An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 28

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172

USA > Washington > Skagit County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 28
USA > Washington > Snohomish County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 28

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

From the interesting and rapidly unfokling agricultural developments of that year we turn our attention to the mineral developments of the upper valley. The Star of December 16, 1876, gives an interesting account of the original discovery of the coal mines by Messrs. Everett, Stevens and Graham, already described, and goes on to prophesy that when a prosperous town is built up in that vicinity with iron furnaces, machine shops, etc., a railroad may join the belts of land between the Skagit, Stillaguamish and Snohomish. At that time there had been three claims located in the coal regions, the Skagit, the Cascade and the New Cumberland. The coal had been thoroughly tested and was found to be of the finest quality, but pend- ing the removal of the big jam it was not profitable to work the veins. The Skagit mine was situated on the cast face of the mountain directly above the Hatshadadish creek and within a mile of the landing. The coal vein dipped at an angle of sixty degrees. Three shafts had at that time been sunk, seventy, twenty-five and twenty feet deep, respect- ively, with an entrance a hundred and twenty feet above the bed of the creek. Seven strata of coal had been uncovered, each running from two to eight feet in thickness. The Cascade lay from one-fourth to one-half mile from the tunnels of the Skagit claim and the entrance to it was three hundred and fifty feet above the level of the river. Four veins had there been uncovered, dipping at an angle of twelve degrees. Two tunnels had at that time been

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driven, one seventy and one seventy-six feet in length. The principal vein here was six feet thick and of pure, solid coal. The New Cumberland claim, divided from the others by Lorette creek, was opened by a tunnel a hundred and fifty feet long, and the coal was found to be of a quality equal to the best for coking, forging and mechan- ical work.

Turning from the encouraging coal develop- ments to those of the precious metals we find an interesting history of gold discovery. In 1877 a party, consisting of Otto Klement, Charles von Pressentin, John Duncan, John Rowley and Frank Scott, set forth from Mount Vernon in canoes manned by Indians to explore the upper Skagit. At the mouth of what the Indians called the Nahcul- lum river, which Klement renamed Baker river, the party debarked and followed the Indian trail to the head of the Skagit, whence they crossed the main ridge of the Cascade mountains, thence de- scending the canyon of the Stehekin to Lake Chelan. After some time spent about Lake Chelan and the valley of the Methow they returned to the Skagit river. In the vicinity of the portage their boats upset and they lost all their provisions, but they found that "Cascade Charlie," an Indian with whom they had left a supply of provisions on the Baker river, had been faithful to his trust and after two days of starvation they were abundantly sup- plied from these stores. Cascade Charlie then transported them in canoes to what is now known as Goodall's landing at the head of canoe navigation on the river, where they built a log hut and made a set of sluice boxes of lumber cut out by a whip- saw, with which to prospect for gold. They found no gold in that vicinity to amount to anything. At the mouth of Ruby creek, however, they discovered fine specimens of the precious metal, but in the meantime winter had descended upon the mountains and the ground was covered with snow, so the party returned to Mount Vernon.

February 1, 1878, the gold hunters resumed explorations, the party this time consisting of Otto Klement, John Duncan, John Rowley, George Sanger and Robert Sharp. They betook themselves to a point fifteen miles from Goodall's landing and there discovered a curious natural feature, the remains of a natural bridge, indicated by the over- hanging rocks of the canyon. Building at that point a cabin, which became known as the Tunnel House, as a place of storage for their surplus provisions, they repaired to Ruby creek, with the exception of Klement, who returned to Mount Vernon. This expedition was not productive of any great discov- eries of gold, but indications were encouraging enough to lead them and others to return during the season of 1879 and in that year Albert Bacon and others put in a wing dam and washed out gold dust to the value of fifteen hundred dollars, from a claim to which they gave the name of Nip and

