred in the hills back of Port Angeles, damming up a stream already swollen, which, after the restrained waters had formed a lake, broke through the obstruction and precipitated such a flood upon the town as destroyed it and cost several lives. Smith, however, continued to keep the office at Port Angeles until 1865, when he perished by the foundering of the "Brother Jonathan," near Crescent City, California, after which the custom-house was restored to Port Townsend, and the lots of the Port of the Angels went back into acreage, so remaining until within a year or two, when it was new-created by the Port Angeles Land Company and the Union Pacific Railroad.

That Port Angeles has merit as a site for a city is admitted. General McClellan, when he was surveying for a route for the Northern Pacific in 1853-54, said of it that it was the "first attempt of nature on this coast to form a good harbor," and in a recent petition of the shipmasters of the Pacific Coast to the Treasury Department, indorsed by the Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco, asking for a sub-port of entry at Port Angeles, the reasons given were that the harbor was easy of access and in the direct route of vessels bound up or down the Strait of Fuca, that it was the first harbor on the American side after entering the Strait from the ocean, and that it was protected from all winds, had good holding-ground, ample room, and no rocks or shoals. On this presentation the prayer was granted, and at the same time that Seattle and Tacoma were made subports of entry, Port Angeles opened her books. It means much to vessels for that place, which otherwise would have to go sixty miles to Port Townsend to enter.

A coal-field has been discovered within a few miles of Port Angeles; the country back of it is good, and there appears no reason, if people come here, why they should not prosper. The best harbor, situated, too, nearest the sea, ought to go for