Statewide County OR Archives Biographies.....Hasson, Captain Patrick December 23, 1834 - September 20, 1927
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Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com April 28, 2009, 12:11 am

Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

    CAPTAIN PATRICK HASSON.  High on the roll of Vancouver's honored dead is 
written the name of Captain Patrick Hasson, who devoted much of his life to 
military affairs and won his title by fidelity to duty and gallant service on 
the field of battle. About two years before the Captain's demise the story of 
his notable career was told as follows by Fred Lockley, the well known 
newspaper writer, and appeared in the Oregon Journal of December 2, 1925:

     "Captain Patrick Hasson, U. S. A., retired, is a long-time resident of 
Vancouver, Washington. I interviewed him at his home there recently. He saw 
service in the Rogue River war in 1856, in the near-war during the dispute 
with Great Britain over the ownership of San Juan island, in the punitive 
expedition under General Wright after the Steptoe defeat, in the Civil war and 
in the Indian wars in the southwest against the Apaches and Comanches. He 
enlisted more than seventy years ago and after his retirement from the army 
settled at Vancouver.

     "‘I will celebrate my ninety-first birthday on December 23,' said Captain 
Hasson. `I was born in Ireland in 1834 and emigrated to America when I was 
sixteen. I was twenty-one years and twenty days old when I enlisted. I was 
detailed for duty with the Fourth Infantry. The regiment to which I was 
assigned was stationed on the Pacific coast. I was sent with a number of other 
recruits that had been assigned to the Fourth Infantry, to join my regiment. 
We went from New York city to San Francisco by way of the isthmus of Panama. I 
was attached to Company E and sent to northern California, where my company 
was stationed. The regiment was pretty well scattered. For example, Company H 
was engaged in the fight at the Cascades of the Columbia on March 26, 1856, 
while we were fighting the Coquille Indians in Coos and Curry counties. Major 
John F. Reynolds, with a detachment of Third Artillery, was stationed at Port 
Orford. General Wood was in charge of the Department of the Pacific, with 
headquarters at San Francisco. He made frequent trips to Vancouver. In March, 
1856, when he sailed for Vancouver Barracks, he took with him Brevet 
Lieutenant Colonel John Buchanan, in command of the Fourth Infantry, with 
ninety-six officers and men, and left them at Crescent City in northern 
California. When he arrived at Vancouver he issued orders for Captain Edward 
O. C. Ord, with a detachment of the Fourth Infantry, to reinforce Major 
Reynolds at Port Orford. Captain Floyd Jones, also of the Fourth Infantry, was 
ordered from Fort Humboldt to Crescent City to report to Colonel Buchanan, 
while Captain Smith, who was stationed at Fort Lane, was ordered to march with 
a detachment of eighty dragoons across the coast range to Port Orford. Colonel 
Buchanan was ordered to bring all available troops with him to Port Orford 
prepared to fight or to hold a council with the Indians.'

     "It may not be amiss to give a brief statement right here to explain why 
the troops were being concentrated at Port Orford. This was in March, 1856. A 
week or so before, or, to be exact, on Washington's birthday, while the 
settlers and volunteers were having a dance at Whaleshead, as Gold Beach was 
called, the Indians rose and killed Ben Wright, the Indian agent; Captain John 
Poland, who commanded the company of volunteers; and more than twenty-five 
other residents of that section, including a man named Giesel and his two 
sons, while they took his wife and two daughters prisoners, one of whom, by 
the way, is now a resident of Portland. The Indians had also burned more than 
sixty cabins of the settlers along the coast, and the settlers had taken 
refuge in Miner's Fort, where they were besieged for more than a month, until 
the arrival of the troops from Crescent City.

