Page 313 - PGM Compendium

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 several
gambling parlors in the city, and although frequently raided he never served jail time. He had long
exhibited a number of habits, many of which—like gambling, heavy drinking, and womanizing—were

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