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. 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 acres of land within the Post reservation and acres in the city of Vancouver.
The contention between the government and mission took tangible shape in February, , when the Post Commander directed the officer of the day to remove the representatives of the mission beyond the Post limits. That this was done, manu moliter imposuit , may be assumed, as it was carried out by one of the most courteous of officers, General, then Captain, Daniel Burke of the Fourteenth Infantry.
This apparently harsh proceeding was a tactical move of the Commandant to compel the Bishop to bring suit, as that would throw the burden of proof upon him. We must now hark back in history, to give an account of the events which led up to this opening of active hostilities.
When Major Hathaway came to the old Hudson Bay Post, with his two batteries of artillery, in , he found in the rear of the stockade an unoccupied church and a little log hut. When he applied to Mr. Ogden, then Chief Factor, for a room in which to store some articles, he offered to rent him the church.