     "And now let Captain Hasson resume: `On March 26 Captain Ord with Company 
B of the Third Artillery and a detachment of men from the Fourth Infantry, our 
force amounting to one hundred and twelve men in all, attacked the Indians at 
their village twelve miles above the mouth of the Rogue river. This conflict 
is known as the Mackanootney Village Indian fight and in the encounter we lost 
one man. On March 20 Company B of the Third Artillery had a brush with the 
Indians rear the mouth of the Rogue river and on March 24 Company C of the 
First Dragoons and a detachment from my company, Company E of the Fourth 
Infantry, had a fight with the Indians on the Illinois river near the big bend 
of the Rogue. Captain Smith, with part of Company C of the First Dragoons and 
part of Company E of the Fourth Infantry, left Fort Lane on March 14. They 
followed the course of the Illinois river toward its mouth and on the 24th 
they discovered Indians. Leaving Lieutenant Sweitzer and the men of Company E 
in charge of the pack train, Captain Smith, with the dragoons, attacked the 
Indians, who fled. Lieutenant Sweitzer later charged a number of Indians, who 
also retreated. One of his men was wounded by a bullet in the neck. Captain 
Smith reached Port Orford on April 5.

     “‘On March 13 Captain Augur marched from Port Orford to Oak Flat, but 
finding that Colonel Buchanan had not yet arrived, he camped. The Indians 
attacked him near the mouth of the Illinois river but retired after five of 
their number had been killed. Captain Abbott of the volunteers started south 
to meet Colonel Buchanan but was attacked at the mouth of the Chetco river. 
His men dug in on the beach or took refuge behind drift logs. The next day 
Captain Ord, with Lieutenant Jones and one hundred and twelve regulars, came 
to their relief and drove off the Indians, with the loss of one soldier. A 
number of Indians were killed. The soldiers destroyed the Indian village and 
returned to Port Orford.

     "‘General Palmer, superintendent of Indian affairs, arranged for the 
Indians to meet with him and the soldiers for a council. Lieutenant Colonel 
Buchanan, who was in command of our regiment while our regular colonel was on 
leave of absence, sent word to the various chiefs to meet for a council at Oak 
Flat. On May 21 the Indians attended the meeting were willing to make peace. 
They said that they were tired of fighting and promised to deliver up their 
guns and surrender. Tyee John was the only one to hold out. He said he was 
willing to live in peace with the whites but that this was his country long 
before the white men came here and he would not leave it and go on a 
reservation. He said that his heart was sick of fighting and that he was 
willing to go back to Deer creek and live peacefully. Captain Smith told the 
Indians that if any of them were found off the reservation with guns in their 
hands they would be hanged. The upper Rogue River Indians agreed to surrender 
to Captain Smith on May 26 at the Meadows. Those along the lower Rogue river 
and the coast Indians agreed to come to a point six miles below the mouth of 
the Illinois river. Captain Smith was to escort the upper Rogue River Indians 
to Fort Lane. Major Reynolds was sent to meet the pack train from Crescent 
City, which was under the escort of Captain Ord. Captain Augur and his troops 
camped just below the big bead of the Rogue river and Captain Smith, of whose 
command I was a member, was sent to the big bend to receive the surrender of 
George’s and Limpy's bands of hostiles, as well as the Galice Creek, Cow Creek 
and Applegate bands of Indiana,

     "‘We reached there at about dusk and went into camp where the town of 
Agness is now situated, one of the most beautiful spots I have ever seen. Not 
long after dark two squaws swam the Rogue river and came to our camp and asked 
to see Captain Smith. They told him that Tyee John and a band of warriors were 
going to attack the soldiers at daybreak. We were camped on a grassy plateau 
beside the river. Captain Smith ordered us to break camp and establish 
ourselves on a ridge about a quarter of a mile back from the river. We had two 
days' rations. Captain Tichenor, founder of Port Orchard, was the contractor 
who had charge of the government pack train and was serving as guide. Captain 
Smith told him to make his way back to Oak Flat, where the rest of the troops 
were stationed, to secure reinforcements. Lieutenant Sweitzer was detailed by 
Captain Smith to select a site that could be defended and chose for our camp a 
knoll about eight hundred feet long and one hundred and fifty feet wide. The 
approach from the south and the north was quite steep, while on the east the 
approach was more easily negotiated. We moved camp that night

