Vancouver Barracks and the Mission of St. James
The West Shore
By Thomas M. Anderson
December 20, 1890

The Roman Catholic church claims title to the greater part of the reservation of Vancouver barracks. This claim rests upon the alleged existence of a mission which it calls the Mission of St. James. To establish its title the church brought a suit in equity which was recently decided against them in the federal district court in the state of Washington and doubtless, the supreme court will be called upon to confirm or reverse the decision. 

The designation of this action is: " The Roman Catholic Bishop of Nisqually, vs. John Gibbon, T. M. Anderson and Richard Yeatman The defendants named were the department and poet commanders and post quartermaster, representing the government. Nesqually is the name of the papal bishopric in Washington. To understand this case, it is necessary to recall certain historical facts not on the story book principle of beginning at the beginning, but because the equities of the cause depend on points of international law, treaty stipulations and certain well authenticated, but often forgotten, facts in the history of the northwest.

From the first we must keep clearly in mind that our right of sovereignty over this northwest coast is founded on our claim of discovery and settlement, as well as on the Louisiana and Florida purchases; on the fact that in 1792 the Yankee skipper, Gray, first sailed into the river he named after his bark, the Columbia; on the explorations of Lewis and Clark in 1805-6, and on the establishment of the trading post of Astoria in 1811 by the original John Jacob Astor, a native of Waldorf, Germany, and then a merchant of New York. 

During the war of 1812 Astor's company was supplanted by the Northwest company, a Canadian fur company competing with the Hudson's Bay company which was chartered in 1669 by letters patent issued by Charles II of England, to Prince Rupert and divers gentlemen and adventurers trading in Hudson's bay. This company absorbed the Northwest company in 1821, and a trading post was established at Vancouver, which became the general headquarters in 1825, under Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay company in the northwest. 

It was the policy of this great corporation to discourage white immigration and make friends of the Indians; to discourage agriculture and to encourage trapping. The factors and servants of the company formed alliances with the Indians without benefit of clergy; but back in the early thirties a Church of England chaplain by the name of Beaver came to Fort Vancouver. 

He at once told the great McLoughlin that the brevet marriages must be discontinued and that the servants of the company valued a skin of beaver more than a human soul. Thereupon the chief factor smote this untimely prophet; but the man of prayer got his shotgun and would have killed his opponent had he not been forcibly prevented. McLoughlin was ordered back to London for trial. 

On his trial he convinced the board of managers (if they needed convincing) that a beaver skin in essence was of greater value than an Indian soul, so Beaver was recalled and McLoughlin replaced in command. On his return he joined the Roman Catholic church and invited a certain bishop of Juliopolis on the Red river of the North, to send him Catholic priests as chaplains vice the too candid and belligerent Beaver. 

This apparently unimportant incident was followed by consequences of great moment, and one of the remote results was the lawsuit to which we now draw attention in answer to the request of Dr. McLoughlin, the arch bishop of Quebec sent two priests, Blanchet and Demers by name, to report to the chief factor of the Hudson's Bay company. In 1838 they arrived at Fort Vancouver and were at once assigned quarters inside of the stockade of the fort. 

Right here the dispute as to facts begins; the church claims that these priests were missionaries, sent out as such. The military have always claimed that they were only parish priests and servants of the company and not missionaries carrying on an independent mission. It is in evidence for them that the archbishop of Quebec ordered them to attend to the spiritual wants of the servants of the Hudson's Bay company and to establish a mission on the Cowlitz, a river emptying into the Columbia forty miles below the fort. 

It is a fact that these priests and others who followed them did establish Indian missions on the Cowlitz, at French prairie on the Willamette, at Nisqually on the sound, and many minor migratory missions among the Indian tribes. They were brave, zealous, devout and self denying men who worked hard and did much good. On the other hand there is ample testimony to prove that the priests were paid £100 a year by the company for their services, that they ate at the company's table, slept in their houses, officiated among their dependants and that finally the company in 1846 built them a little chapel just outside of the main fort. 

