Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/157

151 POLITICAL BEGINNING OF WASHINGTON. 151 ern. As a consequence agitation began in favor of a sep- arate territorial organization. One feature of the celebration of the national holiday at Olympia, July 4, 1851, was an address by John B. Chap- man, who touched a popular chord by a happy reference to "the future State of Columbia." His hearers were so affected that an adjourned meeting was held, at which Clanrick Crosby presided and A. M. Poe served as secre- tary. From this meeting went out a call for a convention at Cowlitz on the 29th of August, "to be composed of rep- resentatives from all of the election precincts north of the Columbia," as was stated, " to take into careful considera- tion the present peculiar position of the northern portion of the Territory, its wants, the best method of supplying these wants, and the propriety of an early appeal to Con- gress for a division of the Territory." Attending a convention in those days was a matter of much difficulty. There was a general lack of means of communication steamboats, mails, roads, newspapers. The settlements extended north of Steilacoom, a few per- sons, in addition, dwelling on Whidby Island. There were military posts at Vancouver and Steilacoom ; Hudson Bay posts at the same places and a farm in Cowlitz Valley ; Catholic missions at Vancouver, Cowlitz, and Olympia ; the beginnings of towns at Steilacoom, Olympia, Turn- water, and Vancouver ; with farms dotting the country in the vicinity of these places and along the traveled high- ways. It took a day then to go as far as one can go now in an hour, and it meant travel in canoe, on foot, and oc- casionally by horse. It meant, too, the lack of public ac- commodations along the line, with the common feeling that the traveler was one of many who necessarily were imposing upon those living by the way. It meant nights on the beach and nights in the woods ; hunger, labor, ex- haustion, and possibly sickness. The pecuniary expense