fourth of a mile long. It is impossible to state the exact date when this ditch was opened, but it is believed that it was in 1853, and that the chief was instructed regarding the use of it by the Roman Catholic missionaries stationed near by. At any rate this place is generally recognized as the starting point of irrigation and stock raising in the Yakima Valley.
Brief addresses were made by Prof. Edmond S. Meany, of the University of Washington; General Hazard Stevens, ex-President of the Thurston County Pioneer Association, Olympia; W. P. Bonney, Secretary of Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma; Prof. William D. Lyman, of Whitman College, Walla Walla; Miss Martha Wiley, a pioneer daughter of Yakima Valley; Rev. George Waters, from the Indian Reservation; George H. Himes, Curator of the Oregon Historical Society and Secretary of the Oregon Pioneer Association, Portland.
Mrs. Abigail Walker Karr, the fourth white child born within the limits of what is now the State of Washington, (May 24, 1840), and Mrs. D. R. Reynolds, of Wiley City, the first white child born in Yakima, were present and introduced to the assembly.
An interesting feature of the occasion was the singing by David Simmons, a full blood Yakima Indian, who had been studying voice culture in Tacoma for two years. He surprised as well as delighted every body by the rendition of a number of ballads, having a baritone voice of fine quality and great power.
Three representatives of the first direct immigration into Western Washington, numbering one hundred and eighty, which passed through Yakima Valley in September, 1853, were present, as follows: David Longmire, George Longmire and George H. Himes.
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Among the recent accessions to the documentary material of the Society the following items deserve mention; A large scrap book, 14×17 inches, 300 pages, compiled by Mrs. G. W. Bell, a pioneer of 1852, in the last month of her eighty-ninth
