Congratulations to Centennial Partners for important County restoration plans

The City of Longview and JH Kelly recently announced their plans to restore the Monticello Convention Memorial Monument located at the intersections of Maple Street, Olympia Way, and 18th Avenue. This convention was a gathering of pioneer settlers in northern Oregon Territory seeking their own territory, especially after the Oregon capital was moved further south from Oregon City to Salem. Self-appointed delegates gathered at two “conventions” to formally request that Congress establish a new territory called “Columbia.” The first one was in August 1851 at Cowlitz Landing (now known as Toledo). The one at Monticello occurred in November 1852. Originally established in the early 1950s out on California Way near the original site of Cowlitz County’s first county seat, Monticello, it was removed to the Longview site after the construction of Tennant Way. As a wooden monument, its important messages have been rotted away by the rages of time and damp weather. This will be the third renovation of the monument.

Mystery Signatures In addition to their story, monument lists the names of the delegates attending both meetings. Research In recent years has uncovered some discrepancies with several listed names being different from the Donation Land Claim documents and other primary sources. Unfortunately, the actual hand-written document and signatures are no longer available at the National Archives. A copy owned by Monticello Convention Delegate Arthur Denny, founder of Seattle, was apparently lost in the Seattle Fire of 1889. Neither the Oregon Historical Society nor the Washington Historical Society have a copy. There might be an original in the papers of 19th Century United States historian Hubert H. Bancroft at the University of California – Berkeley.

Sons of the Profits This lack of verification gave rise to Seattle historian Bill Speidel’s accusations that the Convention was more fiction than truth. In his classic satirical account of Seattle’s founding, Sons of the Profits: There’s No Business Like Grow Business 1851-1901, the meeting at Monticello was loosely organized by Puget Sound businessmen anxious to convince Congress to create a new territory north of the Columbia. Like Denny, most were known Whigs, and they went a little overboard in their Cowlitz Landing request, going so far as to create and name counties for their proposed Columbia Territory. Those county names appeared to include local Whigs!

Jeffersonian-Democrats At the same time, local political leaders from Cowlitz County were strong Jeffersonian Democrats, including delegates Darby Huntington, Seth Catlin, and brothers Peter and Alexander Crawford. Voters in the West credited Democrats for creating the Donation Land Act legalizing squatters’ rights, controlling indigenous peoples through military action, as well as negotiated treaties and a system of reservations, plus low taxes. Whigs were originally formed by opponents to the high-handed policies of President Andrew Jackson (to whom they referred as King Andrew I), as well as generally supporting government assistance for economic growth by building up education, commerce, and industry. Both parties were generally split over the issue of slavery. The only local Whig leader was Huntington’s brother-in-law, Nathaniel Stone.

Ambitious Joseph Lane The undisputed political leader in Oregon Territory at the time was Democrat Joseph Lane, Oregon’s Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. A North Carolina native, Lane had presidential aspirations. With strong ties to Indiana where he had served in the state legislature, Lane had a successful career in the Mexican-American War – which many considered a stepping stone into politics. Afterwards he was rewarded for his service by Democratic President James K. Polk with an appointment to serve as Oregon’s first governor. Lane won several elections as Oregon’s delegate to Congress before returning as governor. Lane County was named to honor him by the territorial legislature. In 1859 upon Oregon statehood, Lane was elected one of Oregon’s first U.S. senators. Sympathetic to slavery, he was the Southern Democrats’ nominee for vice president in 1860, losing to the new Republican Party nominee Hannibal Hamlin, Abraham Lincoln’s running mate.

Demos Swept Away Whigs However, in the early 1850s, though, the last thing Lane wanted was opposition from local Whigs whose demands in the memorial sent from the 1851 Cowlitz Landing Convention reached Washington, DC several months prior to the Monticello Convention. In those years Congress began their sessions in December. So, at the 1852 session Lane introduced a bill to create a territory north of the Columbia River (where most of those Whigs seemed to live). The bill stalled because too few people lived within the proposed territory, contrary to federal policy. Plus, he needed to overcome Southern opposition to yet one more northern territory expected to oppose slavery. It was during the February 1853 Congressional debate that Lane finally received a copy of the Monticello Convention Memorial and read it into the record. That has become the only published version of the document. Either he or a clerk may have mispronounced or misread signatures of some of the delegates.

Lane Confounded by 1852 Election Sectional rivalry dominated national politics in the 1850s, especially over slavery. Lane was in an interesting situation: More than anything else, he was an advocate for public funds to build military roads in Oregon. This was only a few years after the infamous Whitman Massacre near Walla Walla. Whigs generally were supportive of his bill, including incumbent Whig President Millard Fillmore.

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But Democrats swept back to power in the November 1852 elections. Fillmore would be leaving office on March 4, 1853 (the original Presidential Inauguration date), replaced by Democrat Franklin Pierce, another Mexican War hero, but a Lane political rival. The promise of Puget Sound becoming an economic engine appealed to Whigs, but many became lameducks after the election and were no-shows.

Oregon’s Racist Policies Lane still needed Southern votes to pass his bill. No doubt, though, he was familiar with the Oregon Provisional Government’s anti-black restrictions and could argue that Oregonians were sympathetic to the South’s “peculiar institution.” (That restriction called for daily flogging of any black male arriving on wagon trains if they didn’t leave Oregon right away. Consequently, the handful that did arrive, fled north of the Columbia to escape.)

Stanton Brothers to the Rescue Two political allies Lane counted on were the Stanton brothers, both U.S. Representatives: Richard from Kentucky and Frederick from Tennessee. Interestingly, the brothers were both born in Washington, DC and their mother continued to live there. In the early 1850s the dilapidated condition of President George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation became a cause celebre, especially amongst Southern sympathizers. The Stantons’ mother reportedly joined with other women to raise funds to acquire and restore the property (now owned and operated by the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association).

Appealing to Southern Pride Lane and the Stanton brothers agreed that he might gain more support for his under-populated territory if he were willing to support changing its name from “Columbia” (proposed by both Whig-dominated conventions back home) to “Washington” – a blatant appeal to Southern pride in our nation’s first president. The compromise worked, just in the nick of time. The amendment was adopted by the House after little debate and once the Senate dropped Illinois Sen. Stephan A. Douglas’s suggestion of “Washingtonia”, it concurred with the House version. Fillmore signed the bill on March 3, 1853, among the last official actions taken by the out-going President.

Jerry D. Petrick Certified Business Adviser