History, politics, people of Oly WA
It was right here:
The highlight of Drew Crooks’ presentation today (for me at least) was Drew placing Quiemuth’s death downtown, not up on the Capitol Campus. Its not that historically significant, just a bit of pride that I didn’t screw up my own research.
So, how do we go about getting some sort of signage down there, marking the spot?
The last few years I’ve been strangely fascinated with finding out where in Olympia Quiemuth was murdered. I mostly wanted to find out because I think its an under heard story in Olympia, especially the reaction of our citizens that lead to the murderer getting off.
Drew Crooks will present his findings on probably the same topic (at least the location) next week, so now’s a good as time as any to put out what I found. In short, I probably disagree with Drew about where Quiemuth died.
There are a few resources that firmly pin the location at the old Stevens house on the Capitol Campus (this one and Rogues, Buffoons and Statesmen), but I think they’re mistaken.
The more I’ve plugged into this Quiemuth topic, the more I find the history of the area a lot darker than what is commonly known. When I read Mighty Mountain, it seemed that Binns was making dramatic statements about how some folks were back then. But, now, it almost seems like he was pulling his punches.
There was a least a minority of people for whom killing Indians was not a big deal, or at least part of why they came West. The rest, while they did complain a bit, did very little to bring the murderers to justice.
Read Sarah’s Olympia 1853 and my Murders in Thurston County, 1854 to 1857 for more context, but killing Indians was a majority of crime in our early days.
In terms of Quiemuth, it all started out with trying to find where exactly in Olympia he died, with the the intent of possibly memorializing his murder. There are two possible options from my
research.
These clips (One, Two and Three) put the murder either at Gov. Stevens’ first offices where the Olympia Center is now or at his newly constructed house on the NE corner of the Capitol Campus. Because of references to an alley way in clip 4, I tend to think its the original offices references in clip 1.
Also, the timeline moves very quickly in terms of where Stevens’ and his family lived and when Quiemuth was killed. The murder occurred on November 19 and the family moved into the new house in December. Makes me think it is very unlikely the family would move so quickly into a house that was the scene of a violent murder.
Also, interesting enough, there is no mention by Hazard Stevens in his biography of his father there is no mention of Quiemuth being brought to the new (or under construction) house. There was obviously an office in the house at some point, but its more likely its the offices referred to in clip 1.
Then, I got onto the topic of who killed Quiemuth. There is a lot of thought that Joeseph Bunting was obviously the killer, but that the political sentiment in Olympia led him to get off. Bunting, though, was not done after Quiemuth. These clips (Five, Six, Seven) tell the story of a later murder by Bunting and family. Clip 8 fingers Bunting years later as Quiemuth’s murderer, without any hint of controversy.
No direct evidence, but its pretty clear that if Bunting isn’t our man, someone like him was. And, Olympia at the time failed to turn him in.
So, in my mind, a few questions remain. Where did Quiemuth die (hopefully we can figure this one out) and do we memorialize where he died?
And, does Olympia owe anything for Bunting? In memorializing Quiemuth, should we take the blame for our city not turning in the murderer?
Last year, the Thurston County League of Women Voters updated their historic study on county-wide governance and made the case for a more responsive and financially stable county government through a home rule charter. The study is worth the read, by the way.
More recently, a group formed around the league started getting together to talk about the possibility of a home rule charter campaign. Here are the notes from their April meeting. While the notes indicate they were meeting again, no other meeting notes or notices are available.
The local Sustainability Roundtable seems to involved, making some moves in this direction as well. Here is a proposed position paper on local governance, which builds off the effort by the league.
Here is a version of the notes above from the April meeting, but with more references on the back end.
Here is where the roundtable will be putting their sustainable governance information.
So, it seems there is a new born effort between the League of Women Voters and the Sustainable Roundtable to create a home rule campaign. Nothing since the April meeting has happened, but I’m still poking around, seeing what I can find.
One thing I’ve been wondering about STOP Thurston County, a local franchise of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, is why they’ve focused with such laser intensity on particular environmental rules. I’d assume that if these rules were up for a county wide vote, they’d pass.
Here is the Democratic vote in the 2010 U.S. Senate election (Murray-Rossi):
Here is what a seven district option looks like:
This foul-mouthed post on Washington leading the nation in people who don’t get their children immunized made me wonder about the more local data. How many people send their kids to school without the right shots, thereby making it more likely that not only will their kids get sick, but the entire school will be less healthy.
Turns out, Thurston County has one of the highest rates of immunization exemptions in the state. Or, the highest number of parents and guardians consciously sending their kids to school without shots.
