A decent place to belong

The earthy smell of garlic and onions, dried herbs, fresh ginger, and locally grown produce drifts through Alliyah Perry’s farm store as she bounces between stocking fresh jars of milk and accepting a delivery of locally brewed kombuchas.

An older couple approaches the register with a handful of items. Perry chats with them about the sun coming out, a shared pleasure on a rainy winter’s day in Washington state, and the need to support the local farming community—one of the 28-year-old entrepreneur’s passions.

During COVID, Perry and her husband left suburbia and began farming on a property outside the small city of Centralia, population 18,000. When she began selling her produce at the summer farmers market, she quickly realized Centralia needed a year-round space. So, she opened Farm + Flourish, a boutique on the edge of the historic downtown district.

A sign hanging over Harrison Avenue gives a welcome to downtown Centralia. Ellen M. Banner/The Seattle Times/AP

The store offers local produce and handmade crafts. During the fall, it was filled with piles of pumpkins, crates of yellow and green gourds, multiple varieties of garlic, and bundles of wild-forged mugwort bouquets. Shelves along the wall display candles, lotions, pottery, and art prints.

The store is unique in Centralia, and so is Perry. In an overwhelmingly rural white county, she is one of the few black business owners. But she is certainly not the first.

Perry’s store sits on the original homestead of a black man named George Washington, the son of a Virginia slave, who dreamed of building a “decent place,” as he called it—a community where anyone who wanted to work hard could succeed.

Washington’s own success required more than hard work. He fought pervasive racism and contempt from fellow Christians—obstacles he faced with remarkable grace and courage. In 1875, he carved his 640-acre property into plots for a town along the new railroad and began selling them to settlers eager to establish themselves in what was then known as Washington Territory.

Now, nearly 150 years later, Washington’s small city takes inspiration from his remarkable story as it works toward becoming the kind of community its founder envisioned.

“I feel very connected to George, with him being a business owner who wanted to feed people,” Perry said. “That was something he was really into, feeding people, giving people jobs.”

Washington was born in northern Virginia, about 10 miles from Winchester, in 1817. His mother, a white woman of English descent, knew her child, whose father was black, had no future in Virginia. And so, to save him from a life of slavery, she gave him to a white Christian couple, James and Anna Cochran, who promised to raise him. Although there was no legal adoption process then, the Cochrans advocated for Washington for the rest of their lives. And when they were old, Washington cared for them.

Brian Mittge, co-author of George Washington of Centralia, the only full-length biography of Washington, says he always gets emotional when he talks about this part of Washington’s story. “They took him in when his birth mother was not able to keep him, and they just loved him and raised him as their own,” he told me, his voice cracking with emotion. “And that parent-­child relationship is the most natural thing in the world, the most beautiful, wholesome thing you can possibly have in human existence. And they had that for him.”

The Cochrans moved to Delaware County, Ohio, where a strong abolitionist movement provided multiple homes along the Underground Railroad. But they did not stay for long. In 1826, they migrated farther west and settled on the frontier in Missouri, a newly formed slave state.

There, Washington learned all the skills that would become important later in life: hunting, farming, building houses, and even sewing his own clothes. Although he never attended school, he learned to read and write, and his mother taught him hymns. They became the soundtrack of his life.

James Cochran helped establish civic government everywhere the family went. He also involved Washington in joint business ventures. Consequently, Washington learned about both business and government, and he witnessed the beginning of several towns in Missouri.

But despite these positive experiences, racial discrimination was increasing in Missouri, even on the frontier, and life as a black man was becoming more difficult. When Washington was 18, Missouri passed a law requiring free black men to be bonded or bound out until age 21. This meant they had to post a hefty financial guarantee to remain in the state, or submit to becoming an indentured servant. They also had no rights in contracts.

When Washington and his sawmill partner sued a customer who refused to pay, the customer had Washington arrested for illegally living in Missouri as a free black man.

James Cochran intervened on Washington’s behalf, collecting signatures for a petition to the Missouri legislature, asking it to grant Washington the rights of a citizen. The effort proved convincing, and in 1843, the legislature passed a special law granting Washington an exemption.

But even with legal protection, Washington continued to face racial discrimination, and within a few years, he decided to leave. According to Mittge, Washington told Anna Cochran, “Mother, I’m going to Oregon country. If there’s any decent place in the world, I’m going to find it.”

In 1850, Washington sold everything he had and joined the thousands of migrants making their way westward on the Oregon Trail. The Cochrans, whom he now affectionately called “the old people,” came with him.

Alliyah Perry in her farm store Photo by Theresa Abell Haynes

ALLIYAH PERRY resonates with Washington’s desire to find a “decent place.” When she moved to Centralia, about 90 minutes south of Seattle, she, too, came in search of a thriving community. “I was looking for a great place to be, a good place to be … a place to be in community and share our thoughts and values and ideals.” And Perry has not been disappointed. She’s found supportive networks within the business and farming communities.

The path for Washington was not as easy. After surviving the rigorous Oregon Trail, he and the Cochrans arrived in the summer of 1850 to discover that Washington was not welcome in the new Oregon Territory, which then encompassed Oregon, Washington, and parts of Idaho and Montana. The new legislature had just passed an exclusionary law forbidding blacks from settling there.

So, Washington traveled north of the Columbia River to a wilderness area approximately halfway between the present-­day cities of Portland and Seattle. He staked a squatter’s claim, built a rough, one-room log cabin, cleared 12 acres, and planted crops.

Mittge said Washington may have traveled north to avoid enforcement of the exclusionary laws, or he may have simply been looking for better land. By this time, most of the prime farmland south of the Columbia River had been claimed. Either way, Mittge said, the strategy worked.

“He got great land. The place that he settled is fantastic, prime territory,” Mittge said.

