Article Published by the King County Bar Association.

Written by Lynn Hyde and Mark A. Griffin

When anti-Chinese rioting broke out on February 8, 1886, Territorial Governor Watson Squire declared martial law in the City of Seattle and gave command of the military forces to 67-year-old Colonel Granville Haller, who came out of retirement to restore order. Gov. Squire, who happened to be in Seattle on that date, commissioned Haller as Colonel in the National Guard of Washington Territory, appointing him Assistant Adjutant-General. Haller, a seasoned career U.S. Army officer and Civil War veteran, was a prominent figure in the Territory and recent resident of Seattle. At the time, the Haller family, including eldest son, attorney George Morris Haller, was living in an 18-room mansion called Castlemount on the northeast corner of Minor Avenue and James Street, the current location of Swedish Hospital. At the outbreak of hostilities, Adjutant-General Rossell O’Brien, who became known as the “father of the Washington National Guard,” was in Olympia, and immediate action was required.

The day before, anti-Chinese gangs forcibly removed 350 Chinese residents from their homes South of Yesler along Washington and Main Streets and took them to the steamer Queen of the Pacific (“Queen”) docked at the foot of Main bound for San Francisco. This is where the Duwamish people had been loaded onto boats and sent to their reservations in the 1850s. A frightened Chinese resident reported what was happening to Thomas Burke while he was eating his breakfast. Burke notified his law partner, G. Morris Haller, and sent messengers out to alert the authorities and sound the alarm. Since the early 1860s, Chinese resided in Seattle, and they were initially welcomed as a necessary labor force. Chinese worked building the first railroads, grading streets (Pike, Union, Jackson, and Washington), logging trees, milling timber, mining coal, canning seafood, digging the earliest part of the Lake Washington Canal, and in service jobs. When employment opportunities became in short supply because of a national economic downturn, many white residents unjustly blamed the Chinese for this problem (1). On September 21, 1885, about 750 people filled a hall in Seattle and passed resolutions that “if carried out in full, there wouldn’t be a Chinaman on the Puget Sound inside of two weeks” (2).

While Gov. Squire reported to President Cleveland that such meetings might lead to the expulsion of the Chinese by force, he did not initially ask for federal troops. He believed that the peace could be kept by his urging the “better class of citizens” to prevent the outbreak of violence (3). On October 2, Mayor Yesler hosted city leaders who opposed the lawlessness at a meeting at Frye’s Opera House. About six hundred attended, and G. Morris Haller was secretary at this meeting. A resolution was proposed that citizens must favor law and order and pledge full support to any constituted authority acting to suppress attempts to solve the Chinese question by violence. Everyone attending the meeting was asked to sign the resolution. Those who signed were deputized by King County Sheriff McGraw and were organized into companies of the Home Guard. Secretary Haller kept the books, and latecomers were told to sign up at the law offices of Burke & Haller (4).

On October 8, 1885, George Venable Smith, the lawyer leading the anti-Chinese movement in Seattle, published a letter in the Post-Intelligencer addressed to Mayor Yesler, Sheriff McGraw, Secretary Haller, and others deriding them for the actions taken at the October 2nd meeting.

After agitators emptied the Chinese Quarter of Tacoma and burned all Chinese homes and businesses there, Thomas Burke, G. Morris Haller’s law partner, spoke at a mass meeting in Seattle’s Frye’s Opera House on November 5, 1885, urging hostile white residents to embrace racial tolerance. Burke’s speech used his Irish heritage to persuade those attending: “If the Irishman is true to his own nature, if he is true to the ideals and memory of the patriotic Irishmen who in the course of many centuries have suffered and died for the cause of liberty and justice, he will love justice and his sympathies will go out in overflowing measure to the weak, the lowly, the despised and the oppressed. He will not deprive any of God’s creatures, not even the defenseless Chinaman, of the protection of that law which found the Irishman a serf and made him a freeman.”

