THE QUARTERLY
OF THE
Oregon Historical Society.
[The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages.
THE VANCOUVER RESERVATION CASE.
A LEGAL ROMANCE.
By Thomas M. Anderson.
As legal proceedings rarely interest the general public, it may seem presumptuous to assume that many will care to read of a law-suit long since decided. It is only from the fact that the Vancouver case brought to .light a singularly interesting episode in Oregon and Washington history, that I venture to give an account of that contest between church and state. Of course, with us the government only deals with a church locally as a legal corporation. The case I will attempt to review concerned property rights only. But the testimony of some of the old pioneer witnesses in the trial was so original and picturesque that it gave a color of romance to dry legal proceedings.
Twenty years ago the Catholic Bishop of the State of Washington brought a suit against the commanding General of the Department of the Columbia and the Commandant of Vancouver Barracks, which involved the title to 430 acres of land within the Post reservation and 210 acres in the city of Vancouver.
The Bishop, as a corporation sole, claimed this land under an act of Congress (the organic act of Oregon Territory), approved August 14, 1848, which provided: "That title to land not exceeding 640 acres now occupied as missionary stations among the Indian tribes in said Territory, together with improvements thereon, be confirmed and established in