But Washington knew that moving into a remote area was not enough. Learning from his experience in Missouri, he knew he needed an exception to the racial discrimination law to protect his rights. And to do that, he would need the support of his white neighbors.

In the fall of 1852, Washington’s fellow settlers rallied together. More than 100 signed a petition requesting the territorial legislature pass a special act granting him the right to stay in Oregon.

Mittge said the petition was like a “who’s who” list, including all the prominent early settlers in the area. “It’s really moving, and beautiful too,” Mittge said. The petition declared that Washington was honorable, industrious, and law-abiding. “This is the type of person, when you’re in a pioneer territory, you depend on. You depend on having quality people around you, and he was of the highest quality. And people recognized that.”

The Oregon Legislature passed the law, granting Washington the right to stay in the territory. But a few months later, the land where Washington had settled became part of the newly organized Washington Territory, which had no racial exclusionary laws.

Even so, Washington was still barred from claiming land under the generous federal Donation Land Claim Act. Under this law, white married men could claim up to 640 acres, so James Cochran intervened for Washington again, claiming the land he had begun settling and then selling it back to him. Then the Cochrans moved into the little cabin Washington had built on the homestead and helped him expand it into a way station for travelers.

Brian Mittge stands at George Washington’s grave near downtown. Ellen M. Banner/The Seattle Times/AP

IN A SMALL HOUSE, down a country road, several miles outside of Centralia, genealogist and local historian Kerry Serl opens a binder of photocopied maps and newspaper clippings and spreads them across her kitchen table. She points to a court document George Washington signed. “This made me feel like George Washington was so human. Look, he started to write his name, and it curved around,” she says with a laugh, noting how the signature started to veer vertical when Washington ran out of room. “I’ve done that.”

Serl began researching Washington’s story several years ago when a group of residents came together to honor his 200th birthday in 2017. The research eventually turned into the biography Serl co-wrote with Mittge. That August, the town hosted a public celebration in the city park and raised money for a bronze statue of Washington and his wife, Mary Jane.

According to Mittge, Washington met Mary Jane on a trip to Olympia.

He eventually brought her and her son to live on his homestead. Although Washington never had the privilege of attending school, he knew the value of education. He built a new house for his new family and donated his original cabin as a community school so his stepson could attend with the children of other homesteaders.

In 1875, when the Washingtons learned that the new railroad would be coming through their property, they decided to plant a town adjacent to the route. Together, they designed the streets, naming them after Biblical references to heaven and donating land for a future Baptist church and cemetery. Then, they began selling lots to newcomers. The town grew, booming with the railroad’s expansion, and Washington became wealthy.

The constant sound of passing trains can still be heard across the small city, from the downtown built around the original railroad station to the community college and nearby George Washington Park with its public library and ubiquitous homeless population.

Centralia rode the rise and fall of logging in the late 20th century and bears all the hallmarks of a town finding its place after a long economic slump. That’s partly why some residents, like Centralia City Council member Max Vogt, take inspiration from Washington, a man Vogt says embodied resilience and the American dream.

Vogt, who also owns a local real estate agency, has a portrait of George Washington hanging over his fireplace. He pointed out that Washington was one of the state’s first real estate agents. But unlike other developers of his time, Washington always had community in mind. He sold the plots inexpensively but asked buyers to stay and help build the town. The new city, originally called Centerville, welcomed both blacks and whites.

Vogt said Washington’s legacy reflected his faith. “He persevered and he wasn’t bitter, he wasn’t mean, he was not vindictive. He was generous. He was kind with everybody. He helped people.”

Historical accounts describe Washington’s booming voice belting out hymns while he farmed or walked around town. His favorite was “Salem’s Bright King.” “He was very happy, and he’d be singing praises to God very loudly,” Vogt said. “You could hear it from a long way.”

But life in Washington’s “decent place” was not always easy.

When a national financial depression hit Centralia in the 1890s, construction stopped, mills closed, and the railroad ceased operating. Many people left, and those who stayed were trapped in unemployment and poverty.

Washington did what he could to provide for them. He carted rice, flour, and sugar from Portland and bacon and lard from a nearby wholesaler. He also gave people opportunities to work. When those who owed him money could not repay, he refused to foreclose on their properties. Instead, he held their debts without charging interest until they could repay. Sometimes, it took years. But Washington’s interventions kept the town alive when other boomtowns failed.

George Washington Photo courtesy of the Lewis County Historical Museum

WASHINGTON never fully escaped racial discrimination, even in his “decent place.”

At one point, newcomers to Centralia objected to worshipping with Washington and his black family, not knowing that he was the one who built the church. Washington had cut the timber, raised the rafters, and even donated the plots of land. But instead of protesting, Washington quietly left his church to the newcomers and built Second Baptist Church, where he served as both the chief financial donor and janitor.

Perry, who has a sign in her store window that reads, “Rural Americans Against Racism,” said discrimination continues to be a problem. When she told older black friends and family members that she had moved near Centralia, they warned her it wasn’t safe.

But Perry says she has not experienced overt racism in Centralia. Instead, she’s experienced what she calls “covert racism.” For instance, a business client assumed she could not be the owner of her store because she was black. That frustrated Perry, but she tried to respond well. “I’m still kind to them. I am kind to everybody. I do the best I can to be a good steward of everything.”

Vogt, who has lived in Centralia since the mid-1980s, said he was not surprised to hear about racial discrimination. But he argued that Washington’s legacy is one of unity, not division.

Mittge, who organized the effort to honor Washington’s 200th birthday, said the event brought politically diverse people together. “I just felt like, in a time of division, so many people could have so many different reasons to feel good about our history and feel good about the ways that we have overcome.”

—Theresa Abell Haynes is a freelance writer and World Journalism Institute Mid-Career graduate