     "‘The next morning a number of Indians approached our camp, calling out 
to Captain Smith that they had come to surrender. They came closer and sized 
up our six-pounder and looked critically at our arrangements. Captain Smith 
told them to lay down their arms as agreed, but instead of doing so they went 
back to discuss the matter with the other Indians. Lieutenant Sweitzer was in 
command of the detachment of Company E, in which I was serving. We were 
guarding the western approach to our camp. As the Indians disappeared we saw 
our sentinel fall, and a second later saw the powder smoke rise and heard the 
report of the gun that had been used to shoot him. We were ordered to take 
refuge behind trees but there were more soldiers than trees. The Indians had 
climbed to the top of a nearby knoll and were picking us off. They had better 
guns than we had. We had musketoons, while they had rifles. One of our men, 
without any orders, digging with his bayonet and using his tin plate as a 
shovel, dug himself in. The other men, seeing what he was doing, followed his 
example and we soon had rifle pits that protected us somewhat. The eastern 
slope was commanded by our howitzer, so the Indians did not attempt to attack 
us from that side. They would charge up the side of our knoll and we would 
repulse them, but not without loss. They kept this up all day. We had moved 
camp the night before and had had little or no sleep, and we got but little 
sleep this night, either. We had used all the water in our canteens and the 
wounded were moaning for water.

    "‘The next morning at daybreak the Indians attacked again. They knew we 
were thirsty and they would call out, "Mika hias ticka chuck." One of the 
Indians who could speak English would keep calling out, "One more sun no 
water, no muck-a-muck, no soldier. All dead." When Captain Smith threatened to 
hang any Indian found off the reservation they had made a lot of ropes of 
cedar bark to hang us. Chief John, who was in command of the Indians and who 
had a strong voice, would call out to Captain Smith, "O, Captain Smith: If you 
promise to go on the reservation and not travel around the country I will not 
hang you. See this rope. It is for you because you do not want to stay on a 
reservation where you can have plenty of plows and wagons, plenty to eat, and 
white men to teach you." All of the second day, as we fought off their 
attacks, with our throats parched for water in the hot spring sunshine, they 
would call out tauntingly, "Halo, chick Boston. Mika hias ticka chuck." (No 
water, white man. Wouldn't you like some water?) They would call out that 
white soldiers were not worth the powder and lead it would take to kill them, 
so they had plenty of ropes to hang us with. They did not know that we had 
sent Captain Tichenor out for help, and of course we did not know whether he 
had been able to get through to Oak Flat or had been captured, but you can 
believe that we watched with straining eyes all of that second day. Eleven of 
our men were dead and sixteen or seventeen wounded, and many of the injured 
were delirious and begging for water.

     "‘Late in the afternoon Chief John called out to his warriors to charge 
and not to stop until they had killed or captured all the soldiers. Just as 
the Indians were starting up the hill to finish us we saw Captain Augur with 
seventy-five men of Company G, Fourth Infantry, emerging from the ravine. We 
gave them a cheer as best we could and jumped out of our rifle pits and 
charged the Indians. We were answered by a ringing cheer from our comrades of 
Company G as they charged the Indians from the rear. Chief John turned to meet 
the new attack, but it didn't last long, and soon the Indians were streaking 
away like race horses. Captain Augur was riding a white mule. As they charged 
he took a gun from one of his men and led them in the attack. He was said to 
be the handsomest officer in the entire army, and he certainly looked good to 
us. Captain Augur lost two men in the fight. We dug a pit on the flat where 
the town of Agness is now situated and in it we buried our dead. We captured 
the Indian canoes and some Indians. In each canoe we placed one wounded man, 
one prisoner and two soldiers and went down the river to Oak Flat, where 
Buchanan had established his headquarters. From there the Indians were taken 
to Port Orford and thence to the Siletz reservation. Afterward we went back to 
northern California.

     "‘In May, 1858, Lieutenant Colonel Steptoe, commander of the garrison at 
Walla Walla, Washington, with Companies C, E and H of the First Dragoons and a 
detachment of Company E, Ninth Infantry, went out to chastise the hostile 
Indians. Captain Taylor of Company C and Lieutenant Gaston of Company E were 
killed, as well as some men in the fight that took place, and Colonel Steptoe 
buried his howitzers, left his dead and escaped during the night. Colonel 
Wright was sent out that fall to punish the Indians. He did a good job and 
gave them a lesson they never forgot. Our company and most of the other troops 
in northern California were ordered north to serve under Colonel Wright. We 
were stationed at Fort Vancouver. General W. S. Harney was in charge of the 
Department of Oregon and when the long-brewing troubles at San Juan island 
finally came to a head General Harney ordered Captain George E. Pickett and 
his company of sixty men to occupy the island.'

