Archives West Finding Aid

William Parkhurst Winans was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on January 28,1836, one of eight children born to Jonas Wood Winans and Sarah Stiles. W.P Winans's ancestry can be traced to the Revolutionary War in the figure of one Isaac Winans (1710-1780), who served as a member on the committee of public safety. Isaac Winans died after being imprisoned by the British. In 1859 W.P. Winans journeyed westward from Springfield, Illinois, arriving at the Umatilla River in Oregon in September of that year. He worked as a warehouseman and schoolteacher in the winter of 1860-1861, and was a clerk of the first Oregon election in 1860. In July of 1861 he moved to Fort Colville, Washington, where he was appointed deputy county auditor of Spokane County before becoming auditor in 1862. During this period Winans's career followed parallel paths in business and government. He was appointed clerk for the United States district court comprising Spokane and Missoula counties, serving under Judge E.P. Oliphant. Winans's owned a general store when in 1866 he was elected county superintendent of schools. In 1867, 1868 and 1871, he represented Stevens County in the Washington territorial legislature. A significant part of Winans's career began in 1870, with his appointment as Sub-Indian Agent of the six non-treaty tribes in the Colville region that had declined to make peace with the Federal government. It was in this capacity that, in 1872, he successfully argued against the directive of President Grant that would have given the Colville Valley Indian tribes areas in Stevens County where white settlers had previously established themselves under laws associated with "pre-emption" and homestead rights. This decision caused a great deal of controversy at the time. W.P. Winans was married to Lydia (or Lidia) Moore (d. 1876) in 1868 or 1869, and to Christine McRae in 1879. In 1874 Winans moved from Colville to Walla Walla, entering into the mercantile firm of Johnson, Rees & Co. (later Rees, Winans & Co.) He traveled widely in Europe during this period and had local interests in farming, merchandising, freighting, and banking. He was also active in civic, church, and business affairs, serving in the latter capacity as a member of the board of directors of First National Bank of Walla Walla and as President of Farmer's Savings Bank from 1890 until 1917. William Parkhurst Winans died on April 22, 1917.

John A. Simms, born circa 1827, traveled to California in 1850 in the wake of the Gold Rush from his home in Leonardtown, Maryland. Within a year, however, he moved on to Oregon where he lived during most of that decade. In 1858 he moved from The Dalles to Walla Walla in the Territory of Washington. There in partnership with A. H. Reynolds and Captain F. T. Dent (brother of Mrs. U. S. Grant) Simms in 1859 built and operated one of the first flour mills in the region. That same year he was appointed by the Territorial Legislature to be an interim justice of the peace until elections could be held. During the Civil War years it appears Simms made his living by providing flour to settlers and especially to miners on their way into the gold fields at Oro Fino. Simms was a member of the nine-man Territorial Council (upper house) where he represented Clark, Skamania, Klikitat, Walla Walla, and Spokane counties. He held this position from 1861 to 1862. Evidence from Owen's Journals and Letters tells us that Simms raised cattle and was regarded as a quiet, intelligent, and scrupulously honest man. During this time he had married Lucy McFadden, daughter of O.B. McFadden who had come from Pennsylvania to serve as an appointed judge in both the Oregon and Washington Territories. Simms left for the east in 1868 in order to secure a federal appointment as Indian Agent in Washington Territory. By the spring of 1869 he was successful in gaining this commission and returned to eastern Washington to take up his duties in the Spokane-Colville region. A disagreement over policy, in September, 1872, led to the resignation of W. P. Winans and the appointment of Simms as Winans' replacement. Simms' first assignment, the one Winans refused to carry out, was to convince the Spokane tribes that it was in their best interest to relocate to the newly formed Colville Reservation in the northern part of the territory and thus give up the improvements they had made to the land in the Spokane region. It was at this time that Simms assumed the position of principal Indian Agent at the Colville Agency. He held this position until 1883. John A. Simms died in Spokane September 1, 1890.