Despite Burke’s efforts, Seattle followed Tacoma’s path. On February 7, 1886, a large, anti-Chinese gang entered Seattle’s Chinatown district, claiming to be health inspectors. They systematically went through the community “finding” Chinese-occupied buildings to be unsafe. The Chinese were forced out of these buildings and down to the harbor, where the Queen was docked.

In a short time, Gov. Squire came to the Burke & Haller law office at the Northeast corner of First and Columbia Streets, and it immediately became a military headquarters to resist the mob. The Queen’s departure was delayed when a writ of habeas corpus was issued by Chief Justice Roger Greene of the Supreme Court of Washington Territory. The writ required that the military escort the Chinese residents from the dock to the territorial courthouse (located a block south of the current King County Courthouse) on February 8th. Militia units, including the Home Guard and the University Cadets, escorted ninety-seven Chinese residents to the courthouse where Justice Greene advised the Chinese of their legal rights, asking if they really wanted to leave Seattle. All but 16 expressed a desire to leave because of the extreme anti-Chinese prejudice of those who forced them to the Queen. Then, the military escorted those Chinese who did not want to leave Seattle on the Queen back to their homes. En route, the anti-Chinese mob attacked. One rioter was killed, and four were severely wounded. The casualties were treated at Providence Hospital located at the current site of the William Kenzo Nakamura U.S. Court House.

Shortly after this violence, Gov. Squire proclaimed martial law. Troops were stationed on the corners of every block in Seattle’s business district to enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew. President Grover Cleveland then ordered 300 U.S. troops to Seattle from Fort Vancouver. They arrived on February 10th under the command of General John Gibbon, who praised the actions of the militia in repelling the mob violence in his report to Gov. Squire. Although martial law ended on February 22nd, federal troops remained in Seattle until the summer. As a result of these events, only a few dozen of the estimated 950 Chinese (about 10% of the population at the time) stayed in Seattle. Many attorneys organized the anti-Chinese actions that led to this rioting and the declaration of martial law.

Both Burke and G. Morris Haller were members of the Home Guard who were on duty during the rioting on February 8th. Indeed, the younger Haller was appointed as second in command under his father when Gov. Squire declared martial law. Lawyers like Burke and G. Morris Haller saw the need for a local bar association that could discipline the attorneys who participated in the anti-Chinese action, as well as provide more just legal leadership in King County. As a result, the King County Bar Association was established for this purpose in May 1886. G. Morris Haller helped write its articles of incorporation, and Burke’s father-in-law and former law partner, John McGilvra, served as its first president. Burke wrote the first resolution passed by the King County Bar Association chastising those anti-Chinese attorneys, including George Venable Smith, as “pestilential agitators” who are “abandoning every useful calling” and “arraying one class against another” and by doing so are “the worst enemies of society.”

Col. Haller and his wife, Henrietta, completed construction of the G. Morris Haller Building on the northwest corner of Second and Columbia to commemorate their son, who tragically drown in 1889 at age 37. It is now the site of the Norton building. The Burke & Haller law offices were located on the northwest corner of First and Columbia where the Colman Building is now as shown on the left side of this photograph.  Source: Museum of History & Industry, Seattle 

The anti-Chinese riots were not the only time that Haller and son had witnessed battle together. During a childhood on the move to far-flung army posts, young Morris was exposed to military action, in the western frontier and in the east. Before being called out of retirement in 1886, Col. Granville Haller had a tumultuous military career in the U.S. Military that took him and his family all over the United States, including Washington Territory. In the 1850s, he served at Fort Dalles on the Columbia River, from which he saw serious action in the Yakama Wars. He also constructed and commanded Fort Townsend, just south of Port Townsend, and in 1859 patrolled the waters of San Juan Island on the USS Massachusetts during the “Pig War” border dispute with Great Britain.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, regular Army officers in the Northwest were forced to choose sides and return to the east. Haller was a strong Democrat with little regard for the new Republican president Abraham Lincoln. Yet, he was committed to the Union and served as commandant of the Headquarters Guard of General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. In June of 1863, as a native son of southeastern Pennsylvania, Haller was assigned to lead a local citizen militia of 350 men around York, when it was learned that a Confederate force of 6,000 men under General Jubal Early was headed across the Maryland border into Union territory. To prevent Gen. Early’s army from marching on the state capital of Harrisburg, and possibly on to Philadelphia, Haller’s volunteers set fire to the mile-long Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge over the Susquehanna River. The Confederates were forced to turn back towards the neighboring town of Gettysburg. Days later, ten-year-old Morris Haller was with his father on the field at Gettysburg witnessing the battle.

