Snohomish County will be celebrating its Sesquicentennial. There will soon be more information on a special web page to describe activities. But for the time being, the story of our county’s formation is described below from the book Snohomish County: An Illustrated History:
In 1860 the area [the Snohomish, Stillaguamish River valleys, Everett and Mukilteo shorelines] still was part of Island County, with government at Coupeville and court held at Port Townsend as part of Judicial District 3 (until 1868). With the nation in grave crisis leading toward civil war, a number of the settlers along the Snohomish River wished to participate in that year’s divisive elections. Seventeen votes were cast unofficially and sent to Coupeville, where they were too late to be counted. Frustrated by the situation, a petition meeting was organized and hosted by Emory C. Ferguson where the men requested the territorial legislature create a separate mainland county. Frost and Fowler also may have sent their own. The timing was excellent!
Once again gold and silver had been discovered, and new thousands of eager miners poured into eastern Washington territory, headed for the Boise Basin, Idaho City, and Missoula. Walla Walla surged to the lead in population, most of which supported the Democratic party and had no interest in the issues affecting Puget Sounders, who overwhelmingly supported the victorious Republicans of Abraham Lincoln. Fearing domination of the territorial legislature by those eastern mining interests, a proposal by Territorial Councilman Paul K. Hubbs of Port Townsend to create a new county in his district already had passed by the time the Snohomish men had paddled their canoe down to the capital with their petition.
