TOLD by the PIONEERS - Washington Secretary of State

Told
by the Pioneers
GEORGE E. BLANKENSHIP
Thurston County
My family, that is, my grandparents on my mother's side, came to
Washington in 1852. They settled first on Grand Mound prairie. The
first year they lived on game, potatoes and clams.
In 1853 the Territory of Washington was separated from Oregon.
In 1854 the first territorial legislature met and grandfather B. F.
Yantis was a member of the Council.
My mother, a daughter of B. F. Yantis, first married A. Benton
Moses, sheriff of Thurston county. He was shot from ambush by the
Indians. It was his death that brought about the hangi.ng of Chief
Leschi. Mother then married my father, George C. Blankenship, and
I was born in 1858.
I have one brother living, Robert L. Blankenship. ~ly wife
(Georganna Mitchell) was city librarian in Spokane and correspondent
for the Portland Oregonian and Seattle Times. It was while I
was running a print shop in Olympia that we decided to write "Tillicum
Tales." We worked on this together. I later wrote"Lights and
Shades of Pioneer Life on Puget Sound." I set all these by hand
just to keep busy.
Since these books are all gone, they were mostly giyen away, a few
quotations from them would best suit my interview.
Recollections of a Native Son 1914
A peculiar charm hovers about the scenes of one's early childhood;
an atmosphere surrounds them that ever appeals to the adult, and no
matter how far removed from the place of birth and boyhood, in later
years the call to return, even for a short period, to renew fond recollections,
becomes irresistable.
Especially is this true with a western born boy, whose earliest recollections
are of a social condition that were crude, and of a p~ople,
though not of the caste of Vere de Vere, were honest, chivalrous and
generous to a fault. To the boy whose lines were cast in the Puget
Sound region in the late 50's and early 60's, the development of the
country from a peopleless wilderness to populous towns and cities is
to him almost incredible, encompassed in so comparatively short a
time.
I was born in Olympia before the great Civil war was declared.
The Capitol City was then the metropolis, Steilacoom had an ex-
14