The following is from Early History of Thurston County, Washington by Mrs. George E. Blankenship (1914):
Although the Eastern people regarded the extreme west as wild and woolly, and do so still to a less extent, yet the fact remains that the standard of civilization has always been held high. The country from the first was peopled by an educated and refined, but hardy people, who, with the courage of their convictions, held morality in great esteem, especially as applied to the integrity of the home, and enforced its recognition with rigid firmness.
I recall a man living in the primitive Olympia, who had a large family and was brutal in his treatment of both wife and children. The ladies of the town held a mass meeting and addressed a letter to the brute, notifying him to mend his ways or be treated to a coat of tar and feathers, prepatory to being conducted to the city limits. The man took the delicate hint and left town soon after. There are old ladies living in Olympia today who signed that letter.