Commemorative Sign in Oysterville

     On Saturday night, Nyel and I will be performing in South Bend at the Pacific County Historical Society’s third annual Living History Night.  This year’s theme is ‘The Pacific County Courthouse’ in commemoration of the building’s 100^th birthday — the building that many called “The Gilded Palace of Reckless Extravagance” at the time it was constructed.  We feel honored that we have been asked to participate, though we would be the first to point out that, by all rights, the courthouse should still be here in Oysterville, a block west of our house!
     After all, Oysterville was chosen as county seat in 1855 and it was here that the first publicly funded courthouse was built 20 years later.   It wasn’t until the 1892 election that voters chose to move the seat of county government and South Bend came out the winner.  Oysterville citizens, however, claimed irregularities in the voting and took the matter to court.
     Then, as now, the wheels of justice moved slowly.  In February of 1893, an impatient group of ‘South Bend Raiders’ took matters into their own hands.  On a slushy Sunday morning, when most of Oysterville was in church, the South Benders descended on the court house, overwhelmed the few officials working there, and took all the records back to South Bend.  It was a done deal.
     It should come as no surprise that Nyel and I, “The Shoalwater Storytellers,” will be presenting a piece called “Kidnapping the County Seat” on Saturday.  Like all of our performance pieces, the information we convey is from the words of those who lived the experience – in this case, John Morehead who was County Commissioner at the time.
      Of course, the piece is a bit biased in Oysterville’s favor and I’m not sure that in our thirty years of performing we have ever presented this particular story to a South Bend audience.  I hope their sense of humor is intact.  But mostly, I’m hoping that my costume still fits!