North Cascades

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN THE NORTH CASCADES

EARLY SETTLEMENT IN WASHINGTON STATE: WASHINGTON TERRITORY

The vast and seemingly boundless Territory of Washington opened to settlement in 1846, after the long disputed boundary between the United States and British Canada was finally determined. By the late 1840s, hardy individuals slowly moved across the Columbia River from the Willamette valley with the intention of finding permanent homes. From the mid-1800s an era of pioneer settlement was underway, encouraged by the federal government's Donation Land Claim Laws of the 1850s. The laws allowed virtually anyone over the age of 21 to claim as much as 160 acres of land for homesteading purposes. If, after five years, the claimant had fulfilled all the requirements associated with the laws, he or she gained full title to the land. With these incentives in place, hopeful homesteaders arrived in the territory in large numbers, although not in the numbers anticipated by the territorial government. In fact, neither the 1850 laws nor the subsequent Homestead Act of 1862 proved to be dramatic forces in bringing people to the Northwest, particularly to the North Cascades. [2]

Rather, it was primarily the abundant natural resources of the state that stimulated much early settlement. Timber was one such resource, and several early settlers established sawmills along Puget Sound from which lumber was exported to a booming San Francisco market. Gold was another resource which attracted settlers to the northern part of the state. News of gold strikes along the Fraser River in Canada in the 1850s brought prospectors and their suppliers into Whatcom County, one of three counties that cover the North Cascades today. Although the excitement was a short-lived event, many miners remained in the county after the rush in search of employment and land open for settlement. [3]