     "I am going to interject here a brief explanation of the San Juan 
dispute. In 1854 Colonel I. N. Ebey, collector of customs for Puget Sound, 
which at that time was a part of Oregon territory, visited San Juan island and 
found that a flock of sheep had been brought over by the Hudson's Bay Company 
to pasture on the island. As no duty had been paid upon them he began to 
investigate the matter. Charles J. Griffin, Canadian justice of the peace for 
British Columbia, disputed Colonel Ebey's right to interfere with the sheep, 
claiming that San Juan island was a part of British Columbia. The next year 
some of the sheep were seized and sold to pay the customs duty. Both 
governments were appealed to for redress.

     "On June 5, 1859, Lyman A. Cutler, an American settler, killed a pig that 
had repeatedly broken into his garden. It turned out that the pig was the 
property of Justice of the Peace Griffin, who refused ten dollars for it and 
demanded one hundred dollars. Threats were made that Cutler would be arrested 
and taken to Victoria for trial. The American settlers on the island appealed 
for protection from the Indians and others had asked that soldiers be sent to 
protect them. General Harney, in command of the district of Oregon, with 
headquarters at Vancouver, on July 18 ordered Captain George E. Pickett, in 
command of Company D, Ninth Infantry, stationed at the blockhouse on 
Bellingham bay, to go to San Juan island to protect the settlers from 
incursions of the northern Indians and to afford adequate protection to 
American citizens in their rights as such, and to resist all attempts at 
interference by British authorities residing on Vancouver island, by 
intimidation or force.

     "General Harney sent word to Colonel Casey that Major Haller had been 
ordered to go from Port Townsend to San Juan island. Captain Pickett, with his 
company, arrived on the island on July 29 and was notified the following day 
by Justice of the Peace Griffin, acting for Sir James Douglas, that he must 
not further trespass on land belonging to British Columbia. On August 3 three 
British warships dropped anchor in front of Captain Pickett's camp. The 
officers came ashore and proposed to Captain Pickett that he either leave or 
allow joint occupancy of the island.  Captain Pickett informed them that he 
had no authority to permit British troops to land, and that if they attempted 
to do so the consequences could not fail to be regrettable in case of a 
collision, which would be certain to occur.  He sent word to General Harney, 
who wrote to Governor Douglas as follows:

     "‘I placed a military command upon the inland of San Juan to protect the 
American citizens residing on that island from the insults and indignities 
which the British authorities of Vancouver island, and the establishment of 
the Hudson's Bay Company, recently offered them by sending a British ship of 
war from Vancouver island to convey the chief factor of the Hudson's Bay 
Company to San Juan island for the purpose of seizing an American citizen and 
forcibly transporting him to Vancouver island to be tried by British laws. I 
have the honor to inform your excellency that I shall not permit a repetition 
of that insult, and shall retain a command on San Juan to protect its 
citizens, in the name of the United States, until I receive her orders from my 
government.’

     "On August 8 General Harney ordered Colonel Casey, commander of Fort 
Steilacoom, to send four companies of the Third Artillery to San Juan island. 
President Buchanan was not the type of man that Roosevelt and Cleveland were, 
and he gracefully backed down. He relieved General Harney from duty in Oregon 
and sent General Scott, who at that time was at the head of the army, to 
Vancouver barracks with instructions to accept the British proposal of joint 
occupancy and that each government should maintain a force of not to exceed 
one hundred men on San Juan island. This proposition was accepted and each 
government kept a force of troops there until 1871, when the matter was 
submitted to arbitration, and Emperor William of Germany decided in favor of 
the claims of the United States government. With his elucidation, Captain 
Hasson's story may be resumed:

     "‘Captain Pickett was one of the most picturesque men I ever saw. His 
hair was as black as a crow's wing and as soft and silky as a woman's. It hung 
to his shoulders. His mustache and beard also were soft and silky, and black 
as night. Colonel Silas Casey, under whom Captain Pickett was serving, 
reinforced Pickett, so we were sent to San Juan island, but there was no 
fighting. The matter was settled by arbitration. A force of one hundred men 
was left on the island and we were ordered to report at Fort Steilacoom, where 
we stayed for eight or ten months. There I met Lieutenant Augustus V. Kautz, 
whose son is now living in Portland.

