From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

This item was found in The Chesaw News, July 5, 1912:

  A FREAK EGG

 An Egg Within An Egg, Both Perfect, At Baker Ranch.

 “Mrs. Stanton Baker is among the many who have turned their attention to poultry raising on a little larger scale than usual this season, having invested in blooded stock from a well known outside breeder of leghorns. While the season is yet too young for anyone to come forward with a claim for honors in producing something unusual or phenomenal in the bird line, Mrs. Baker is entitled to the ‘bun’ as the possessor of the greatest freak of an egg this country has produced, and one which would hardly be found in a decade anywhere, although one such specimen was reported found.”

“The egg measured 8 inches around the long way, 7 1/2 inches the shortest place, and weighed very little less than a half pound. Had there been any geese around the farm it would have been credited up to them, but it was laid by a hen and handled with care as its importance was fully realized. After a few days curiosity prompted the breaking of the egg and here the real surprise was sprung. It contained the full ingredients that customarily accompany a slice of ham to the farm table, but it also contained another perfectly formed and normal sized egg with hard shell. The inner egg was also broken and was found to be perfect as a normal product.”

As it turns out, finding an egg within an egg is highly unusual, but more common than you might think. In fact, as I was compiling this random news piece, WSL’s National Digital Newspaper Program Coordinator Shawn Schollmeyer pointed out a new egg within an egg story in the news out of Abilene, Texas on June 5, 2012.

It is the town of Chesaw itself that is just as unusual as the egg within the egg.

Although you can still see a very small place called Chesaw on a map in the highlands of Okanogan County, most of the information to be found on this settlement are in books about ghost towns and former boom towns in Washington State. Norman D. Weis provides an unflattering and unvarnished summary of the history of the place in his Ghost Towns of the Northwest (1971):

“Chesaw was named after ‘Chee-Saw,’ early Chinese settler who took an Indian wife and settled near a commonly traveled ford on Meyer’s Creek. In the 1800’s visitors to Chee-Saw’s Ford spotted some traces of gold in the creek. Word of the gold spread, but since the area was in the Colville Indian Reservation, no prospecting was allowed. In 1896, with morals adjusted to fit the pocketbook, the white man opened half the reservation to mineral claims. Promptly, most of the good pastures and fields were taken by whites as placer claims. The townsite of Chesaw was laid out on land obtained by filing a half-dozen false claims side by side. Some honest mineral claims were made, however, on outcrops that looked promising … By 1900 Chesaw was a sizeable log community of two hundred population. It grew rapidly into a full-blown town with two three-story frame hotels, and a population (on a Saturday night, and counting dogs) that neared the one-thousand mark.”

Maybe the egg within an egg was an omen. By 1920 the town was declining rapidly. The Greenwood Saloon, one of many such establishments in Chesaw, added a steeple and bell on the roof, converting  the structure’s use to serving as local Methodist Church– perhaps as a sign of belatedly making up for the method of founding the settlement.  But apparently the effort was too little too late.

For further reading see Okanogan Highland Album (1987) and Okanogan Highland Echoes (1962 and 1986 editions)

Not long ago when I visited Judith Moses, the tribal librarian for the Colville Confederated tribes, she shared with me, a great way that she had come up with to promote foods which were the staples of the tribes before the white man arrived.  Judith produces a calendar which contains pictures of the food and recipes as to how to prepare them.

This calendar wasn’t cheap to produce so Judith reached out to the WSU extension service.  They were happy to partner with her tribe to promote healthy eating.  Judith not only found the 12 recipes, she staged and shot the mouth watering photos of each month’s food.  It doesn’t hurt that Judith has a background in art.  Kudos to Judith for a great idea and its superb execution.

Washington State Library continues to celebrate Native American Heritage month by focusing on the history of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce.

The Nimi’ipuu (meaning “The Real People”) founded their villages in a 17 million acre swath of land that extended from the Bitteroot to the Blue mountains, especially along the banks of the Clearwater, Salmon, and Snake River drainages.  Their language is a part of the Sahaptian sub division of the Penutian linguistic family found  in the Western Plateau of North America. They had a wealth of resources in their mountainous home region but often migrated outside of ancestral lands to gather and hunt during certain seasonal cycles.

