Eliza Tynan Saunders
Much has been written about one of the founders of Chehalis, Eliza Tynan Saunders. The Lewis County Historical Museum’s Research Library contains family histories — signed and unsigned — newspaper articles, legal documents and other reports. While most of the facts and dates in the histories agree, a couple reports have misstatements.
For instance, she was not the first white woman born in Lewis County — she was the first white woman to settle here. And, although articles and legal documents on file call her “Eliza,” family histories and family interviews refer to her as “Elizabeth.” It is commonly joked that well-behaved women rarely make history, but in this case, some believe that her perceived “misbehavior” may account for the relatively rare mention of her in Chehalis’ history.
In a time when most women were married only once (perhaps twice if they were widowed) and endeavored only to keep house and take care of their children, a few women stood out; they bucked tradition and either remained single or joined the workforce. An exception to most of those rules was Elizabeth Tynan Saunders McGuire Basey Barrett, who did all of the above.
Even though unable to read or write, she was, at one time, the town’s wealthiest resident, before fires and changing economic conditions lowered the value of her land holdings. She controlled over 300 acres where Chehalis now sits, which she developed carefully as she saw fit. She ran businesses and platted her land in social pursuits (school, church, music hall) while defending herself against social boosters and unscrupulous husbands – she was married four (some reports say five) times, which included being widowed twice, abandoned and divorced once, and divorced again – and raising eight kids, five of whom outlived her.
From just she and her first husband, Schuyler, living on their small knoll overlooking the valley, to thousands of residents, Elizabeth saw Chehalis emerge from the buildings she erected to a village built around a warehouse depot to a bustling little city.
In 1824 (also reported as 1826), Elizabeth Tynan was born in Queens County, Ireland. In 1845, she and her sister, Julia, came to the U.S., part of the first million Irish immigrants to flee the oncoming potato famine. After landing in New York, they both worked to earn enough money to move west.
Around 1850, the sisters sailed around Cape Horn to land at Fort Steilacoom, where Elizabeth worked as a cook. One report says she married a soldier and was almost immediately widowed. The sisters then moved to Fort Vancouver. In 1851, while working as a waitress, Elizabeth met and married Schuyler (pronounced Skyler) Stuart Saunders. They soon boarded a flat-bottomed boat up the Columbia River and were then canoed up the Cowlitz River by Indians.
In spring 1851, Schuyler and Elizabeth arrived at Jackson Prairie. The land was still thickly forested and had very few settlers because most European settlements followed the old Hudson Bay Co. trails left behind by trappers.
Schuyler staked out his and Elizabeth’s donation land claim along lines that pleased him, as opposed to the straight lines later required by the government. Their homestead, located approximately where Chehalis’ Main Street intersects with Market Boulevard, sat on a bit of a hill overlooking what would become the thriving county seat.
By winter of 1851, they had cleared their land, built a log cabin, a barn and a lean-to for their cattle. Elizabeth was officially the first white woman in what became Chehalis. Schuyler and Elizabeth had five children: James, born in 1852; Mary Lucy, born in 1853; William, born in 1855; Alfred, born in 1857; and Joseph, born in 1859.
During Isaac Stevens’ Indian Wars in 1855-56, Elizabeth and her family chose to move to the Claquato blockhouse with five other families and six bachelors. One account has Elizabeth worrying about the effect of the close quarters and short tempers on her young children. Although they were probably happy to leave the blockhouse, they surely must have been chagrined when they returned home to find their house, barn and fences burned to the ground, their livestock slaughtered or stolen, and even their household goods stolen or scattered.
A claim for losses totaling almost $4,300 was submitted to the federal government, but ultimately denied because there was no proof the damage was caused by Indians. As she would show again, Elizabeth was not to be intimidated – they rebuilt their homestead.
On May 8, 1858, Elizabeth’s husband established a post office in their home and called it Saundersville. This date is considered the birthdate of Chehalis. For years travelers referred to Saundersville as Saunders’ Bottom or Soggy Bottom due to the area’s swampy nature.