Here is a map by county, and by school district and a spreadsheet with all the data. Not only is Thurston County a leader, but Olympia School District is in the worst category as well, rating over 10 percent exemptions of the kids entering kindergarden.
By no means is Thurston County on the fringe here, there are some much worse offenders. Like Ferry County, where 41 percent of kids entering kindergarden have signed exemptions in the 09-10 school year. And, that was after the rate increased from 8.9 percent in 2004 to over 50 percent in 2008.
Also, Klickitat County’s rate went from 5.5 percent in 2008 to 21.6 percent in 2009. As the post at the start points out “(t)he national target is 95 percent” immunized.
Here’s a run down on the current situation of how a parent can enroll and child in public school without a full set of immunizations from a legislative staff report:
…a parent or guardian may exempt a child for one of several reasons including if a physician advises against a specific vaccine for a child, parents certify that the vaccine conflicts with their religious beliefs, or parents certify that they have philosophical or personal objections to the child’s immunization.
The staff report is on ESB 5005, which made the following changes to the requirment to be excempt from immunization:
…a parent or guardian must present, to exempt a child from school immunization requirements. The form used to certify the exemption for either medical, religious, or personal objections must include a statement, signed by a health care practitioner, that the parent or guardian has been informed of the benefits and risks of the immunization to the child. Health care practitioners may sign forms at any time before the enrollment of the child in a school or licensed day care.
This image, from the Washington State Historical Society, shows an obvious wetland in the lower right hand corner.
So, what I’ve been wondering is, since we know what was there pretty recently, what do we do with the area? Is it a good place to restore? Do we focus our commercial restoration on the old brewhouse and pre-World War II structures on the bluff on the northwest side of Capitol Way? Or, since this is a large flat area that’s already been developed, do we right it off?
Tonight was pretty fun on twitter, with the Olympia Brewery visioning event going on. The folks from Einmaleins.tv attended and got us all going on the #olympiabrewery hashtag.
The first take away for the night for me was running down the rule I knew existed (but didn’t have bookmarked) between major and minor league baseball on how teams on the various levels are located. This is the rule that I repeat to folks like Rob Richards when they go on about building a waterfront minor league baseball stadium.
Short of it is, as long as Tacoma has a minor league baseball team, we won’t.
Please consult your most recent version of the Professional Baseball Agreement. While this document is also the heart of darkness that is Organized Baseball and the great horrible monopoly that it is, it also includes Rule 52 “Major and Minor League Territorial Rights.”
Please flip to page 151 of the pdf file (or page 130 of the paginated document). Rule 52 states that every club is given a territory of their own, in which certain rules apply to teams that want to operate inside those territories.
Basically, the rules are:
In addition to one Mariners game with the family, my baseball summer will be solely around two teams: the Capital City Bombers and Thurston County Senators. As mentioned before, the Senators are the all-star traveling team portion of the local Puget Sound Collegiate League.
The Capital City Bombers are the local representatives in the Roy Hobbs system and, most importantly, they play a few minutes from my house at Olympia High School.
I’m manually scrapping the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine this morning for old posts from my previous local blog “Oly News Boy” (killed off sometime in 2004). And, man alive, I was a jerk. I know I probably thought the way I wrote back then, but damn Emmett, calm down, would you?
Here’s an example:
See? SEE? I told you that Matt Heins was a freaking stupid candidate.
I knew something like this was going to happen, the law would eventually bite him in the butt, and for God sakes, he deserves it. Wasting our time like this, making the Position 3 race go into a primary like that, wasting the “tens of thousands of dollars” that he says that he’s not going to raise, so I guess the freaking laws just don’t apply to him.
“I know it was a form, but I didn’t know it was a legal requirement.” Nuff said.
My memory is fuzzy now, but I suppose Matt Heins ran for city council. Boy, and I suppose I was mad at him for not filing forms correctly.
Anyway, “Nuff said” Emmett? Who are you, Stan Lee?
Here’s what I’ve saved so far. The plan is to repost them on the archive of this blog, so you’ll get everything in one place. Stupid mid-20’s Emmett and all.
One lesson learned, I have learned not to delete blogs without saving them. God bless the good folks at the internet archive, but I cannot for the life of me remember why I deleted Oly News Boy.
One of the most exciting things about the upcoming Puget Sound Collegiate League season this summer was the inclusion of a Japanese college baseball team. Unfortunately, a virus is making its way through the school and city, so the team is cancelling its plans.
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