The Nimi’ipuu were dubbed Nez Perce (“pierced nose”) by French Candaian Fur Traders in the late 18th Century.  The Nez Perce witnessed the explosion of European settlement that occurred in the very brief half century since their interactions with traders and explorers such as Lewis and Clark.  With the Nez Perce Treaty of June 11, 1855, a portion of the Nez Perce leadership gathered at the Walla Walla Council signed away roughly 9.5 million acres of traditional lands (the treaty was ratified by the federal government March 8th and proclaimed on April 29th 1959), that relegated the tribes to the remaining 7.5 million acre reservation that spanned portions of the Idaho, Oregon and Washington Territories.

When gold was discovered in the region now known as Lewiston, ID, in 1860, the United States failed to maintain the terms of the treaty, leading to an influx of white settlers into Nez Perce Treaty lands.  Three years later, a splinter group of the Nez Perce leadership signed away all but 75,000 acres of their ancestral lands.  A large portion of the Nez Perce did not accept the validity of the treaty and refused to relocate to the acreage, located in Idaho, that was set aside.  These non-treaty Indians included Chief Joseph, who stayed near his ancestral lands in Oregon’s Wallowa Valley.  Tensions and violence between non-treaty Nez Perce and European settlers arose from the refusal of treaty demands for relocation.  In June of 1877 Chief Joseph and other non-treaty leaders agreed to relocate to Fort Lapwai, ID, but a group of tribal members, outraged at past wrongs, attacked Idaho settlers in the Camas Prairie region.  When Joseph arrived to the encampment and saw the devestation, he understood it as a declaration of war, realized an appeal for peace was futile, and began a fighting retreat across Idaho, Wyoming and Montana that ultimately deposited the fighting Nez Perce in Bear’s Paw Mountains of Montana, a short distance from the Canadian border.

On September 30, 1877, the United States Army’s Seventh Calvary, led by Gen, Nelson A. Miles, intercepted Joseph and the Nez Perce at Snake Creek in a surprise attack.  The two forces fiercely fought throughout the three day stand-off until General Oliver Howard and his soldiers arrived, throwing the balance of forces off.  On October 5, 1877 Chief Joseph surrendered, and in doing so, delivered a speech that, through interpretation by C.E.S. Wood, immortalized him.  Instead of being sent to the Idaho reservation as promised by Gen. Miles, the non-treaty Nez Perce were sent to Fort Buford, KS under orders from commanding Army General William Tecumseh Sherman.  Later they were transferred to live in a swampy section of Fort Leavenworth, KS and many tribe members contracted and perished from malaria.  In 1879 Chief Joseph petitioned the President Rutherford B. Hayes and the Congress for relocation to Idaho or Indian Territory in present day Oklahoma.  Due to rejection by Idahoans the band moved to Tonkawa, OK, where they remained until 1885 when they finally returned to the Pacific Northwest to join the Colville Reservation in Washington Territory.  It is in the Collville lands that Chief Joseph passed away September 21, 1904.

The story of Chief Joseph : from where the sun now stands / by Bruce A. Wilson. Okanogan, WA : Okanogan County Historical Society, [2006], c1960. R OVERSIZ 979.5004 WILSON 2006. In Library use only.

Not long ago as the WSL tribal library consultant I facilitated the annual meeting of the Washington State tribal librarians.  One of the topics up for discussion was the native foods.  The tribes are making a concerted effort to reintroduce them into tribal members diets both as a way to preserve tribal culture and to promote healthy eating habits.

Tracy Hosselkuss, Lower Elwha tribe, talked about Ozette potatoes.  She said lots of folks in her area were growing this fingerling potatoes which  have a distinctive nutty taste.  Tracy said they are wonderful roasted in a fire pit which is the traditional way of preparing them.

As potatoes always play a starring role in my family’s Thanksgiving dinner I  asked Tracey to share some information about this food which the Makahs preserved and have been enjoying for 200 years.

It turns out that Jesuit Missionaries came up to the Olympic peninsula from Peru in the late 1700’s.  They brought the potatoes with them.  One rainy winter in the rain forest was enough for the missionaries and they left when their ship returned.  The potatoes remained and the Makahs just kept planting–and eating them.  WSU got interested in the the origin of the potatoes and ran some tests to verify the oral history of this breed.  Sure enough genetic tests revealed that the potato was indeed from Peru.