Tuck. In the meantime Rowley, Duncan and Saw- yer had opened a claim on Canyon creek ten miles above Nip and Tuck from which they took a thousand dollars in gold dust. John Sutter and Willard Cobb also took a prominent part in the developments of that year. When the fortunate miners returned to Mount Vernon with their precious dust the excitement which inevitably fol- lows gold discoveries broke out and raged at fever heat in all the land of the Skagit. During the close of 1879 and the beginning of 1880, throngs which some have estimated as high as five thousand, dis- regarding the rains and the snows of winter, sought the new Eldorado in canoes, skiffs, scows and on foot. Much suffering and many accidents, as might be expected, ensued. David Ball and eleven others undertook to run the portage in a canoe and were tipset into the rushing torrent. Six of the men, who could swim, essayed to reach the shore individually, but were all drowned, while the other six, who could not swim, clung to the canoe and were washed ashore and saved. The bodies of the lost were afterwards recovered far down the rapid river and were buried on the bluffs above Mount Vernon. Albert L. Graham, of Anacortes, who joined the rush to these mines, says that fully four thousand men visited the region, the majority of the claims

being on Canyon and Ruby crecks, where also most of the work was donc. Few of the argonauts real- ized their hopes in gold discoveries, and later in the season the army broke up, some of them proceeding over the Cascade mountains until they reached Fort Hope, B. C., where they renewed their mining operations, the remainder descending the Skagit to their former places. It is recorded by some who took part in that short-lived quest for gold that in the spring of 1880 the snow in that part of the Cas- cade mountains was from twelve to thirty feet deep and it is asserted that stumps can be found there at the present time of trees cut by men standing on the snow, which are from fifteen to thirty-five feet in height. It will be remembered that the floods of 1880 were the greatest in the history of the Col- umbia valley and other regions fed from the Cas- cade mountains, with the exception of the great flood of 1894.

Although the Ruby creek mines did not realize fully the hopes of the prospectors there was in the aggregate a very considerable quantity of gold dust taken out. Clothier & English, for example, received twenty-five hundred dollars in gold dust in exchange for goods which they sold at their branch store at Goodall's landing. Several steam- boats succeeded in stemming the strong current of the Skagit as far as the portage. thus demonstrat- ing the remarkable navigability of the Skagit river ; for Portage is more than a hundred miles from the mouth. An indirect result of the Ruby creek gold excitement was the demonstration of the great

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extent and vast resources in timber and in agri- culture of the noble Skagit valley.

The years 1877 and 1818 were somewhat clouded by the general hard times which prevailed over the entire country ; nevertheless there was steady progress in all manner of improvements. Among various miscellany of those years we gather from the newspapers valuable sketches of the prog- ress of enterprises here and there in all the standard lines of business. A correspondent of the Star gives a glowing picture of the inherent beauty as well as great improvements in the Bayview settlement. He finds a steam thresher at work on the ranch of Whitney & Sisson, who had at that time upwards of 300 acres under dike. In the same vicinity W. H. Trimble had 50 acres: J. High- barger, 15: G. W. L. Allen, 65; and Ball & Smith, 100. The general yield in the vicinity of Bayview was eighty bushels to the acre of oats and barley. except, rather curiously, in case of fall oats, which crows had attacked in countless numbers, pulling up at least one-half of it, and seriously diminishing the yield.

The peripatetic Star man has preserved an inter- esting picture of the appearance of the work in progress at that time upon the Skagit jam. He found two flourishing logging camps, one belonging to Mr. Hanscomb and another to William Gage. Both these men had been enabled by the work done even at that time on the jam to get out timber of magnificent quality previously unavailable. The correspondent noticed one tree without crook or knot from which were cut four twenty-four foot cuts, scaling upwards of six thousand feet of clear lumber each. Both Mr. Hanscomb and Mr. Gage paid the highest tribute to the invaluable work of the jam loggers. The correspondent also visited the store just opened by Messrs. Clothier & English and the hotel just built by Mr. Shott, which together constituted the beginnings of the city of Mount Vernon. The correspondent also becomes acquainted with D. E. Kimble and G. E. Hartson, pioneer settlers of that district, and meets Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Gage and Mrs. Isaac Lanning and Ida, the daughter of the last named, who were among the first white women to reach the Skagit river valley above the delta, their entrance to the region being in or prior to 1820. The correspondent notes the fact that although he had been all over that region but a few months previous, he found most remarkable changes accomplished. He says that but six months before the region of the Nooka- champs was just beginning to be spoken of, but at the time of this second visit there were twenty or more claims taken on that stream. Seven years earlier, he says, there was scarcely a score of claims in the whole Skagit valley, but in 1822 there were about seven hundred settlers in the valley, of whom probably nearly two hundred were white women.