One incident alone proves the devotion of these chaplains to the company and their hostility to American colonization. In 1840 Sir George Simpson so far departed from his general policy as to send about a hundred farmers from. Canada to the Willamette valley; this was done to anticipate, and if possible, to prevent, immigration from the states. "When the news reached the trading post at Walla Walla that this band of colonists were approaching there was an impromptu joyful demonstration, and one young priest threw his barretta in the air and shouted 'Thank God, Oregon is saved to our dear young queen!" ("History of Oregon, Commonwealth Series;" also "Gray's History of Oregon.") 

It was this demonstration witnessed by Dr. Whitman that sent him on his long winter ride from Walilatpu to the Potomac. To get an historical bearing we must turn back to an earlier date. After the close of our last war with Great Britain, we claimed the entire Pacific coast from the north line of California to fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north latitude, and Great Britain claimed the same. 

This English claim was based on the discoveries of Sir Francis Drake, Cook and Vancouver and the explorations of Mackenzie and Fraser. The British knew the value of the territory in dispute; we did not. The great inland empire between the main range of the Rockies and the Cascades was supposed to be utterly worthless, and the great timber belt between the Cascade range and the sea was deemed of little value; so it is asserted that Mr. Webster, then secretary of state, was willing to barter this great domain for a fishery concession; but long before this, as the two governments could not agree upon a boundary, they agreed to hold in joint possession. 

This arrangement was made In 1818 and continued in nominal operation until the treaty of 1846 was made. As early as 1835 American Protestant missionaries and settlers had begun to come into the country south of the Columbia; but north of the river the entire territory was stoutly held by the Hudson's Bay people. The Catholic missionaries were either French priests from Canada or Jesuit fathers from Belgium. Father DeSmet is the best known of this last named class. 

When Polk became president he was at first inclined to support our our claim to the entire Pacific Coast. Whitman's daring ride from Walla Walla to Washington DC in the dead of winter, a ride more dangerous and followed by more important results than Barnaby's ride to Khiva, had impressed the imagination of all, and his earnest statements had convinced many that our western coast had a great value. 

The senators from Missouri, Mr. Benton and Dr. Linn, espoused his cause. Senator Allen, of Ohio, became so ardent an advocate of war with Great Britain that he was known as "fifty-four-forty or fight," which became the democratic campaign cry of 1846. But the annexation of Texas determined Mr. Polk's administration to compromise on the line of forty-nine degrees. If it bad not been for this important concession the Pacific ocean would now be an American lake.

In May, 1849, Maj. Hathaway arrived here with two companies of artillery. Upon the coming of our troops the chief post of the Hudson's Bay company was located here upon the Columbia, six miles above the mouth of the Willamette and ninety miles from the sea. It was an extensive establishment, the residence of the chief factor, Sir James Douglas, and a depot for many minor posts. 

In fact the company then claimed to occupy and control a reservation of twenty-five miles by ten on the Columbia, and exercised a kind of vague authority over all the country north of the river. In 1838 the license of the Hudson's Bay company had been extended by the British government for twenty-one years; this would make its privileges terminate in 1859. So, when the military came, the chief factor claimed a right for the company to remain and carry on its business under a provision in the treaty of 1846 by which our government agreed to respect the possessory rights of the company until the termination of its license. 

What were these possessory rights? When the government of the United States extended its land laws over Oregon and Washington, the Hudson's Bay people began to claim a fee simple in the land they had occupied; but they were soon made to understand that his gracious majesty could not give what he never possessed, a title to this land; that our government claimed its right of eminent domain, not from the treaty of 1846, but from the days of Robert Gray and Lewis and Clark, and finally that our donation laws and preemption statutes were for American citizens and not for the gentlemen and adventurers licensed to trade to the Hudson's bay.

What bad the priests been doing in the eleven years that had elapsed since their arrival? They bad been performing the usual duties of parish priests, and, as before stated, real missions had been opened at the Cowlitz, Nisqually and on the Tualatin plains. Until Dr. McLoughlin left the service of the Hudson's Bay company and became an American citizen, they had always held service within the stockade; but Sir James Douglas was a zealous Church of England man, and so moved them outside of the fort proper, and read church services to his Protestant followers in his own quarters. 

