Archives Treasure #3: Stevens’ 1860 Colt Army model

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The third Archives Treasure for February is the Colt Army Model handgun owned by Hazard Stevens, the son of Isaac Stevens, the first governor of Washington Territory. The younger Stevens enrolled in Harvard College in 1860, but left at age 19 to join the Union Army during the Civil War. He fought in the Battle of Fredericksburg and served in the Battle of Fort Hunger, for which he received the Medal of Honor. After the war, Hazard Stevens moved to Washington Territory, where he worked for the Oregon Steam Navigation Company and the federal government. In Olympia, he studied law and became an attorney. Stevens practiced law in Washington and, later, in Massachusetts. Among his noteworthy personal accomplishments was the first documented ascent of Mount Rainier, with P. B. Van Trump, in 1870. Among Union forces, the Colt .44-caliber “Army" Model was the most widely used revolver of the Civil War. The first two Archives Treasures this month are photos of the 1969 Black Panthers protest in Olympia and photos of an 1976 orca capture in Budd Bay near Olympia. We’ll start our online poll Tuesday on these three Archives Treasures so you can choose your favorite.