Alvan Flanders was born in Hopkins, N.H., in 1825, attended public schools there, and learned the machinist's trade in Boston. In 1851 he followed the gold rush to California, but instead of prospecting, he went into the lumber business. In 1858 he became associated with the organizing and publishing of the San Francisco Daily Times. Flanders was twice elected to the California Legislature and was appointed to a position in the U.S. Mint by President Lincoln. In 1863 he moved to Washington Territory and engaged in business in Wallula until his election as territorial delegate to Congress in 1867. Flanders was planning his second campaign for election as delegate to Congress when President Grant appointed him governor of Washington Territory. In his message to the Territorial Legislature in 1869, the new governor, in common with his predecessors, discussed commerce, railroads and lumber, and spoke of wagon roads as one of the most "pressing wants of our territory." He was particularly concerned over the status of the long-standing San Juan Islands dispute and was opposed to the pending treaty between the U.S. and Great Britain to refer the dispute to the Swiss Republic for arbitration.
Governor Flanders had great hope for Washington, and prophesied: "On Puget Sound will be built a city from whose wharves ships will sail to every port on the Coast, with the Pacific Islands and with Asia. A city that will compete successfully with San Francisco for the commerce of the Pacific, when that commerce shall be a hundred fold greater than now. It is our duty to foster and encourage every enterprise of capital and labor which will tend to produce this result, and by wise laws to secure to every individual the largest liberty possible, and to all equal protection and exact justice." Flanders died in San Francisco in 1894.
From the description of Territorial Governor Alvan Flanders papers, 1869-1870. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 70976362