Yet be built a chapel for the priests (this is the building shown in the large sketch in the center of this number, made in 1854) and continued to pay them their £100 a year. He knew that they well earned this stipend by their restraining influence over his wild voyageurs and couriers du bois and their half-breed families. There was also quite a settlement of Sandwich Islanders, Kanakas, working for the company, and they also had their preacher, "Kanaka William," who also held religious services for his followers in a cabin, assigned for the purpose near the Catholic chapel.

When Maj. Hathaway arrived in 1849 with his two companies, the priests were away and Douglas rented the priests' cabin to the quartermaster, and it was for a time occupied by some officers. There is a report that the church was used as a granary, but General Rufus Ingalls, who was the first post quartermaster, says, that, although he could have had it for the asking, he never rented it nor used it. 

It is a matter of dispute as to when the priests returned, but it is not questioned that they occasionally held services in their chapel during the joint occupancy of this reservation by the United States garrison and the Hudson's Bay company. After the first log quarters for the garrison were built, the priests' house was given up and was occasionally occupied by a French priest named Brouillet. 

Soon after the regiment of mounted rifles came, in 1850, some citizens organized a county government, the district around Vancouver having been designated as Clark county, of the territory of Oregon, the year before, and tried to locate their county seat, not only in the recently declared reservation, but within the limits of the post itself. They divided the lower grounds of the garrison into town lots and sold them at public auction for $1.60 each, and then applied to the first territorial court for an injunction to restrain the post commandant (Maj. Ruff) and the post quartermaster (Capt. Ingalls) from prosecuting the building of the post. 

The injunction, after due argument, was refused, and the City of Columbia was not built; but years after, when the mission case came up for trial, it was proved that the priests stood mute when the sheriff was selling town lots on the ground the church subsequently claimed, and denied to the assessor that the church had any property, real, personal or mixed. But we must turn back again, this time to get our sacerdotal reckonings. 

As soon as the treaty of 1846 was confirmed the Catholic church transferred this part of the country to an American diocese, that of St. Louis. First the Canadian priest, A. M. A. Blanchet, was made a vicar general, which corresponds to our military grade of adjutant general, or the Methodist rank of presiding elder. As soon as Washington was made a territory, In 1853, he was made bishop of Nisqually, with a jurisdiction corresponding nearly with the new territory. 

In the mean time, Lieut. Col. Bonneville, Fourth Infantry, had assumed command of the post, and one of his first acts was to invite Father Brouillet to take up permanent quarters in the post, and there is a tradition, which can not, however, be verified by positive proof, that Col, Bonneville himself suggested to the Catholics the idea ot claiming title to this reservation by legislative grant; for, on August 14, 1848, an act of congress was duly approved by the president, which provided, "That the title to the land, not exceeding 640 acres, now (then) occupied as missionary stations among the Indian tribes in said territory, together with improvements thereon, be confirmed and established in the several religious societies to which said missionary stations respectfully belong." 

That was in the organic act of Oregon territory. In May, 1853, or at soon as a government land office was opened on the north side of the Columbia river, Bishop Blanchet filed his claim under this act. No action was taken on this claim until after the expiration of the Hudson's Bay company's license, in 1859, when the commissioner of the land office acknowledged the claim of the mission and ordered the land to be surveyed and set off to it; then Governor Isaac I. Stevens, of Washington territory, protested In behalf of the military reservation, the town of Vancouver and the heirs of one Amos Short. 

Upon this the commissioner of the general land office directed the surveyor general of the territory to make an investigation, which he did at Vancouver in April, 1860. But during this investigation the military authorities stood mute and took no part. Dr. Henry the surveyor general, did not make his report until 1862. It was, without any reservation whatever, in favor of the mission claim. 

This decision was reversed the next year, 1863, by the commissioner of the general land office; from this decision the church authorities appealed to the secretary of the interior, employing General Charles Ewing, a brother-in-law of General Sherman, as their attorney in Washington. In May, 1864, Attorney General Bates gave an opinion that "The validity of the mission claims all depends on matters of fact, possession, occupancy and the time thereof." He concluded by holding, "That these points should be decided by courts of law and not by executive officers." 

