Journal of the House of Representatives of Washington Territory, ninth session, 1861-62, with the session laws

The printed House Journal of the session in which Richard B. Holbrook sat for Island and Snohomish counties (the Library of Congress's Early State Records scan on the Internet Archive; the session laws are https://archive.org/details/walaw-session-laws-1861). Read 14 Oct 2026; the page numbers are the printed ones.

• Committees (pp. 8, 16). Credentials (9 Dec 1861); on 18 Dec, Judiciary ("Messrs. Cock, Wilson, Holbrook, Page and McCall") and Roads and Highways ("Messrs. Holbrook, Urquhart, Williamson and Wilson"), whose chairman he was; he signed its reports on some twenty road and ferry charters. He was also on the joint committees on apportionment and to investigate the University Commissioners (10-11 Jan 1862).
• Away at Christmas (p. 30). On 21 Dec "Mr. Holbrook asked to be excused from further attendance upon the House until after the holidays. Request granted." He was absent on 2 Jan 1862, when House Joint Resolution 2, "Relative to the state of the Union," the first set of loyal resolutions, "was read third time and passed" without a roll call (p. 47). The Council put it off to "the first day of April next."
• His own measures. H.B. 59, to regulate the county commissioners' court of Island County, setting its terms "four times in each year" (law of 24 Jan 1862, pp. 96-97); H.B. 74, amending Thomas Coupe's ferry charter between Port Townsend and Whidby's Island, the boats "to be propelled by sails or oars" and to carry "all passengers and freight" (law of 24 Jan 1862, p. 101); and H.M. 9, introduced 25 Jan (p. 173) and passed 28 Jan 1862 (pp. 147-148), the memorial to Congress "relative to carrying the U. S. mails to Coveland, Island county": the mail "has been for the most part, carried in small sailing crafts from Port Townsend to Whidby's Island, and by land thence to Coveland. That during the winter season, the weather is frequently so inclement that the mail cannot be landed on the Island by that conveyance, and the people are deprived of its benefits"; it asked for a steamer to Coveland, or "semi-weekly mail from Port Madison to Coveland, via. Muckleteo and Utsalady."
• The second Union resolutions (pp. 181-183). House Joint Resolution 16, "Relative to the Union," introduced by Griswold on 27 Jan 1862: ayes 8 (Cock, Denny, Griswold, Lombard, McCall, Smith of Clarke, Taylor, Urquhart); noes 16 (Aird, Bozarth, Bates, Beatty, Chapman, Gardiner, Gillam, Hinkley, Holbrook, Page, Settle, Smith of Walla Walla, Ruth, Thornton, Wilson and Warbass). "The House therefore refused to pass the resolution." The text is in the Washington Standard of 22 Mar 1862 ("The Union Resolutions Rejected by the Legislative Assembly of Washington Territory," Washington Standard (Olympia), 22 Mar 1862).
• The journal records his motions and votes; no speech of his is reported.

The argument over the vote ran in the papers that spring. The Democratic Vancouver Telegraph said the resolutions would have "passed without a dissenting voice" with a qualifying addition to the clause on "support of Mr. Lincoln's administration," and that without it they "would have compromised the whole people of Washington Territory into the support of measures which a large majority repudiate" (Washington Standard, 8 Mar 1862); the Republican Standard held that "support of the present Administration is the true test of loyalty to the Government," while granting, "We have no idea that all who voted against them sympathized with the peace movement" (1 Mar 1862). These are as read for the archive in the Library of Congress's text, not checked against the images.