I have included links to recipes and to a place where you could order and grow these Northwest delicacies.

Weiser Family Farms

Recipe Ideas

Pan-fried Ozette Potatoes

Beef Tenderloin with Mushroom Brandy Cream Sauce & Roasted Truffled Fingerling Potatoes

Roast Chicken with red Fingerling Potatoes and Yellow Carrots

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

The reel grabbed at random this week contained The Big Bend Empire, the first newspaper established in Waterville, Washington. The issue for May 13, 1920 included this intriguing article:

 EPHRATA TO TRY OUT RAINMAKER

 “The people around the Grant county seat want rain, and in fact they are willing to try any old scheme to get it, even to employing a professional rainmaker.”

 “The Ephrata Commercial Club has entered into negotiations with Chas. M. Hatfield of Los Angeles, who claims to have had success in rainmaking in other sections.”

“The fact that the commercial club of Ephrata became interested in Mr. Hatfield’s proposition made it possible to guarantee $6,000 to Mr. Hatfield. Under the contract with the Commercial club he is to receive for first inch nothing; for second inch $3,000; third, $3,000 additional with a time limit of June 10. We understand that Mr. Hatfield is now on the ground and busy with his experiments.”

Charles Mallory Hatfield was already a famous figure throughout the West by 1920. The dapper 45 year-old sewing machine salesman had a strong resume, he claimed, of creating conditions which would result in rain for the parched corners of the world. His method included mixing a concoction of 23 chemicals (to this day the ingredients remain a secret) and setting this stew in vats atop 20-ft. high towers near bodies of water. Hatfield’s place in the history of “pluviculture” earned him an entire chapter in Clark C. Spence’s The Rainmakers (1980). One editor is quoted in this work on the odoriferous impact of Hatfield’s towers, writing they smelled like “a limberger cheese factory has broken loose … These gases smell so bad that it rains in self defense.” Electricity was also used in the process.

The rainmaker had set up his operation at the east side of Moses Lake and became an instant regional media sensation. He erected a tower constructed of 4 x 4s about 16 ft. square and over 20 ft. high, with vats containing his 23 top secret ingredients.

Sure enough, the area was rained on, but less than an inch. Weathermen pointed out that the distribution of the wet stuff was too vast to give any Hatfield any credit. They said the rainmaker took a long chance and won. But it was still far short of what the inventor promised. The Wenatchee World seemed to take a special interest in covering this story. After Hatfield’s June 10 deadline passed without reaching the desired goal, legendary World publisher Rufus Woods paid a visit to Moses Lake to conduct an interview.
Some of the rainmaker’s observations made during the interview concerning the Ephrata-Moses Lake area included:

“The conditions in this country are the hardest to make a showing in of any place I have been. When I get my forces at work, so often the wind comes up and blows them all away.”

“I have operated from Dawson to Mexico and Texas but this is the dryest atmosphere I have ever had to deal with.”

“It is harder to produce one inch here than it is five in California. I gave these people a better contract than I should have had I known the conditions in this locality.”

Hatfield also made a political prediction: “It is only a matter of time till the government will come to me … I know all these weather men poke fun at this. But they always tell what can’t be done when I am starting. It’s the same old hash, they go for me at the start. But results are what count. I have never failed to produce the record rainfall in every place I have operated.”

But fail he did at Moses Lake, and he quietly dismantled his tower, collected no fee, and set out for the next customer. His pluvicultural career was over by the 1930s. He died in 1958.

The U.S. government apparently never used his services. In fact the U.S. Weather Bureau made a point of highlighting Hatfield’s failures. During the Dust Bowl years Hatfield supporters could not convince the government to employ his methods.

But Hatfield did live long enough to see rain-making develop into a high-tech science both in cloud seeding and in warfare. If you look up the subject heading “Rain-making” in the WSL catalog, you will find many reports in state and federal publications.

The Big Bend Empire, which started in 1888, is an ancestor of the current Douglas County Empire Press. The entire run is available on microfilm, yes even via interlibrary loan, through the Washington State Library.

Formerly the library was shoehorned into a series of small rooms on the main floor of the Roslyn City Hall. A combination of civic fundraising and grant writing allowed the City of Roslyn to jack the historic building up and rebuild and renovate the space beneath the main floor.