In 1871 the subject was again referred to the attorney general for an opinion. On January 29, 1873, the opinion was given by Assistant Attorney General W. H. Smith, to the effect "That as the mission claim was opposed by the military reservation claim, by the Vancouver town site claim, and by the donation claim of the Short heirs, as to the remainder of the 640 acres not embraced in the reservation claim; that the church (as the representative of the religious society called the St. James mission) was only entitled to the land actually occupied by the church building, Forty-four-one-hundredths part of an acre."

Here it is necessary to explain that in laying off the military reservation, Colonel Bonneville, then in command of the post, took a comparatively narrow riverfront and ran his lines back about a mile and a half on the magnetic meridian. The representatives of the mission, with more wisdom, located their claim so as to have a mile frontage on the Columbia river, and locating their square mile, so as to embrace 430 acres of the lower and only improved part of the military reservation, the improved part of that claim and all of the part of the town of Vancouver lying between the west boundary of the reservation and the main street of the town, making in all their 640 acres. 

In fact the mission people made several experimental locations, before they finally settled down on the one which they thought would most decidedly give them the better of the Philistines. From the lines of their first survey, it would appear probable that the priests only at first intended to apply for a donation claim, but upon inspiration finally determined to claim under the legislative grant of 1848.

To resume the narrative of proceedings, the Hon. B. H. Cowen, acting assistant secretary of the interior, acting on the opinion of Asst. Attorney General Smith, decided that the so called mission was entitled to part of an acre and no more, and instructed the surveyor general of the territory of Washington to survey and set aside so much for them, for which a patent would be tendered, or if the applicants were not satisfied with this, giving them sixty days in which to appeal. 

The grounds upon which this ruling was made, were in substance, that the land said to have been occupied by the mission was not set forth by specific boundaries, was not enclosed or even marked by blazes on trees or other marks and that the only occupancy proved was as to the land covered by the church. It was not until August 28, 1883, that the survey of the half acre, or to speak by the card .46,346 part of an acre, was certified. 

Within the sixty days allowed, the church authorities appealed. Hereupon the commissioner refused to issue the patent which had been tendered. For a time a languid correspondence was kept up by the representatives of the mission, first with the interior department to get a reversal of its adverse decision and then with the war department to get the secretary of war to take favorable action on a report Col. Hardie, A. I. G., had once made in their favor. 

But the claim had by this time gotten into the hands of the Tite Barnacles and into the circumlocution circle and all any one could learn was that the cause was now suspended on a question of courtesy between the interior and the war departments. The mission, however, could well afford to play a waiting game; witnesses die, but the church lives in saecula seculorum. Then, too, the priests had been doing much better in the field than in the cabinet. 

Col. Bonneville had brought them back and allowed them to enclose for their own use five acres in the midst of the reservation. With his consent (Gen. Ingalls testifies) a house was built for the new bishop and gardens and orchards were planted. Indeed, Bonneville and Brouillet got along as pleasantly and convivially as Robin Hood and Friar Tuck. Even when Col. Tompy Morris took command this amiable armed neutrality continued. 

An abandoned settler's store was given to some sisters of charity who had braved the dangers and the hardships of the wilderness. Then is no doubt but that these excellent women did better work and kept a more orderly house than their predecessors. Gaining confidence as time went on, the church put up a large, two story frame building on the five acres and called it the College of the Holy Angels. 

This was done while Lieut. Col. A. J. Dallas was in command of the post. If some of the early post commanders seemed somewhat careless of the rights of the government, It is fair to say that no one back in the fifties could realize that in a single generation lots would be selling for nearly two thousand dollars in Vancouver, and that acre property in the vicinity would run up to a thousand; nor could those who lived in the old log houses they built themselves well foresee that the government would one day make improvements here worth half a million. 

Then, too, they were living In most friendly relations with the fathers. All, saints and sinners, were braving the same dangers and enduring similar hardships. On their part our simple-minded missionaries fell easily into the comfortable conviction "That the world was made for the saints, they were ----- therefore Q. E. D." During the civil war the post of Vancouver barracks was in charge of volunteer troops but was reoccupied by regular troops in 1866. 