The earliest settler in the vicinity of Birdsview

was Charles von Pressentin, who made his location at that point in May, 1822. At that time there were five settlers above him on the river and two between him and Mount Vernon, the latter place being his postoffice. The timber and brush were so dense upon his place that he was compelled to cut a path- way even to transport a sack of flour to his cabin. Ten million feet of timber were cut from Mr. von Pressentin's claim, one of the first to be logged on the upper river. In 1828 B. D. Minkler built a water-power mill on the south side of the river. and the first postoffice on the upper river was established at Birdsview in 1880, Mr. Minkler being the first postmaster. Indians in that vicinity always held that they were not treaty Indians, and they did not consent to the acquisition of land by the whites. A contest between these Indians and Mr. Minkler for the mill site was ultimately carried to Secretary of the Interior Ilitchcock and recently decided by him in favor of the Indians. The name of Birdsview was not derived, as might be supposed. from any ornithological connection, but from the fact that Mr. Minkler's first name, which was Bird- sey, was commonly abbreviated to Bird, and from this the town took its name. One of the pioneers of Birdsview still living there is August Kem- merich, who located his claim on February 14, 1818. He states that it was eighteen years before there was any continuous wagon road down the river.

In pursuance of this sketch of the various early settlements of the Skagit country we may note the beginnings of the Sedro-Woolley settlement as the work of Joseph Hart and David Batey, both natives of England and the latter ex-president of the Skagit Pioneer association, who established them- selves one mile southwest of the present town in August, 18:8. Mr. Batey's wife, Georgiana Batey, and two sons, John Henry and Bruce, joined him in 1880. James M. Young, John Duffy, Thomas Commey and Tom Taggart became established in the same year a few miles east of Mr. Batey's location, and in the fall of that year also William . 1. Dunlop and William Woods, former friends of Mr. Batey, took up claims adjoining him on the east. They found the woods at that time swarming with bears, cougars, coons and other wild animals.

Other settlers of 1818-9 and 1880 in the upper Skagit valley were John Stewart, William Gohlson. John Kelly, Stephen Benson and sons Jerry and Dan, after whom Benson slough is named. Lyman Everett, James Cochrane of Skagit jam fame. Dr. Lyman, Emmett VanFleet ( whose family was for a time the only white family on the river between Sterling and Lyman), Frank R. Hamilton, John M. Roach, S. S. Tingley. Michael and John Day and Joseph Zook.

While the settlements out of which the towns of Sedro-Woolley, Hamilton, Sterling, Lyman and Birdsview grew were thus shaping themselves, the customary organized institutions of civilized so-

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ciety were in process of formation in the older por- tions of the Skagit country. Prominent among these were the courts. We find that the district court met at La Conner on June 4, 1818, at which time Hon. J. R. Lewis was the chief justice, and judge of the third district of the territory. G. W. L. Allen was sheriff of Whatcom county and How- ard H. Lewis, clerk. In the absence of Prosecut- ing Attorney W. H. White, G. M. Haller was appointed by the court to handle the state's cases, while Isaac N. Power, Robert Newman and J. T. Bowman were appointed bailiffs. A seal was adopted bearing as a motto a sheaf of wheat and the words. "District Court of Whatcom county, W. T." James F. D'Arcy and John L. Dale were admitted to practice law at the bar of the territory; Fred- erick Eyre and Edward McTaggart were admitted to citizenship. The principal case that came be- fore the court at that session, that of an Indian named Taws, charged with murder, resulted in a verdict of guilty of manslaughter and a sentence to five years in the county jail. George Connor was tried for "exhibiting a pistol in a rude, angry and threatening manner in a crowd of two persons," and upon conviction thereof was sentenced to six months in the county jail and a fine of ten dollars and costs. Whatcom county at that time was suf- fering from the inconvenience of possessing no county jail and was obliged therefore to board her prisoners in the Jefferson county jail. In connec- tion with court history it may be noted that from time to time discussion of the location of the court and with this the allied question of county division, was agitated. In the Bellingham Bay Mail of Feb- ruary 15, 1819, we find mention of the question and the varying propositions made as to its settlement. Some proposed to abolish the United States court at Steilacoom and to confer jurisdiction on the court at La Conner for the counties of Whatcom, Snohomish and the proposed county of Allen, while others advocated the establishment of the court at Utsalady. If that measure could not be effected a dissatisfied element in Whatcom county insisted that the district court should be abolished or re- moved to Whatcom, which measure they admitted would probably result in a division of the county along the line of the Chuckanut hills. The estab- lishment of the county seat at Whatcom and the district court at La Conner seems to have been of the nature of a compromise between the chief centers of population. It was estimated that the entire taxable valuation of the county was about seven hundred thousand dollars, about one quarter of that being north of Whatcom. The Mail advo- cates great concessions to the people of the southern part of the county, for it prophesied that without such concessions county division would follow and quite likely Ferndale on the Nooksack river might succeed in capturing the county seat of the north- ern county.