     "‘From Fort Steilacoom our company was ordered to Fort Yuma, where we 
fought Indians. My enlistment expired just before the Civil war broke out and 
I went back to Philadelphia and tried to form a company. I provided the funds 
for feeding the men and was unable to raise the full quota as my supply of 
money was exhausted. I obtained a position in the quartermaster's department, 
with which I was connected until the close of the war, serving with the Army 
of the Potomac. In 1867 I was made a second lieutenant of the newly organized 
Fourteenth Infantry and for the next few years I had plenty of fighting in 
Arizona and New Mexico. In April, 1872, I was commissioned a first lieutenant 
and in July, 1884, was sent to Vancouver barracks, On April 8, 1889, I was 
promoted to the rank of captain and retired from the army March 28, 1892. Near 
Orchards, in Clark county, I bought a two hundred-acre ranch, which I set out 
to prunes. I thought all you had to do to make a fortune raising prunes was to 
set the trees in the ground and let nature take its course. I found I was 
mistaken and that producing prunes is a matter of skill, knowledge and hard 
work, so I sold my orchard in 1902 and returned to Vancouver.' "During the 
campaign at Williams, Arizona, November 8, 1867, Captain Hasson commanded a 
company and in that engagement the Indians experienced one of the greatest 
defeats ever suffered by them and one which really broke the backbone of 
Indian resistance in that district, the United States troops leaving more dead 
and taking more Indian prisoners than had been done in years of Indian warfare 
previously. In that conflict Captain Hasson was wounded in the right arm by a 
poisoned arrow, which he withdrew, and through sheer physical force extracted 
the poison from the wound before it was absorbed into the blood, but often in 
after life he experienced painful twinges which were superinduced by the 
terrible poison which the Indians had extracted from rattlesnakes. For this 
act of strategy he received a brevet rank of first lieutenant. Captain Hasson 
spent the remainder of his life in Vancouver and manifested a deep and helpful 
interest in matters affecting the welfare and progress of the city.

    While in Ireland during the Fenian troubles of 1866, Captain Hasson met 
Miss Rose Devlin, a native of Scotland, and in September, 1874, they were 
married in Omaha, Nebraska. They were a devoted couple who journeyed together 
through life for more than a half century. On February 9, 1927, their union 
was severed by the death of Mrs. Hasson, and her husband passed away September 
20, 1927, when nearly ninety-three years of age. They had become the parents 
of two sons. Charles A. Hasson, the elder, was born at Fort Cameron in 
southwestern Utah in 1876, and John was born at Fort Douglas, that state, in 
1878. They attended the public schools of various localities and completed 
their studies in Vancouver. They remained on their father's ranch until 1898 
and then enlisted in the First Regiment of Washington Volunteer Infantry. 
Charles' term of service covered sixteen months, ten of which were spent in 
the Philippines, and after the close of the Spanish-American war he returned 
to Vancouver. He was employed in the navy yards at Bremerton and Seattle, 
Washington, for eight years while in the civil service and on the expiration 
of that period returned to Vancouver, where he has since resided. John Hasson 
became a commissioned officer in the Thirty-Fifth Volunteer Infantry in 1899 
and in 1901 was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Cavalry. 
He has since served in the regular army and during the World war was made 
quartermaster of the Thirty-Sixth Division. For fourteen months he was 
stationed abroad and now holds the rank of lieutenant colonel. He spent some 
time in Baltimore, Maryland, and is at present connected with the Army 
Industrial College at Washington, D. C.

     Strong and courageous, Captain Hasson passed through many hardships and 
dangers in the course of his long and eventful military career and never 
faltered in the performance of duty. While a strict disciplinarian, he had the 
rare quality of tact and won the respect and affection of his comrades in arms 
as well as the esteem of those with whom he was associated in other relations 
in life. An intrepid Indian fighter, he aided in the actual "winning of the 
west" and stood as a high type of American manhood and citizenship.

Additional Comments:
History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. II, 
Pages 593-598

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