The double occupation and official courtesy status continued until 1880, when a ruler arose who knew not Joseph. Soon after General Nelson A. Miles assumed command of the department the records show that vigorous investigation was started to ascertain the precise relations which had subsisted between the so called mission of St. James and the Hudson's Bay company. 

This resulted in securing a number of letters and affidavits from officials and confidential servants of the company, all to the effect that there never had been any divided control between the mission and the company; that the authority of the company over this post was absolute and undivided; that they fed, housed and paid the priests and indignantly denied that the latter ever exercised any authority which could have given them any rights under the law of 1848. 

But General Miles was relieved of the command of this department before he could force an issue. In the meantime the grind in the circumlocution office went on and the cause remained suspended, like Mohammed's coffin, between heaven and earth. After the lapse of thirty-eight years, the spell was at last broken, by the post commander tearing down the fence around the five acres held by the church within the government reservation, and, indeed, invading the half acre itself. 

This was done to force the church to take the hot end of the poker. As the authorities in Washington would not take action, this trespass on the mission ground left its representatives no alternative but to ask a restraining order, or injunction, from the courts. To do this they had to bring a suit and in doing so, had, of course, to set forth in full, their title to the property they claimed.

The mills of the gods grind slowly, yet it was a great point gained that this case was at last thrown into the hopper. For years the bishop of Nisqually (Washington territory) had been clamoring for a decision, but at this juncture he discovered that he wished a department and not a judicial decision. He wrote to General Sheridan asking that the action of the post commander might be disapproved. 

Fortunately "Little Phil's" sense of duty was stronger than religious or personal predilections. In answering the bishop he turned upon him St Matthew's text, "For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword" by saying "Bishop, you have appealed to the law and by the law you must abide," so, of course, the contest went on. First came an order restraining the military authorities from exercising control over that part of the reservation in dispute (430 acres) and giving twenty days in which to show cause why this injunction should not be made perpetual. 

Accordingly the department and post commanders and post quartermaster had to go to Olympia to show cause why. There they met the U. S. district attorney who had been instructed to intervene In behalf of the United States. Then the church filed a complaint, or bill in equity, which, stripped of its legal verbiage, amounted to this: That the bishop was, by statute of the territory, a corporation sole; that as such he represented the mission of St. James; that this mission having been an actual mission in the Indian tribes on August 14, 1848, was entitled to 640 acres of land. 

That the Hudson's Bay company, having only a license to trade with the Indians, had no right to acquire a title in fee simple in this particular 640 acres; that as the company had, under the treaty of 1846, a right of occupancy until the expiration of its license in 1859, they, the plaintiffs, were debarred until that time from making good their title. The complaint then recited at length the decisions and counter-decisions of the surveyors general, the attorneys general, the commissioners and secretaries, and finally set forth, that they had to bring a suit in equity because the secretary of the interior had made a mistake in law; that he was right in his decisions as to the questions of fact which induced him to offer them a patent for a half acre, but wrong in not extending his ruling to the whole 640 acres. 

Therefore they claimed that the court was bound by the decision of the secretary as to facts and also bound to correct his erroneous decision as to the law. Here was a brilliant piece of legal legerdemain, worthy of the united talents of churchmen and lawyers, a bold attempt "to tangle justice in her net of law." The complaint wound up with the statement, " That the defendants, John Gibbon, T. M. Anderson and R. T. Yeatman, officers and soldiers of the United States army, on or about the 4th day of January, 1887, and on divers days and at divers times thereafter, accompanied by soldiers under their command and acting by their authority and direction, entered upon that portion of said four hundred and thirty acres of land which has so been in the exclusive occupancy and possession of said church, and of plaintiff as its lawfully appointed agent to hold such possession, and, pretending to be thereunto authorized by said war department of the United States, forcibly tore down and removed fences and enclosures of plaintiff thereon, of long standing, and dug up and plowed the soil, and cut down and destroyed valuable orchard trees, and also ornamental trees; planted and growing thereon, the property of the plaintiff and of said Catholic church; and said defendants are threatening, intending and proceeding to, and will, unless enjoined and restrained from so doing, cut down  and destroy many other valuable fruit, orchard and ornamental trees upon said premises," and so on to the end, claiming all sorts of damages and costs.