The City Library now inhabits a spacious portion of that ground floor with the Roslyn City Council Chambers.  These quarters are only temporary as the City intends to move forward with remodeling the original main floor.  When the remodel is finished, the library will move back upstairs.  The downstairs will then become a series of meeting rooms and offices.

Hundreds of hours of local volunteer labor and thousands of dollars of community fundraising made the new furniture, technology and new materials which grace the remodeled Roslyn possible. Highlights of the space:

• Light pours into the space from the numerous windows.
• The wooden shelving salvaged from the downtown Seattle Nakumura Court House blends beautifully with the new furniture.

  

  The bench was a find that is very popular with folks who like to sit while selecting audio and large print books.

• A wide bench which has quickly become a favorite spot for customers to sit and peruse new adult materials was a local find on Craigslist. Handcrafted from old growth Douglas fir and put together with no nails, it’s even better because the craftsman is a library patron.
• The local art wall which coexists next to a salvaged jail door from the original City Jail. Picturing America, National Endowment for Humanities grant, was the genesis of Roslyn’s effort to highlight their local artists on a rotating basis.
• The jail door adds historical flavor with a story on the wall from a former inmate.  The inmate reports that he went out a convenient window to collect his shoes from home and was back in his jail cell without the jailer being any wiser.

Roslyn City library patrons are justly proud of their new library space.

To see more pictures of the Roslyn library, visit our Flickr page!

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

The following article was found at random in the July 31, 1908 issue of The Ephrata Journal. What is it describing? Swamp gas? A fog anomaly? A strange portal into another dimension?

 HARRINGTON FOLKS ARE PERPLEXED

 LAKE SURROUNDED BY DARKNESS WHILE SUN IS SHINING

 Queer Phenomena Vouched for by Leading Citizens of Lincoln County Town But No Explanation is Vouchsafed — Discovered by Accident by Farmer Fulton Who Felt Creepy.

 “The most remarkable natural phenomenon that has ever mystified the people of this section of the country has been discovered at a point six miles northwest of Harrington, at what is locally known as Swamp Lake. There is no light there. Darkness all-enfolding envelops the region during the twenty-four hours of the day and one day after another. The darkness is not a twilight, but a pitch-like, inky blackness. Many people have visited the locality during the past three days and all agree that the phenomenon is uncanny.”

“The first man to experience the peculiar sensation of driving out of the bright sunshine into a night black like the darkness of the mammoth cave in Kentucky was R.S. Fulton, a prominent and veracious rancher residing a mile beyond the lake. Speaking of the peculiar condition Fulton said:”

“‘I drove to Harrington with my family and we were returning home about 2 o’clock in the afternoon when, coming around the bend in the road which skirts the lake, we suddenly drove into deep twilight and then utter darkness. My smallest daughter became frightened and cried loudly. I did not know what to think of the thing myself, but thoughts of fog ran through my head and, as the horses did not appear to be frightened, I was not alarmed.'”

“‘My wife, however, requested me to stop the team, which I did after driving perhaps a hundred yards into the darkness.  There was nothing but blackness all around.  As we sat there a creepy sensation began to steal over me and I did not know what to do.

“‘I concluded to trust the team and gave them the word to go ahead. They went, picking their way slowly along the road, with which they are well acquainted. We traveled the entire distance along the lake, nearly three-quarters of a mile, in utter darkness and complete silence. As suddenly as we had entered the darkness we emerged from it. There is little more to add except that the air in there was perfectly dry and somewhat cooler than out in the sunshine.'”

“Fulton came to town the next morning by a different road and told the story here. He was laughed at, and the whole thing was taken as a joke, but he insisted that what he had told was absolutely true and finally a party was made up to visit the lake and see if it actually was dark there as represented. Among those who went there were Mayor Mitchum, Cashier Ellis, H.S. Bassett, W.S. Thompson, John Daniels and J.B. Eakin. They returned non-plussed and mystified, but very certain that rancher Fulton had told the truth. All agreed that the darkness was absolute.”

“People have been going up the lake all day. It is not much of a lake. It might more properly be called a swamp. The darkness seems to cover the lake and to extend to a distance of from eighty to 100 yards around it. Many theories have been advanced to account for the phenomenon. All the conditions of nature seem to be normal except that it is dark there when it is light all around.”

