Fraud in Walla Walla City's First Election?

In January 1862 the Washington Territorial Legislature approved the incorporation of Walla Walla City. The legislature appointed the first city officers and council but stipulated that an election was to be held on April 1st. When this occurred many of the men listed on the "Citizen's Ticket" won the position they sought. But was this first election tainted by fraud? The editors at the Washington Statesman certainly believed so.
(The above image is an advertisement that ran in the Washington Statesman in March prior to the election. Image is courtesy of the Washington Secretary of State's office.)

Council Proceedings

City Council Chamber, }
Walla Walla, April 4th, 1862 }

A special meeting of the Council was held this day order of the President.

On motion, the Board proceeded to canvas the returns of the municipal election, held on the 1st inst.

The report of the judges of election having been read, indicated the following result:

Whole number of votes cast, 422

For Mayor– E.B. Whitman received 416 votes.

For Recorder – W.P. Horton received 239 votes.
For Recorder – W.W. DeLacy received 183 votes.

For Councilmen – I.T. Reese received 415 votes.
For Councilmen – J.F. Abbott received 410 votes.
For Councilmen – R. Jacobs received 413 votes.
For Councilmen – B.F. Stone received 412 votes.
For Councilmen – B. Sheideman received 400 votes.

For Marshal– Geo. H. Porter received 269 votes.
For Marshal – A. Seitel received 136 votes.
For Marshal – A.J. Miner received 17 votes.

For Treasurer – E.E. Kelly received 219 votes.
For Treasurer – D.S. Baker received 200 votes.

For Assessor – L.W. Greenwell received 413 votes.

For Surveyor – A.J. Chapman received 305 votes.
For Surveyor – W.W. Johnson received 110 votes.

On motion, the Council declared the several persons having a plurality of the vote cast, in accordance with the returns before them, as being duly elected, and instructed the clerk to notify them accordingly.

Whereupon notices and commissions were issued to E.B. Whitman for Mayor; I.T. Reese, J.F. Abbott, R. Jacobs, B.F. Stone and B. Sheideman for Councilmen; W.P. Horton for Recorder; G.H. Porter for Marshal; E.E. Kelley for Treasurer; L.W. Greenwell for Assessor; A.I. Chapman for Surveyor.

On motion, the Council adjourned at the call of the President.

S.F. Ledyard, Clerk.

April 10th, 1862

Council met agreeable to call of the President.

In compliance to notice the newly elected Council appeared, together with the Mayor elect, and were qualified in presence of the old Council.

On motion, the Council appointed, as corporators by the Legislature adjourned “sine die.”
The Council elect having been called to order Messrs. Reese, Stone, Jacobs and Sheideman appeared and took their seats: absent, Mr. Abbott.

On motion, B.F. Stone was elected President of the Council.

At the instance of several members of the Council an adjournment was had to meet to-morrow [sic], April 11th, at 2 o’clock P.M. to receive the inaugural address of the Mayor.

S.F. Ledyard, Clerk.

(The above posting is essentially the same as when it was published in the April 12, 1862 issue of the Washington Statesman. Formatting requirements for this blog are the reason for the alterations.)
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Mayor E.B. Whitman’s First Week in Office

On April 1, 1862, the incorporated city of Walla Walla held its first election in Washington Territory. The new city conducted this process as part of the agreement between the residents of Walla Walla and the Territorial Legislature in January of 1862. The townspeople chose E.B. Whitman, a prominent citizen, to serve as their first elected mayor. This was certainly a great honor for Whitman, who settled in Walla Walla prior to 1860, but he would soon learn some of the difficulties that come with taking an elected office in Frontier Washington Territory.

On January 11, the legislature selected Whitman and others to serve in the interim city government until the spring elections. Although the Washington Statesman cast aspersions on the number of voters who participated in the April election, Whitman received the most votes for the position of mayor and began managing the city’s affairs on April 10.

The April 19 edition of the newspaper details the message that Mayor Whitman delivered to the city council on the 11th, his first full day as mayor of Walla Walla. In his address, Whitman calls for cooperation between the city and the county in building bridges, referred to the need of a city fire department, as well as that of a public school system. The editorial board roundly applauded this message, but they soon turned their attention to the most pressing issue of the previous week.