At the preliminary hearing the post commander made the point that the Roman Catholic church was a foreign corporation and therefore could not claim the benefit of the mission clause in the law of 1848. The lawyers received the proposition as a jest and the court "smiled and passed the question by," but the point was destined to receive more serious attention. 

At this hearing in chambers, February, 1887, the court dissolved the injunction as to all except the five acres actually enclosed. At the spring session of the court held at Vancouver in April, 1887, the answer of the respondents was filed and the law points argued in demurrer before Judge Allyn.  At this hearing all the points of the complainant's demurrers were overruled, the injunction dissolved as to all except the forty-six-one-hundredths of an acre, and the testimony was ordered to be taken before a commissioner and then submitted for consideration at the next session of the court. 

It now became evident that the crucial question was this: Were the priests at the Hudson's Bay post of Vancouver acting as missionaries to the Indians on August 14, 1848? To meet this question, the writer hunted up dozens of old settlers and wrote scores of letters. Out of the whole number there were few who had personal knowledge of facts transpiring prior to August, 1848; nevertheless, when the time came, both the church and the military had mustered quite a number of witnesses.

The leading witnesses for the church were a Father Joseph Joset, an old Jesuit priest who succeeded Father DeSmet In his mission In the Coeur d'Alene country, Joseph St. Germain and Marcel Bernier, old Canadian French trappers and couriers du bois, August Rochon, a servant of the priests Blanchet and Demers when they came here in 1838, Mary Petrain, a wife of one of the old Hudson's Bay company's servants, Mary Prouix, the first woman married in the church, and, finally, one Francis A, Chamberlain, an employee of the Hudson's Bay company, the only one who testified in favor of the mission. 

They were a queer looking lot, antiquated and awkward, soiled, snuffy and redolent with a rather too pungent odor of sanctity. By their talk and manner they recalled the traditions of a buried past. If they had all floated down the Columbia in a canoe, with red blankets around them, it would have seemed natural and proper. The leading witnesses for the defense were John Stenagair and Napoleon McGillvray, old Hudson's Bay company servants, Willaim H. Gray, the historian of Oregon and an early pioneer, William H. Dillon, Peter W. Crawford and Silas D. Maxon, Charles J. Bird and John J. Smith, county officials and surveyors, Louisa Carter and Sarah J. Anderson, women who came out as early as the Whitman massacre, and, finally, General Rufus Ingalls and Mr. Lloyd Brooks, who represented the quartermaster's department. 

These witnesses were also advanced in years, but they looked like people who had kept up with the procession. The first set of witnesses swore positively that the mission people were entirely independent of the Hudson's Bay company and intent solely on the saving of souls. The worldly witnesses swore point blank, that the priests were paid and willing servants of the company, and that it was the trappers who converted the Indian women and that the church here was not a mission, but a congregation. 

The contradictory character of the evidence recalled at times Fallstaffs cynical apothegm, as to the world being given to lying. The trial also brought to light the fact, that the record of the first injunction suit against the post authorities had been cut out of the first record book of the county court and the book itself thrown in the river; but it was recovered, water stained and mutilated. 

The testimony of the old witnesses was, apart from its legal value, very interesting. It recalled the feudal ways of the old Hudson's Bay barons, the contrasted savagery and gentleness of the Indians, the wild ways of the pioneers, the zeal of the priests, the earnestness of the Protestant missionaries. One of the questions at issue was: What was a mission? The answer revealed by a strange side light, The difference in the motives and methods of the Catholic and Protestant missionaries. 

To the first mission meant a cross raised in the shadow of the woods, the baptism of the savages and the saving of souls. To the latter a mission meant work, the virtue of water was cleanliness, and the savage was to be Christianized by first being civilized. Of one of the witnesses for the government, It is just to pay a tribute of well deserved respect. General Rufus Ingalls was the post and department quartermaster during the entire development it this controversy. 

Whoever else may have been careless and confiding, certainly he never was; he was always vigilant and vigorous in maintaining the rights of the government, and his testimony for the defense had no uncertain sound, The case came up for trial on its merits, that is, on the evidence, and not merely on the law points, before the district court at Vancouver at ths spring term in 1888.

