Sammamish Valley Grange History

Chapter 2 - The Early History of the National and State Granges

Around the time that Ira Woodin first came into the region, there were a lot of farmers who did not think the system was all that fair. They had been taken advantage of by the various institutions that served them, such as banks, railroads, and grain-elevator operators. As their discontent was spilling over, they found a new organization willing to serve their needs, the Patrons of Husbandry, or the Grange.
All Patrons, or Grangers, are familiar with the story. An employee of the US Department of Agriculture, Oliver Hudson Kelly, traveled the south after the Civil War at the request of President Andrew Johnson. Seeing the plight of the southern farmers, and wishing to heal the wounds of the union, he decided to found a great farmers fraternity. He got together with six other men, and they hammered out the details of the Grange. His niece, with whom he seemed obsessed, was later added as an eighth founder.
At first, the work in creating the Granges was slow. He initially only founded one Grange, Fredonia, in New York. He was about to give up when his wife gave him money and told him to continue. At first, most of the Granges were in Minnesota, but after a couple of years, the movement spread throughout the country like wildfire.
The Grange originally focused on improving the lot of the farmer both thru cooperatives (like grain elevators and manufacturing facilities), and thru political action. Modern retailing may have had it’s beginning, where Montgomery Ward was founded to serve Grange members thru mail-order catalogs. In Virginia, it even founded three banks! Until recently, it was thought that the Grange was responsible for the various “Grange Laws” on the books in several states (which essentially stated that businesses may be regulated if they are clothed in the public interest), but more recent scholarship shows that the Grange was not directly involved. However, the impetus that led to the laws was probably the impetus that created the Granger movement, as it had the same source, and it arose at the same time.
At it’s peak, the movement has approximately 850,000 people. However, the Grange quickly collapsed, going down to 110,000 people. Whereas those warhorses founded the basis for a strong Grange in the future, there are various theories as to it’s decline. My guess is that it could not fulfill the expectations that people gave it (this is true today, as people set false expectations of being a “fun” organization, for which it was designed to better the human condition). Also, when a commercial firm gave a better deal than a Grange cooperative could give a customer, the customer would go to the merchant, rather than the cooperative, collapsing the cooperative that sustained a Grange (or Granges.) Finally, thru my readings of Grange history, my impression of the founder, Oliver Hudson Kelly, reveals someone who was essentially a flake. He would get one project going, and then hop to another. While such a trait is good for creating organizations, it is not such a good trait for administering organizations. As secretary, he was the chief administrator, but as soon as things did not go his own way, he bolted. Finally, the economy picked up, and as farm prices rose, many farmers may not have seen a need to spend money on such a fraternity.
However, the Grange had several benefits that outweighed this problem. For example, it was a gathering place for farmers who lived relatively solitary existences. It was an organization where families could do something together (and socialize the kids under their watchful eyes). It was also a place of entertainment, as the lecture’s hour (or program) gained eventual prominence in several Granges in an era when there was little-to-no entertainment. Charity has always had a big role in the organization, and as most Granges are in rural areas, where there are not many institutions to collect charity, it could serve the function of those who are charity minded. Such people are the most likely to be interested in the improvement of mankind thru civil affairs, also, and many Granges serve as the grassroots of this effort, too.
The west coast, despite it’s distance, also got Grange fever. The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, just in time for a new organization to come barreling down it’s tracks. Many Granges got going on the west coast, and in a short time, a California and an Oregon State Grange got going. However, Washington state (or territory) did not get it’s own state Grange.
The first Grange in Washington State was in Columbia county, near Walla Walla. It was organized in the 1870’s (it disbanded, but has been reorganized twice). Washington Territory had 68 Granges by the mid 1870’s, but the movement collapsed, and most of the early Granges disappeared, until there were only two left by 1888.
By 1888, the number of Granges in Washington Territory fell to two. As Washington was going to become a State, two individuals went to the Oregon State Grange Convention to help create a State Grange. To do so, several other Granges needed to be organized, so another 13 were organized. Thus, a new State Grange was organized.
In the beginning, most of the Granges were in southwest Washington. Eventually, Washington would be a leading, and probably most the prominent, Grange state. So why did it take so long to get going? The way I see it, the first Granges were in the first area of settlement. However, in the rest of the state, the pioneers in Washington had many other priorities, and were far too interested in trying to found farms than to jump about something new and untested. Once their farms got established, and once the Grange established a track record, were they willing to join it.
Remember, too, that settlement did not pierce northern Washington until the 1870’s. And those settlers were loggers. As farming is nearly impossible in a rainforest, an agricultural organization would be inappropriate for it’s inhabitants. The trees need to be cut down first, and by the time enough trees were cut down to build farms, the Grange was in it’s first decline. As noted above, Seattle itself was still functioning as a logging town in 1915, parts of the Woodinville area were still in the logging business in the 1930’s, and by that time, it would have been uneconomical to start up a farm.
The early State Grange had some rocky years ahead, and took time to get off the ground. A lot of noise was made, but not much was effected. One of the things of lasting value was that the Washington Fire Relief Company was organized. However, some idealistic members were busy organizing Granges, for the battles (they may have been planning) ahead. One of these people, Carey Kegley, became State Master in 1905, and would be so until 1915. He wished to have a Pomona in every county, and he utilized the deputy system to organize Granges. He had an ambitious program to push for legislation, and this may have been the impetus to organize Granges – he was ultimately successful in turning some of that noise in the first fifteen years of the organization into effective legislation. As a result, it was during this period that both the Sammamish Valley Grange and the Woodinville Grange were both organized.

posted by EricMatthew @ 10:26 PM