Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/159

153 POLITICAL BEGINNING OF WASHINGTON. 153 Thurston County, he tried to have Steilacoom made the county seat, but Simmons was too strong for him, and it was located at Olympia instead. A year later December, 1852 Pierce County was created and Steilacoom became a county seat, much to Chapman's gratification. Doctor Maynard went further at the Cowlitz Convention than was at first contemplated. He proposed a resolution that when the convention adjourn it be to meet again in May, 1852, for the purpose of forming a constitution pre- paratory to asking admission into the Union as one of the States. His resolution was adopted by unanimous vote. This was a remarkable proposition in many respects. At the time the territory affected was part of a region from which it could not alienate itself, and the other part was in population at least eight times the greater. At the rate the inhabitants were increasing, there would have been fifteen hundred or two thousand people in the new state at admission, if admission were not delayed beyond the evi- dent anticipations of the convention members. When the Territory was finally admitted, in 1889, the people num- bered 300,000, and Oklahoma is kept in territorial con- dition to-day with 600,000 inhabitants. It may be that upon sober second thought the people saw the impossi- bility, the utter futility, if not absurdity, of the idea, for the May convention suggested was not held, and for a short time the matter even of a territory seems to have been suspended. It was a short time only, however. On the 4th of July, 1852, Daniel R. Bigelow delivered a patriotic address at Olympia, in which he once more presented the subject to an appreciative and sympathetic audience. In September the first newspaper north of "the River of the W^est" made its appearance at Olympia. It at once began to advocate the Territory of Columbia. So confident were the pub- lishers of the creation of the territory, and of the bestowal