Despite his success, Haller’s Democratic sympathies and his friendship with the dismissed Gen. McClellan proved his career downfall. Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, feared that the disgruntled McClellan was orchestrating a coup d’etat against President Lincoln’s administration, and was suspicious of the general’s associates. Soon after Gettysburg, Haller was summarily dismissed from the Army for alleged disloyalty — making a toast unflattering to President Lincoln — with no hearing, court martial, or avenue for redress.

As a civilian, Haller and his family returned to Washington Territory and from 1866 to 1879 lived in a house that still exists on the corner of Front Street and Main Street in Coupeville on Whidbey Island. During his 14 years living on Whidbey Island, Haller lobbied for a court-martial where he might regain his good name and standing in the Army. In 1879, Haller was successful; he was exonerated and reinstated to the U.S. Army with the rank of Colonel. Following his reinstatement, Haller sold his assets in Coupeville and accepted assignment in Oklahoma.

After retiring from the army in 1882, Haller settled in Seattle where Gov. Squire commissioned him as Colonel in the National Guard and gave him command of the City of Seattle under martial law. When peace had been restored, it was recognized that many of the Cadets attending the Territorial University who fought against the anti-Chinese mob were students whose homes and interests were in other parts of the Territory. Nevertheless, they volunteered their services in Seattle to restore law and order. Upon the initiative of Col. Haller, a flag bearing on one side the inscription, “Tribute for Merit, Feb. 8, 1886,” and on the reverse side, “Presented to the University Cadets of Seattle, Washington Territory,” was created and presented at the Frye Opera House. The King County Bar Association’s founding was based on the same respect for law and order that Col. Haller saw in these Cadets.

Although the Haller mansion in Seattle was demolished in the 1940s and the G. Morris Haller Building was demolished in 1957, the Hallers’ Coupeville home on Whidbey Island, built in 1866, still stands. With the help of a historic preservation easement from the National Parks Service, it was recently purchased by Historic Whidbey, a historic preservation non-profit that is in the process of restoring it. As a merchant, moneylender and land investor, Haller helped build the young community of Coupeville, serving as its postmaster, as Island County Treasurer, and as a founder of Masonic Lodge #15.

Lynn Hyde is the Executive Director at Historic Whidbey, a historic preservation non-profit based in Coupeville, working on the restoration of the Haller House there. She is the driving force behind the acquisition and preservation of that property. She has a Masters in Liberal Arts focusing on English and History from Harvard University and a Master’ in Education from Western Washington University. She can be reached at historicwhidbey@comcast.net.

Mark A. Griffin is an attorney, who retired from Keller Rohrback L.L.P. and practiced law in Seattle for over 34 years. He earned his J.D. from Gonzaga University School of Law as a Thomas More Scholar. He is now serving as President of the Board of Historic Whidbey and on the Board of the Endowment for Equal Justice. He can be reached at mark@houseofgriffin.org.

(1) http://en.wikisourceorg/wiki/Anti-Chinese_ Riots_At_Seattle

(2) “The Chinese Question: A Rousing and Enthusiastic Meeting at Yesler’s Hall Last Evening, The Seattle Daily Call, September 21, 1885.

(3) “The Chinese Must Go: A Large Delegation from All Points on the Sound Assemble in Yesler’s Hall this Afternoon and Take Preliminary Action Against Heathen Horde,” The Seattle Call, September 28, 1885.

(4) Robert C. Nesbit, “He Built Seattle: A Biography of Judge Thomas Burke,” p. 178