Lecture recounts theft of territorial capital from Lewiston to Boise

Anyone with any knowledge of early Lewiston history knows the city's status as capital was stolen and given to Boise.

But as Steven Branting pieced together details of the notorious deed during a presentation Monday at Lewis-Clark State College - on the 150th anniversary of the event - he arrived at a slightly different conclusion.

"Did they steal it? No. It was just politics," said Branting, a Lewiston history aficionado and author.

Actually, Branting said, the rumor that hit that day was Lewiston, then a city of about 400, would be burned.

"Everybody panicked," he said.

What was really happening, he said, was a change driven by the simple fact that Lewiston's location was incredibly inconvenient for those traveling from other parts of the territory, then made up of most of what is now Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

"Lewiston was about as far from everything as you can get," Branting said. "Getting from Helena or Billings or Butte was a terrible thing to do."

Travelers from those places had to go through Salt Lake City, then back up to Lewiston, a trip of many weeks.

"When you sort it all out, you kind of see why things happened," Branting said.

On March 30, 1865, following a series of "convoluted circumstances," Idaho's new territorial secretary, Clinton DeWitt Smith, gathered the "closest muscle" he could find from Fort Lapwai and headed for Lewiston. DeWitt Smith rode into town via Tammany, up what is now Snake River Avenue and to the prison on First Street, where the territorial seal and accompanying documents were locked up for safekeeping.

Meanwhile, the people of Lewiston placed the man who had been acting territorial secretary, Silas D. Cochran, under house arrest in his office at Third and C streets, in hopes it would prevent him from leaving the city with the items.

After retrieving the seal and documents, Dewitt Smith and his reinforcements immediately made their way to Washington Territory via the only Snake River ferry at the time, which departed from about where Opportunities Unlimited is now located on Snake River Avenue.

Once DeWitt Smith was across the river, the deed was done.

The moment changed Lewiston's trajectory and became the launching point for numerous efforts to divide Idaho, north from south.

A little more than a year after the seal was taken, Branting said a decision by the newly formed Idaho Territorial Supreme Court officially made Boise the capital. The action stuck, even though it was recorded only in court minutes and an official opinion was never written.

"The only reason we know (about) the decision is it was reported in a newspaper," Branting said.

In the ensuing years, Lewiston civic leaders petitioned for the annexation of the northern portion of the territory into the Washington Territory. Though it never came to be, the idea and others like it had a good deal of support, surfacing repeatedly.

As recently as 2007, T-shirts reading "North Idaho - A State of Mind" helped finance a campaign to divide the state.

As he wrapped up his presentation, Branting asked his audience of about 40 history buffs whether they really wished Lewiston was still the capital. Most shook their heads "no."

Branting agreed.

"I don't want the traffic two months out of the year," he said.

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Stone may be contacted at mstone@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2244. Follow her on Twitter @MarysSchoolNews.