Archives West Finding Aid

An 1890s' land dispute took place in Chelan County, Washington involving Chelan Native known as Long Jim, who homesteaded land while the rest of the Chelan people moved to the reservation, and a non-Native man, Enos Peaslee, who claimed the land as his own. Peaslee recevied a letter from December 2, 1890 from J.C. Lawrence, registrar of Chelan County, notifying Peaslee that his claim to land was in conflict with a land claimed by Long Jim. A hearing was ordered to decide the correct status of the land in question. Peaslee declared that he wished to reside on the land on which he had filed on July 14, 1890. Peaslee claimed he did not think that any Native people had claims on the land when he took it, and he also claimed Long Jim and another Chelan named Cultus Bob threatened him with violence if he did not cede the land. A lawyer he consulted suggested that, while he could not defy the government in its support of Long Jim, he should hold on to the claim to make it clear that he left the land only under compulsion. On July 9, 1892, the Commissioner of the General Land Office decided that the Native applicants were entitled to have allotments of the lands made to them in an agreement from July 7, 1883, and that the right of the white claimants of the same lands was subordinate to the previous and superior right of the Native Chelan claimants.