As a side note, “Swamp Lake” has yet to be found on any historical or modern map by this writer, although there are a number of unnamed bodies of water that qualify as candidates. In his Lakes of Washington, Ernest E. Wolcott describes 248 lakes in Lincoln County, most of them not named.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

Pennsylvania-born Dr. Albert Henry Fehr appears to have arrived in the then independent city of Georgetown, Washington around 1908, at age 36. He specialized in horses, and even had a patent in 1899 on a toe-weight for equines. In 1906 he was a one-day national news sensation when he blew the whistle on a horse he was ordered to drug in order to fix a race in Memphis.

Georgetown had only been incorporated since 1904 when newcomer Dr. Fehr tossed his hat in the ring during the 1909 election after the original Mayor decided to retire from the office. Fehr placed third out of three candidates, gaining only a dozen votes.

This week’s grabbed at random reel of microfilm is from The Seattle Daily Times, Jan. 14, 1910. It describes the consequences of an unusual campaign promise made by Dr. Fehr:

 SOMEBODY LIED, NOW BURDEN OF SONG BY FEHR

 Georgetown Mayoralty Aspirant, Who Promised Dinner to Supporters, Gets 12 Votes but 137 Want Feed

ALL SAY THEY GAVE HIM THEIR BALLOTS

 Only Thing to Do, He Says, Is to Entertain Whole Town at Barbecue — Leases Long String of Sausages.

 “One hundred and thirty seven legal voters of Georgetown solemnly declare they cast their ballots for Dr. A.H. Fehr, candidate for the mayoralty nomination on the Citizen’s ticket at the recent primaries. The election clerks and judges as solemnly declare that the official count of the ballots gave Dr. Fehr exactly twelve votes. The ever-growing list of men who say they voted for Dr. Fehr is reaching such proportions that there is now an issue of veracity between the election boards and the remainder of Georgetown.”

 “Little attention would be given to the wide difference in the figures were it not for the campaign promise of Dr. Fehr that he would invite each man who voted for him to a dinner after election. Many promised to vote for him, but only eleven kept the pledge, and Dr. Fehr voted for himself.”

 “When the last vote was counted Dr. Fehr slapped his pocketbook in satisfaction and next morning started to round up the faithful eleven.”

 Number Keeps Increasing

 “The first day of his canvass he found twenty-six who swore they voted for him. Dr. Fehr scratched his head in amazement, asked each member of the election boards if they were honest, consulted City Attorney Charles Ennis about throwing out the whole election on account of fraud, and then decided to feed the twenty-six. That night Fehr’s telephone bell rang repeatedly and each time he answered it a voter promised to attend the banquet in accordance with the preelection arrangement.”

“By sunrise Fehr had a list of thirty-five who voted for him, and the next night his intended guests numbered fifty-three. Then Fehr began to stave off the banquet. He refused to be called a ‘quitter’ but he acknowledged that he was sparring for time. It was believed that an indefinite postponement of the banquet would discourage the remaining voters in Georgetown. The voters not only knew their game but were hungry.”

 Will Feed Whole Town

 “‘There is only one way to give that banquet and not slight anyone,’ said Dr. Fehr today, ‘and that is to feed the whole town. I thought the matter over last night and have decided to barbecue a big, fat hog and invite everybody to come. I have rented the old livery stable of Roy Wilson, now being fitted up for a Georgetown theatre, and as soon as the alterations are finished, I will give that banquet. I have taken options on a half barrel of sauerkraut, a half barrel of dill pickles, 150 loaves of bread, leased a strong of sausages that will reach from Frye-Bruhn’s to the city hall, and, with a 300-pound hog I believe I shall be able to feed all who voted for me.'”

“‘There also will be two or three barrels of coffee and tea. Just as soon as Wilson gets his new theatre ready I shall keep my election promise and feed everybody who voted for me.'”

June Peterson Robinson in her book, The Georgetown Story (2nd ed., 2000) picks up where the above story left off:

“A number of Georgetown residents could be classed as ‘characters’ but none captured the attention of the media more than Dr. A.H. Fehr during the spring of 1910.”