It was argued by District Attorney W. H. White for the government and by Whalley, Bronaugh A Northup, counsel for the church. It was decided by Judge Allyn in favor of the defendants. Appeal was then taken to the supreme court of the territory of Washington, and it came up for hearing in January, 1889. After full argument the court decided that the plaintiff had legal remedies for all wrongs complained of and should not have brought suit in equity; that properly speaking, It was only open to them to bring an action of ejectment.

The post commander proposed to remove all dependents of the church and to tear down and remove all their buildings so promptly that the church could not have got an injunction. In that case they could only have brought an ejectment at law and a suit for damages. Such cases would have gone to a jury for trial and the plaintiff would have had the burden of proof; but the department commander overruled this proposal.

The court next decided that the matter was purely a judicial question and in no way dependent on the decisions of the ministerial officers, such as surveyors general, commissioners of the land office or secretaries of the interior. As to the interpretation of the words of the statute, "Occupied by a religious society as a mission station among the Indian tribes," the court held that "occupied" meant possession, domain, absolute control. 

The court held that the Hudson's Bay company held such occupancy and domain, and not the church; that the present claimant claimed as the representative of the bishop of Quebec and that the bishop of Quebec was not the original grantee; that the American missionary societies were incorporated companies; that the Catholic church was not as a church a legally incorporated body under our laws at the time of the grant; that the law was passed to reward and encourage American pioneers and missionaries; that the United States then, by purchase, extinguished the rights of the Hudson's Bay company and all other British subjects (for £1,200,000) and concluded by affirming the decree of the lower court. 

A motion for a rehearing was granted, but before the case was reargued Washington was admitted as a state. The included territory became a judicial district, and in July, 1890, the case was presented and argued de novo before District Judge Hanford, on the part of the church by Mr. Bronaugh, of the Portland bar, and for the government by P. H. Winston, district attorney, and W. H. White, former district attorney, who was thoroughly conversant with the case.

On the third of November, the decision was announced in favor of the defendants. The distinct features of Judge Hanford's opinion may be seen in the following extracts: "I am convinced, however, that the purpose of this act was not to make a gift nor to reward meritorious efforts in the missionary service, but rather to recognize the just claims of a few people, who had incidentally, in connection with missionary labors, by their toll created property, whereby the material interests of the nation were effected and greatly benefited, and to protect their natural rights to the property so created by confirming to them the legal title thereto.

The missionaries were mostly loyal citizens of the United States; they were the pioneers of immigration; they aided in establishing the provisional government of Oregon, and they were helpers in securing this country for this nation. Failure on the part of the government to make good the title of the first American inhabitants of the country to the land made valuable by their labor, would have been base ingratitude.

The form of conveying the title by confirming instead of granting the same harmonizes with the idea of a and equitable right and already acquired possession; the word "occupied," a synonym for possessed, covered or filled, is an appropriate word to use for the purpose of identifying land in actual possession and use. The entire framing of the act clearly indicates that congress intended to grant specific lands to certain well known institutions. Another view that may be taken of the case is this: 

If the act is not to be regarded as a grant of specific land, capable of being identified by the description given in the act, then it must be a floating grant, and a grantee under it could acquire no vested right to any particular tract, until a selection had been made and the boundaries of the granted premises ascertained and established. No steps tending toward this end were taken until after the land now claimed had been appropriated and duly set apart for government use; it was then too late; the claim of the United States to this land as a reservation is prior in time, and for that reason, if no other, superior in equity, to that of the plaintiff.

Findings may be prepared in accordance with this opinion, and a decree will be entered in favor of the defendants. In recalling the incidents of this long contest, the palisades of the old Hudson's Bay fort seem to take shape again on the banks of the Columbia; the triangular pennon of the company, with its rampant beaver and serrated edges, floats again from the bastions; the thin mists again take form and a grand prophetic monastery arises, and we hear the glad strains of the Salve Regina floating on the air. But this vision also vanishes, "like the baseless fabric of a dream," and looking again we see a real fort and living soldiers, and floating over all, the banner that has come to stay.