An event of importance in the development of the region was the restoration at this time to the public domain of lands along the unbuilt portion of the Northern Pacific railroad. This was pro- claimed by a notice from the general land office published in the Mail of August 2, 1879, to the effect that on and after September 1, 1819, all of the odd-numbered sections in the counties of Sno- homish, Whatcom, Island, Jefferson, and part of King, not earned by the railroad company, should be restored to the public domain. The restored sections as well as the even-numbered sections not included in the railroad grant were rendered sub- ject to preëmption at the rate of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, except in the case of timber, coal or mining lands already fixed at a higher rate. To those who had already purchased railroad lands at two dollars and fifty cents an acre, the government granted a rebate of one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. It had been anticipated that this proclamation would produce a great rush for the acquisition of the lands indicated, but so much of them had already been secured in antici- pation of the withdrawal that there was no great rush. It was estimated that the shortening of the Northern Pacific route across the territory of Washington reduced the amount of land earned within the forty-mile limit by about four million acres.

Among the interesting miscellaneous events chronicled by the press of that time was the voyage of the steamer Josephine to the upper waters of the Skagit. Captain Smith was the skipper of the gal- lant little steamer and the party consisted of the fol- lowing persons: Benjamin Stretch of Snohomish ; C. P. Farar of Seattle; C. Dodge of the firm of Ebey & Company of Seattle; Thomas Prosch of the Seattle Intelligencer; J. B. Ball and daughter of the Skagit river, and the following from various regions bound for the gold mines: Frank Cohn, William Tracy, John Ryan, William Durley, J. T. Armstrong and his two sons, James H. and T. N., J. D. Lewis, Philip Thomas, Alonzo Lowe, Philip Keach, William Druitt, Charles Sperry, John Carnes, Albert Bacon, Henry Ellis, J. D. Dowe, August Graham and Mr. Robinson. Various other people, on business or pleasure bent, joined the steamer as she proceeded up the river.

There were at that time four trading points upon the river, Mann's Landing, three or four miles above the mouth : Skagit City, four miles farther ; Mount Vernon, and Ball's Landing, now Sterling. At the last-named place the steamer stopped for the night. On the next day the steamer called at Wil- liamson's hop ranch, and an hour later at the coal mines near the present site of Hamilton, where a distressing accident occurred, casting a gloom over what was expected to be one of the most happy events of the season. James H. Armstrong, while sitting insecurely upon the upper deck of the

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steamer, fell in some manner into the swift and icy current and was drowned. Every effort was made to rescue him, but such was the swiftness of the cur- rent that the boats which were launched were up- set ; life preservers thrown to the drowning man failed to come within his grasp and the cook of the steamer who bravely leaped in and tried to save him could not reach him and was all but drowned himself. Attempts at rescue and even the securing of the body proved to be unavailing and the steamer proceeded as far as Minkler's saw-mill near Birds- view. The water was then at its lowest stage, or the steamer might easily have gone a number of miles further up.

