Washington's lieutenant governor has been thinking lately about a lynching of a 14-year-old boy 120 years ago in Canada that nearly sparked a cross-border race war.

In 1884, a vigilante mob of more than 100 men from Washington Territory rode into Canada, abducted an Indian boy of the Sto:lo tribe and hanged him from a tree. The boy, Louie Sam, had been accused of killing a shopkeeper in Nooksack, in what is now Whatcom County.

Now, more than a century later, Washington Lt. Gov. Brad Owen says there is convincing evidence the boy had nothing to do with killing and was framed.

Owen plans to ask the Legislature next month to pass a "healing" resolution acknowledging Louie Sam's innocence and decrying the lynching. He also wants to pursue other gestures to make amends with the boy's descendants.

"From everything I've seen, there was a definite injustice done to this young man," Owen told The Seattle Times.

But he does not plan to push for a formal apology from Washington state.

"I find it difficult to go back and apologize for something that happened over 100 years ago when Washington wasn't a state and you don't have all the details," Owen said.

Owen first learned about Louie Sam in September, while attending a Government House reception in Victoria, B.C. Owen's counterpart, British Columbia Lt. Gov. Iona Campagnolo, recounted the lynching in a speech. She said it is a mere footnote of history to some but "is as alive today with the Sto:lo people of the Fraser River as it was when it occurred."

Campagnolo asked Owen to join her in urging both the B.C. and Washington state governments to apologize to the Sto:lo. Owen responded by letter to say his office would look into the matter.

Owen's staff has enlisted two historians, one of them Keith Thor Carlson from the University of Saskatchewan, to help with wording a proposed legislative resolution.

Carlson, a former historian for the Sto:lo Nation, has researched the Louie Sam case for more than a decade and is writing a book about the saga. Using government archives, Carlson has reconstructed in remarkable detail the events leading up to the lynching and the futile efforts by British Columbia to bring the mob leaders to justice.

Carlson's research has been made into a documentary, "The Lynching of Louie Sam," that is making the film-festival circuit.

Carlson said he thinks both governments share in the blame for not clearing Louie Sam's name and pursuing his killers. Lt. Gov. Owen agrees.

"The politics of the day was just more powerful than this incredible injustice," Owen said. "They didn't put a value on this young life."