It was a raw and sleety wind that blew in off the bay here in Oysterville 120 years ago today.  In 1893, February 4 was a Saturday and there wasn’t much doing in town.  Except for the necessary tending of their animals, most folks stayed indoors out of the wet and cold.  Little did they know that it would be the last “normal” day for Oysterville and its residents.

For 38 years, Oysterville had reigned supreme as Pacific County’s seat of government. Scarcely a year after the town’s founding in 1854, the county seat had been moved from Chinookville to this bustling boomtown on the banks of Shoalwater Bay.  Since that time, Oysterville had become the political center of the county, as well as the social and economic hub.

During “court week,” especially, the town was a-bustle as lawyers and litigants booked into the town’s hotels and boarding houses.  Richard Carruthers’ Pacific House, alone, often served 250 meals a day when court was in session.  Rodway’s Saloon, Abe Wing’s Bar, and the Swan Restaurant also did a booming business at those times.

Now, however, in the winter of 1893, the future whereabouts of the county seat was on hold.  The electorate had decided on the past November’s ballot that the county seat should be moved across the bay and up the Willapa River to South Bend.  Oysterville residents were contesting that vote, claiming that many transients working on the railroad project in South Bend had been allowed to cast their ballots.  Oysterville’s appeal was under consideration… but the wheels of justice ground slowly.

On Saturday, February 4, 1893, there was no hint that tomorrow would forever change the future.  Julia Jefferson Espy and some of the other Baptist ladies of the village hurried over to their newly built church and made sure it was ready for the next day’s service.  Across the street in the parsonage, Reverend Josiah Crouch put the finishing touches on his sermon.  Little did the women or the preacher know that the next day, while they were attending their worship service, two steamers, carrying upwards of fifty men, would converge on Oysterville and take courthouse matters into their own hands.  This is what Commisioner John Morehead later wrote about the incident:

Arriving at the Courthouse in Oysterville, the parties went into a huddle to talk over their method of procedure.  Finally, an egotistical tailor and taxidermist named John Hudson stepped forward and, after rolling up his sleeves, so as to show his well-developed biceps, assumed an attitude and kicked in the door of the Courthouse.  The County Auditor, Phil D. Barney, had not taken much interest in the proceedings until he sauntered into his office and discovered that they had broken into a private drawer in his desk and were scattering his private papers about the room.

Immediately there was something doing in the Auditor’s office of Pacific County.  Barney grabbed up a chair leg and the execution he did with it on the heads of those South Benders would have put Samson of old to shame as he spread carnage among the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.

After quiet was partially restored, they took some of the records and furniture with them.  To show that there was no demand at that time for nerve tonic in the booming city on the banks if the Willapa, bills were presented to the Commissioners for services rendered to the County while looting its property.  It is unnecessary to say that those bills were disallowed by the Board without a debate, by a two to one vote.

But, 120 years ago today, that was still in the future and Oysterville still reigned supreme on the bay…