On April 10, J.B. Robinson held a benefit at his theater for the Union Hook and Ladder Company of the county fire department. In attendance were townspeople and soldiers from nearby Ft. Walla Walla. Historical records indicate that some of the officers and men at the fort lived with their wives and children. Likely, but not supported in the historical records, is that some of the military families also attended the benefit. One soldier is said to have “been drinking too freely [and] marred the pleasure of the occasion by boisterous conduct.”

The town marshal, George H. Porter, tried to calm the soldier, was rebuffed, and soon a general brawl commenced between soldiers on the one side and civil authorities and citizens on the other. In the scuffle, pistols were drawn and fired. The result was that one soldier, Private John Lotzenheiser, was killed instantly, another suffered a fatal wound, and others were injured. Marshal Porter received a gunshot in his leg and deputy Sheriff L.W. Greenwell, was critically injured by a bullet that shattered his hip.

Three days later, April 13, a large body of armed soldiers marched into the city of Walla Walla in the early hours of morning and arrested the Sheriff. This matter was brought before Mayor Whitman, of whom it was demanded that the matter be resolved. Thus, Mayor Whitman wrote an official letter of protest to Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee, the post commander of Ft. Walla Walla. The following information is drawn from Whitman’s letter, Lee’s reply, and a rebuttal by Whitman to Lee, all of which are published in the April 19 issue of the Washington Statesman.
Mayor Whitman writes that the soldiers who entered the town claimed that they were acting under Lt. Col. Lee’s orders, a charge that the mayor does not believe. He asks Lee to investigate the matter fully and assures him that the city would fully and fairly investigate the affair at the theater. The commander replies to Whitman that the “premeditated murder of one, and the probably fatally wounding of another, of the most peaceable soldiers” was what drove the “excitement on the part of [the] soldiers.” Lee goes on to assert that a famous criminal, Cherokee Bob, was responsible for the murder of his soldier, and that it was the city’s fault for not having arrest this individual previously. Lee continues that he will answer for the good behavior of his soldiers and that he will punish any of their transgressions. However, he also admonishes Whitman that it would be the responsibility of the military, not the civil government, to decide the fate of soldiers.

This reply clearly angers Mayor Whitman, so he sent one more letter to the post commander. In it, Whitman accuses Lee of not possessing the facts of the events on April 13 and that the military man was “indirectly excus[ing] the soldiers for their demonstrations made on the morning of the 13th. Whitman continues saying that it was the responsibility of civilian authorities to maintain order, even over soldiers, as they were within the jurisdiction of city officials when the brawl at the theater occurred. Regardless of what occurred, Whitman asserts that the soldiers had no excuse to enter the city of Walla Walla on April 13. Whitman also emphatically states, “The most charitable view I can take of the unprecedented outrage committed by the soldiers under your command is, that a state of insubordination exists, and a remedy is conclusively beyond your [Lee’s] control.”

A clear resolution to this issue is not addressed in the following issues of the newspaper. In the April 26 edition, however, it is reported that Lee had “been ordered to San Francisco [and that] Capt. Rowell is left in charge of the post.” Perhaps Lee’s reassignment was the result of Mayor Whitman petitioning the territorial governor. It is unclear if this was the case, but the editors of the Statesman hoped that Lee’s departure would mean a return to good relations between the military post and the city.

This would not be the case if historian W.D. Lyman’s understanding of the area’s history is true. Lyman wrote that while the Washington Statesman clearly held Unionist views, a large population of the town were Southern sympathizers, thus the citizens would view the “soldiers as representatives of the National Government.” This would give the situation a different reading, one that might be that the townspeople started the brawl at the theater in order to take aggression caused by sectional sympathies out on the soldiers. A further exploration of the attitudes of the townspeople may confirm this hypothesis, but there in not room here to do so.

As it has been shown, Whitman’s first week in office was one full of challenges, none greater than an armed group of men arresting his sheriff. Nevertheless, it seems as if he was able to handle the issue effectively, even if he had only been on the job for less than a week.
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