“The little dandy with the small mustache and close-cropped hair had been an unsuccessful mayoral candidate the previous fall, polling only twelve votes in the primaries. His public offer to buy dinner for the eleven persons who voted for him turned up twenty-six voters the first day and rose to one hundred thirty-seven by January. He advised the town fathers that he could either ask for a recount or charge election fraud, but decided to keep his election promise and feed the whole town.”

“The dinner would take place as soon as alterations changing Roy Wilson’s livery stable to a theater had taken place. The date was finally fixed for March 3, Fehr’s birthday, and was to be held out of doors– weather permitting. Hi Gill, Seattle mayor John Miller and the Seattle City Council, the Georgetown mayor and Council and all King County Veterinarians were invited to be special guests. The menu would include one barrel sauerkraut, one half barrel dill pickles, three gallons mustard, one bear, one veal, one mutton, one shoat, two dozen Belgian hares and wieners containing the meat of twelve animals (to correspond with the votes cast in the election). Paper plates and napkins would be used. Dr. Fehr announced that he was having iron forks made, twelve would bear the words ‘I did,’ the remainder would say ‘I didn’t.’ Those who picked ‘I did’ out of the basket would be considered the only honest men– the ones who really voted for Fehr. Unfortunately, the story of the end of the celebration has been lost. No account has been found of the actual event and what really happened.”

Although Dr. Fehr can be found in the Seattle directories for 1908-1910, he vanishes from that source 1911-1914. Interestingly, he does not appear in the 1912 Year Book of the Washington State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners as someone licensed to practice veterinary medicine in Washington State. He died in Seattle at age 41 on Jan. 12, 1914, two days shy of the 4th anniversary of The Seattle Daily Times article above.

As for Georgetown, it came to an end as an incorporated entity on Apr. 4, 1910, when it was annexed by Seattle.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

The Nov. 15, 1902 issue of The Spokane Press has a news account of a well known international con artist being arrested in Australia. The writer reminds the readers this criminal had made Spokane his home at one time:

  HE WAS A SOCIETY MAN IN SPOKANE

 Now Arrested in Australia—Wanted in Many Places for Similar Offences.

 “The following telegraphic dispatch from Chicago will be of interest to Spokane people, as the principal in the case was at one time the central figure in a marriage scandal case in this city.”

“That Arlington Buckingham Wadsworth created surprise, admiration and disgust by his actions here some years ago is still fresh in the memories of the people.”

“He came to the city as a wealthy business man and was soon recognized as such. He engaged in the real estate business, rode behind a span of fast horses hauling a fine English trap and was everywhere looked upon with envy.”

“Mr. Wadsworth was a great favorite with the ladies and his winning ways soon won for him admiration on every hand. In the ballroom, banquet halls and parlors he could be seen surrounded by a bevy of beautiful and wealthy ladies. He only associated, so far as the public knew, with the best people in the city.”

“In a due course of time it became known that he intended to wed a young lady of wealthy parents. The love match was not broken for some months until it leaked out that Mr. Wadsworth was an imposter of the rankest kind, but the information came too late, as the lovers were on their way to Chicago to be married. The young lady’s father made all possible haste to stop proceedings and did so at the last hour.”

“It soon afterwards became known that Arlington Buckingham Wadsworth was a man of many names and perhaps as many wives. He never afterwards appeared in Spokane social circles and the police state that he is wanted for bigamy in  several places.”

“In the following dispatch the name is changed to Arthur Bentley Worthington, but people who are familiar with the scandal created here state this is none other than Wadsworth.”

“CHICAGO, Nov. 15.–Arthur Bentley Worthington, leader of the Spiritualist movement known as the ‘Students of Truth,’ and one of the most famous all-around confidence men known in this country for the past 25 years, has been apprehended in Australia, on a charge of obtaining money under false pretenses from a woman whom he induced to act as sort of a financial ‘angel’ for his movement in the Antipodes.”

“Nothing has been heard of Worthington in this country for a good many years, though the secret service authorities have been constantly on the lookout for him. His criminal record is a long one, and at different times in his varied career he has figured in the police annals of over a dozen states in this country from Maine to California. He has posed as a lawyer, banker, politician, real estate operator, spiritualist writer, mining speculator and organizer, and bigamy has been his most favorite role.”