According to a couple accounts, sometime between 1858 and 1859, Elizabeth and Schuyler sent their eldest three kids to a Catholic school in Vancouver, where Mary Lucy became sick and died. The boys were fetched home, where they attended the three-month-term pioneer school.
Court documents on file show that Schuyler and Elizabeth separated in August 1859. They remained legally married, as she is listed as his widow (he died of pneumonia while on a supply trip) in later court papers. She kept the northern half of their DLC (the improved portion) in her name and Schuyler kept the unimproved southern half in his name.
The strength it took a woman, not only grieving a lost a child but also raising her four remaining children, to then separate from her husband is staggering. But there was more to come.
The widowed Elizabeth ran the Saundersville post office, planted and tended her farm, and kept house hauling water, washing and cooking for herself and her four sons. As was common in pioneer days, she also opened up her home to travelers needing a rest. At some point in the early 1860s, a Mr. McGuire came to the Saunders homestead and did some work. One hardly has to wonder why Elizabeth wasted no time in marrying him, and in 1862 their daughter, Catherine (called Kitty) was born. Sometime before 1864, he went out one evening to get the cows and never returned.
On July 27, 1865, Elizabeth tried again to find a suitable partner when she married Henry F. Basey (also spelled Basye), a local saloon owner. Together, they had two children: Lucy, born in 1867, and Edward, born in 1869. Later, Elizabeth told a neighbor that her Basey children trampled on her toes as children, and on her heart as adults. Neither outlived her.
Although filed in 1851, government red tape kept the Saunders donation land claim from being patented until 1866. In the museum’s archives is a copy of the Jan. 11, 1866, donation patent issued by President Andrew Johnson.
Census Records from 1870 list the occupants of the Saunders home as follows: 40-year-old Henry Basye, 39-year-old Eliza Basye, 16-year-old James Saunders, 13-year-old William Saunders, 12-year-old Alfred Saunders, 9-year-old Joseph Saunders, 6-year-old Catherine McGuire, 4-year-old Lucy Ann Basye, and 4-month-old Edward Basye. Later the same year, Elizabeth divorced Basey. All accounts agree that he was a heavy drinker, and often in court for selling liquor to Indians.
Around 1870, Elizabeth was cheated by Judge Willet in a land deal. She believed she was selling a lot, but he wrote the contract for an entire block. One source tells of another time a man bought a lot from her where he promised to build a home. But the next day he resold the lot for a profit. Figuring she couldn’t be cheated if she didn’t sell, she held the rest of her land close.
Sometime later that year Elizabeth married John C. Barrett, another saloonkeeper with land of his own on Mauerman Prairie near Pe Ell. Criticized for her caution in selling large parcels of her land, Barrett boasted to friends that after the wedding he would get her land on the market. Not only did he not succeed in that, she would later divorce him in August 1879 when he charged her $25 to sign some legal papers.
After her marriage to John C. Barrett, Elizabeth remained single. Interestingly, in court inventory papers during her marriages to both Basey and Barrett, she made declarations that she, a married woman, held full and complete title to her lands and that they remained free of attachment to any debts other than her own. She was illiterate, and perhaps she married too often for the times, but she was no fool when it came to her land holdings. She became a businesswoman and turned her eye toward developing her village.
In September 1870, the post office moved from the Saunders home to that of Judge McFadden and was renamed Chehalis. (The state would later officially recognize the name change when the city was reincorporated on Sept.. 22, 1890.)
Also in 1870, Northern Pacific Railroad asked Elizabeth to donate 40 acres to them for the “privilege of stopping in the little town.” Feisty Elizabeth refused their offer, and increased the price of her land. After building a warehouse depot, William West, John Alexander and others succeeded in getting the company to make Chehalis Station a freight and passenger stop on their line. Northern Pacific Railroad ran tracks through the middle of Elizabeth’s land, for which she received a handsome sum.