In preserving this general picture of the evolu- tion of our county we should not neglect to notice its social life. Pioneers are proverbial for genial hospitality and openhandedness. It is safe to say that in the rude surroundings and meager resources of carly times there is more of genuine, whole- souled, hearty social life than amid the artificial make-believes with which the people of more pol- ished and elegant conditions are obliged to surfeit themselves. As an illustration of the entertain- ments and reunions common in the pioneer settle- ments of Skagit county, we may draw upon material furnished by a correspondent of the Mail during the year 1819, who describes the meetings of a literary society held in a public hall near the resi- dence of R. E. Whitney of Padilla. Mr. Whitney was himself the president of this society and he seems to have been as efficient and helpful in the social as he is already known in these pages to have been in the business life in his section. The pro- gram of that society consisted of musical selections, select readings, presentation of dialogues, reading of the "Country Chronicle," the organ of the so- ciety, whose editor was changed at each meeting, in order to distribute the responsibility, and which abounded in social gossip, flashes of wit and humor and choice scraps of original poetry. After these miscellaneous features had been disposed of came the grand chef-d'œuvre of the evening, which was the debate. At Christmas, 1838, this society con- ducted a neighborhood festival, at which all the ordinary joys of the season were experienced. An introductory address by the president and Christ- mas carols by the singers were followed by the ap- pearance of Santa Claus with a bountiful supply of the customary goodies for the children, which the adults did not scorn to receive, and after this two heavily laden trees yielded up their coveted loads. Mr. Whitney rendered a piece entitled "The Wolves." which was followed by a song. "Remem- ber the Poor." sung by Messrs. R. E. Whitney and H. E. Dewey and Misses Eva Baker and Letty Upson. Upon the statement by the president that there was one suffering family in the community a generous contribution was immediately forthcom- ing for the sake of taking Christmas to their doors.

After this came songs and declamations for a short time, and then the company all repaired to the wide-open Whitney mansion, where a bountiful re- past had been spread. After the enjoyment of this essential feature of the occasion by all, the even- ing's festivities were closed by the presentation of "Hamlet's Ghost" and the performances of the "Blackville Club," by most of those present.

A melancholy event of the year 1879 was the accidental drowning of John Imbler at the Devil's Elbow of the Skagit, opposite B. N. L. Davis' place. Imbler had settled at that point the year previous and was an esteemed pioneer. He was on his way up river to James Cochrane's logging camp when his boat capsized.

The business which next to lumbering has be- come the greatest industry of the Puget sound region is of late development. We refer to the fishing industry. The sound and the streams enter- ing it, particularly the Skagit, were known from the first to be swarming with the finest of salmon, yet there was in the early days no market accessible. but an abundant supply of fish could be secured for local needs by any one who had a boat of his own. The pioneer of the fishing business on the upper Skagit seems to have been James H. Moores. He was located on the west bank of the Skagit just above Mount Vernon and in 1879 he put in the first gill net on the river, at the head of the channel which opened into the upper jam. It proved a great success, he putting up fifteen barrels of his first catch, which he sold at ten dollars a barrel. The salmon caught there were of what is known as the Tyee variety, weighing as high as forty pounds. The business, however, was seriously in- terfered with by the Indians, who repeatedly robbed the nets and in the end got away with the nets themselves. Many others soon followed Mr. Moores in the fishing business, until now, as is well known, the largest salmon canneries in the world are located in the western portion of Skagit county.

The year 1880 was marked by the heaviest snow- fall ever known in the Puget sound country. Dur- ing the month of January five feet of snow fell at Seattle, twenty-six inches on the Skagit delta, two feet and a half at Mount Vernon and eight feet at Goodall's Landing on the upper Skagit. As a result of the enormous accumulation of snow in the moun- tains the river ran bank full throughout the summer, scarcely varying a foot in height during a period of six weeks. One result of the unusual and contin- uous height of the water was the encouragement of steamboat navigation, and the subject of steamboat navigation leads up to the fortunes of the Skagit mining district during the year and thereafter.

We have sketched the progress of those mines to the year 1880 and have seen that the excitement had collapsed and the thousands of gold seekers gathered there had scattered. Nevertheless there were a number of men with greater staying quali-

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ties who remained. On Canyon creek seven com- panies were in existence and engaged in the con- struction of a number of ditches and flumes. The gold found in that district was of remarkably fine quality and commanded the highest price for gold clust at the mints. Nuggets were frequently found running from five to thirty dollars in value. The Ruby creek mining district was formed in the spring of 1880, George Sanger being elected re- corder and a postoffice was established with Martin Coltenbaugh as the first carrier, or some say a man named Nelson. He charged twenty-five cents per letter for his services. In July the Slate creek mines, which have since become much more pro- ductive than those of Ruby creek, were discovered. Sanger, the first recorder mentioned in the forego- ing, was killed by a rock slide in Alaska in recent years.

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An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 28

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.) Publication date: 1906 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1172

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172