“He was born in New York state, in 1847, his real name being Samuel Oakley Crawford. He enlisted in the Union army, in 1864, reappearing after the war was over as a temperance lecturer, studied law for a while, but, in 1867, he professed religion and preached as a Methodist minister in New Jersey. The next year he married, for the first time; his wife was one Josephine Ericson Moore. He deserted her and an infant daughter a year later. Soon after he turned up in Albany and buncoed a guileless farmer out of his hard-earned savings and was arrested and sentenced to the penitentiary for three years in 1870.”

“Four years later he married again in this city the daughter of a Boston clairvoyant. He deserted his second wife in a few weeks and before the year was over he married his third wife, the daughter of an Ohio judge, whose name he forged to a note for $3000.”

“He fled to Kansas City, where he lived for a short time under the name of Eugene Bonner, but got in trouble there in 1876 and went to Peoria, Ill. By this time the police in various parts of the country began to offer rewards for his arrest. Here wife No. 2 appeared, but he avoided her and fled to San Francisco. His marriage here to a wealthy widow, of whom he had borrowed $2000, was frustrated before the ceremony by a telegram exposing some of his operations in a matrimonial way.”

“By some hook or crook he managed to evade the officials of ‘Frisco and next turned up at Salt Lake City, where he became a Mormon, and is said to have preached in the temple. He got away from there with great expedition after borrowing $5000 from the all too trusting proselytes of Brigham Young, and Texas sheltered him next for a brief time.” “In 1878 he moved to Detroit, where he found a troupe of actors, and married a Miss Eliza Huntoon, under the name of Bannerton. Leaving the stage, he settled down in New Lisbon, Wis., where he practiced law, but soon tired of honest work. He borrowed several hundred dollars, forged a number of bonds and checks. He was caught and indicted, but his partner went his bail and the apostle took to traveling again, leaving wife No. 4 sadder and wiser.”

“The records show that he traveled through many states in 1882 and 1883 as an English tourist, cashing many worthless papers. Boston was his next home, where he again practice law, and lived in great style. He became acquainted there with a Mrs. John P. Sargent, a woman with a leaning toward spiritualism, and who had some money. He became an ardent spiritualist, and induced the woman to leave her husband and family and fly with him. The couple lived in Charleston, W.V., till Worthington had spent the woman’s money, and in 1886 the man disappeared altogether, though he had in the meantime swindled a Mr. Dana of Charlestown out of about $3000.”

“The advices received telling of his arrest in Melbourne last week show that he was up to his old tricks there and has at last fallen into the toils. After justice has been satisfied there he will be brought to this country to make amend for some of his many depredations.”

Wadsworth shows up in the 1887 Directory of the City of Spokane Falls as a resident of the Hyde Block. This three story building at 611 W. Riverside was ironically built by and named after Spokane’s first Chief of Police. It was destroyed in the 1889 Spokane fire.  A second and larger Hyde Block was constructed on the same spot.

He also appears to be a defendant in two cases cited in Frontier Justice having to do with nonpayment on loans 1887-1888, so it would seem the system was starting to close in on him before he fled Washington Territory.

Posing as General A.B. Ward, he worked with Benjamin Harrison in the 1888 presidential campaign. As Arthur Bently Worthington he moved to New Zealand and became a leader of religion he invented called, humorously enough, Students of Truth.

After spending seven years in an Australian prison, he returned to the United States and was back to his con games. Arrested again in January 1917, he spent the final year of his life in a New York State jail. He died December 14, 1917, supposedly while talking through the cell bars to his latest wife, who was either number 10 or 12, depending on the source.

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

The community of Burley was one of several utopian experiments that had an opportunity to root and briefly flourish in the frontier of Washington in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The story of Burley isn’t quite as filled with controversy and drama as the other collective communities such as the Puget Sound Co-Operative Colony, Equality, Freeland, and Home. Perhaps that makes the place worth a second look.

Burley was founded in 1898 by the Co-Operative Brotherhood, an offshoot of Eugene Debs’ Social Democracy of America. Although the Brotherhood had around 1200 members, only one-tenth of them actually resided in the colony, located at the northern tip of Henderson Bay in Kitsap County, between Gig Harbor and Port Orchard.

