Page 322 - PGM Compendium

About 1868, Garfielde joined with Daniel Bagley, P.H. Lewis, Josiah Settle, and George F.
Whitworth to buy up several abandoned coal mining claims east of Seattle. They formed the Lake
Washington Company, and won passage of legislation in the state legislature creating the Coal
Creek Road Company. The road firm's goal was to build a road east to the coal fields. In 1870, the
owners sold out to new investors, reaping a profit of 500 percent.

In 1868, Garfielde sought and won the Republican Party's nomination for Territorial Delegate. His
nomination was not without problems. Garfielde's inconstant political views and his flowery
oratory had alienated many, who felt he was a political opportunist. They nicknamed him "Selucius
the Babbler".
Opposition to Garfielde's nomination was so strong that Alvan Flanders, the incumbent Territorial
Delegate who had been denied renomination, and Christopher C. Hewitt, Chief Justice of the
Washington Territorial Supreme Court, distributed a circular declaring the state Republican Party
near collapse. They and the other signatories to the circular (which numbered more than 50
prominent Republicans) declared the party nomination process fraudulent and demanded radical
reorganization of the party machinery. These and other accusations led to a significant backlash
against the disaffected Republicans, who quickly retreated from their positions and declined to
nominate their own candidate. The damage done, however, was significant. Garfielde won election
over Marshall F. Moore by just 149 votes out of more than 5,300 cast. Due to a change in the date
of the election, Garfielde's term of office lasted nearly three years. He began serving on March 4,
1869, but the House declined to seat him until December 1870. Garfielde won re-election to
Congress in 1870 over Walla Walla Democrat J.D. Mix by a more comfortable 735 votes out of
more than 6,200 cast.

Garfielde lost re-election to Congress in 1872. Garfielde's desire to make money on outside
business interests did not abate during his tenure in Congress. In 1871, Jay Cooke, the investment
banker who controlled the Northern Pacific Railway (NP), hired Garfielde to stump throughout
the Washington Territory to promote the railway's interests among voters. Cooke hired Garfielde,
in part, because he believed this would please Frederick Billings, then the head of the NP's land
office. But Billings heartily disliked Garfield, accusing him of being "too much of a politician"
and arguing that it was unseemly for a sitting member of Congress to engage in such blatant
promotion of a specific business interest. Billings also believed that Garfielde had allied himself
too closely to independent loggers who routinely stolen timber from NP forest lands. Garfielde
believed his work for the railway and the loggers would win him the votes he needed for re-
election. But Garfielde did not count on the massive influx of new voters into the Washington
Territory, most of whom were Democrats. Garfielde was defeated in 1872 in his bid for a third
term by Democrat Obadiah Benton McFadden by 761 votes out of 7,700 cast. He left office on
March 3, 1873.

Garfielde remained influential in Republican politics, however. President Ulysses S. Grant, elected
to a second term as President in November 1872, appointed him customs collector for the Puget
Sound District on March 26, 1873. Garfielde left Washington, D.C., and moved to Seattle where
he engaged in the practice of law and served as customs collector until June 22, 1874.

Garfielde returned to Washington, D.C., shortly after losing his customs job. He established