On May 8, 1875, Elizabeth platted the first three blocks on each side of Main Street west of the railroad tracks, and named the streets Alfred, James, William and Saunders for her first sons and called the little town Saundersville. She also donated a small triangle of land and named the road in front of it Church Street. Between 1881 and 1883, Elizabeth platted five more parcels of land.
In 1883, she started a livery stable that son James and his brothers ran where they sold buggy parts and feed, and were widely regarded as having the best turnouts in the county. At this time she also owned a tavern, which her sons helped her operate.
Between 1888 and 1893, Elizabeth platted 10 large parcels of land, but continued to be criticized by the Chehalis Land & Timber Co. She developed cautiously with an eye toward keeping her village (as she called Chehalis in one account) small. She built Chehalis’ first music hall, Tynan Opera House in 1889. The building was later used for a rooming house before being condemned and torn down in the 1940s.
In 1891, Elizabeth built the Barrett Block, a brick building three stories tall with spires on all four corners. The upper two floors held the Grand Central Hotel, which cost $40,000 to furnish.
On a buying trip to Portland, she visited her sister for the first time since they parted in 1851, and also got her photograph (the only one of her that exists) taken. In the late 1890s, Lewis County purchased the Barrett Block and used it for 30 years for a courthouse.
By 1892, Elizabeth’s land had spawned two city centers of Chehalis as businesses grew. The Chehalis Improvement Co. had begun building a separate district along Boistfort and Market streets. Two fires — one in March, one in May — obliterated the businesses along Main Street and Chehalis Avenue. The owners and newspaper articles suspected arson in both fires, but most certainly in the second.
Disturbingly, no further information on whether or not investigations of the fires were ever performed can be found. Regardless, the competing district attracted some of the burned-out businesses, and sounded a death knell for Elizabeth’s property because her property was like most buildings of the era — wooden.
The fires significantly lowered the value of her property. The fires seemed to dim some of Elizabeth’s spirit also. In 1894, she moved from the Saunders home to a house she built on Chehalis Avenue, where the Darigold plant now sits. In 1895 she performed her last philanthropic act in building a Catholic Girls Boarding School on St. Helens Street.
Sadly, a family history by Madeline Jensen says that Elizabeth suffered from confusion and memory loss toward the end of her life. Jensen also mentioned that Elizabeth issued deeds for many of her downtown lots, but, failing to sign these deeds, some of the lots were then tied up in litigation.
Perhaps that explains a Chehalis Bee-Nugget notice of July 21, 1899: “The petition for the appointment of a guardian for Mrs. Eliza Barrett was before Judge Elliott Monday for hearing. A guardian was refused on account of the witnesses being unable to prove that Mrs. Barrett was unable to manage her own affairs.” The same issue contained a notice to the public that “... Eliza Barrett has given to Coffman & Kepner the management of all her business, including the right to sell her property real and personal ...” Considering that N.B. Coffman was among her critics for many years, it can only be devoutly hoped that once he got hold of her land, he paid her fairly for it.
Elizabeth, independent to the end, lived alone until her very last months. She died at home on May 18, 1900. She was survived by her sons James Saunders (1852-1920), Alfred Saunders (1857-1947) and Joseph Saunders (1859-1952) and her daughter Catherine.
Son Ed Basey and daughter Lucy had both died in 1899. Son William’s death date is unknown. He is listed in the 1870 census as 13 years old and living in the Saunders home. In legal papers dated 1883 on file at Lewis County Historical Museum, he is listed as 28 years old. However, the next mention found of William is a quote by Joseph Saunders in an undated family account, “he died some years ago.”
After clearing and homesteading a wilderness, after pledging her heart multiple times, after losing a child and raising seven children, this amazing woman finally laid down to rest. She owned and philanthropically developed 300 acres of what she watched become Chehalis. From just her homestead on a knoll to a booming county seat, Eliza Tynan Saunders McGuire Basey Barrett lived an extraordinary life for a woman of her, or any, time.
