Selucius Garfielde (December 8, 1822 – April 13, 1883) was an American lawyer and politician who was a Delegate to the United States House of Representatives from the Territory of Washington for two terms, serving from 1869 to 1873.

In 1852,[2] Garfielde was elected to the California State Assembly as a Democrat from El Dorado County.

[16] The couple's sixth child, Charles Darwin Garfield (no "e"), was born in February 1867 and became a widely known fur trader in Alaska.

During the election, Garfielde traveled heavily through what were then the western and northwestern states, delivering thousands of public speeches in support of Buchanan.

[20] Buchanan proved grateful to Garfielde for his campaign efforts, and appointed him Receiver of Public Monies for the Land Office in the Washington Territory.

He feared that Stevens would lose the general election, jeopardizing Garfielde's position at the land office.

A staunch Unionist, Garfielde (still a Democrat) now allied himself with the newly formed Republican Party.

[24] William Winlock Miller, a former prominent federal official in the Oregon Territory who had become an important businessman in the region, advised Stevens to deprive Garfielde of his land office position.

Stevens saw unification of the Democratic Party as the only solution to the national crisis over slavery, which was threatening to tear the United States apart.

At the Democratic Party's territorial convention, pro-Union forces obtained a ruling from the chair that proxy votes could not be counted.

But massive population growth north of the Columbia River led to a divergence of interests between the northern southern parts of the territory.

By 1861, the cities of Pierce and Oro Fino in the Idaho panhandle each had twice the population of either Olympia or Vancouver on the Pacific coast.

Among them were Garfielde; Dr. Anson G. Henry, a physician and land surveyor; and George "Growler" Walker, an influential carpenter from Silver City.

[34] President Andrew Johnson appointed him surveyor general of Washington Territory in 1866, and he served in that positioni until early 1869.

Lewis, Josiah Settle, and George F. Whitworth to buy up several abandoned coal mining claims east of Seattle.

[37] Opposition to Garfielde's nomination was so strong that Alvan Flanders, the incumbent Territorial Delegate who had been denied renomination, and Christopher C. Hewitt, Chief Justice of the Washington Territorial Supreme Court, distributed a circular declaring the state Republican Party near collapse.

These and other accusations led to a significant backlash against the disaffected Republicans, who quickly retreated from their positions and declined to nominate their own candidate.

[2][39] Due to a change in the date of the election, Garfielde's term of office lasted nearly three years.

Garfielde's desire to make money on outside business interests did not abate during his tenure in Congress.

Cooke hired Garfielde, in part, because he believed this would please Frederick Billings, then the head of the NP's land office.

But Billings heartily disliked Garfield, accusing him of being "too much of a politician" and arguing that it was unseemly for a sitting member of Congress to engage in such blatant promotion of a specific business interest.

Billings also believed that Garfielde had allied himself too closely to independent loggers who routinely stolen timber from NP forest lands.

[40] Garfielde was defeated in 1872 in his bid for a third term by Democrat Obadiah Benton McFadden by 761 votes out of 7,700 cast.

Garfielde left Washington, D.C., and moved to Seattle where he engaged in the practice of law and served as customs collector until June 22, 1874.

[45] Garfielde had long exhibited a number of habits, many of which—like gambling, heavy drinking, and womanizing—were considered bad if not outright immoral by good citizens of the day.