In an article for the Oct. 1902 issue of The Arena, W.E. Copeland included this description of Burley:

“About one hundred and twenty men, women and children are resident at Burley, all working except the children under fourteen. Here is a village, with no saloon, no sectarian church, no money, and no competitive stores, managed by the people themselves through a board of directors. Here is the beginning of a new civilization, free from the evils of old …”

“In Burley no wages are paid; the tools, the machines, the lands, the improvements, the cattle and horses, and the wealth produced belong to whole Brotherhood. Each family is allowed a house, not to be alienated while the family remains at Burley. Here is no anxiety about rent, about work for to-morrow, about sickness or old age, about the fate of the family when the breadwinner dies.”

“The property is held in trust by a board of twelve trustees, three of whom are elected annually by a vote of the whole membership. The work done is farming and manufacturing lumber, shingles, and cigars. Every one works who is able.”

Yes, you read that right. Cigars. Not only that, Burley had the largest cigar factory in the state and even had their own label and box. The tobacco was imported Kentucky Burley, hence the name of the community. It seems strange that a settlement with no saloons or gambling dens would not only produce cigars, but name the town after a tobacco. The other utopian collectives would gently chide Burley for this industry.

Burley also had a high quality print shop, and produced a newspaper. The Co-operator existed from 1898-1906. The following article, possibly written the same W.E. Copeland mentioned above, appeared in the issue for Sept. 29, 1900:

 BURLEY AND ITS LOCATION

 “Burley is the present headquarters of The Co-operative Brotherhood. It is a town not greatly different in appearance than villages of its size elsewhere, but the visitor on investigation bent will find that in this case it is true that appearances are deceitful. There are no diversities of interests in Burley such as are common in other places. The land and houses are collective property, and the industries are operated collectively for the common benefit. Burley is a prefiguration of the industrial community of the future. There are no grog shops in Burley, no low dance halls nor gambling dens to corrupt the morals of our youth. We have no prohibition law, nor do we need one. There is no demand for liquor, and there is no profit system to support its sale. The inhabitants of Burley lead healthy, natural lives, and do not crave the excitement which comes from stimulants.”

“Located on the west side of the sound, about fourteen miles from Tacoma, Burley is far enough removed from the busy marts of trade and the influences of the competitive system to secure the uninterrupted working out of its co-operative ideals, and at the same time it is near enough to the outside world to avoid the isolation that would prove undesirable in many ways. The town is most beautifully situated so far as natural conditions go. Located in a valley of surpassing richness, through which meanders a delightful stream of water, abounding in pools filled at all seasons with trout, it is an ideal place for a home. To the east and west of the valley rise bold hills, crowned with the eternal green of firs, and far away to the west beyond the hills rise the snowcapped Olympics, while to the east rise the cascades, with old Rainier standing as a giant sentinel over all. To the south stretches away the waters of the sound, that inland sea which has been aptly termed the Mediterranean of America, and which good judges have termed the most beautiful body of water on the globe. Here, amid the beauties of unsurpassed natural scenery, we have laid the foundation for a new civilization. We are working out our destiny as the pioneers of a new industrial system, and our children are growing up close to nature, leading simple, natural lives, and learning that lesson which is so essential for them to know– that the welfare of the individual is inseparably bound up in that of the community.”

But as it turned out, Burley could not economically sustain itself and eventually disbanded as an organized unit in 1912-1913. Burley continues to be on the map today. Chris Henry of the Kitsap Sun recently wrote a profile of the town and described the present-day area: “Today, Burley is a busy little bump in the road …”

An excellent history of Burley, and other Washington State collective settlements, can be found in Charles Pierce LeWarne’s Utopias on Puget Sound 1885-1915.

According to Brian Herbert in Dreamer of Dune : The Biography of Frank Herbert, the grandfather of the author of Dune was an early resident of Burley. Otto Herbert brought his family to area in 1905, at first settling just outside of the Brotherhood land, but eventually moving within the borders. Frank Herbert was born in Tacoma in 1920 and spent much of his childhood visiting Burley.

This map is from Plat book of Kitsap County, Washington, containing maps of villages, cities and townships of the County, including map of the State of Washington (1909) and shows downtown Burley, called “Circle City” by the residents as the buildings were arranged in a semicircle near an artesian well.