An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 38

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1056

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In the work Mr. and Mrs. Clark had chosen they labored earnestly and successfully. Mr. Clark served acceptably and profitably quite a number of the more prominent of the charges of the Oregon conference, such as Eugene City, Brownsville, Shedd, Dallas and Hillsboro, for thirty years. In 1885, his health having so far failed that he did not feel that he was longer fitted to endure the strain of the itinerancy, he took a superannuated relation to his conference, and moved with his family to Spokane Falls in the then Territory of Washington. Here his faithful fortune again smiled upon him, for, by the wise investment of what his life of careful economy and faithful industry he had been able to save during the former years, he became com- paratively wealthy. Since 1885 Mr. and Mrs. Clark have resided continuously in Spokane, where they have won the respect and confidence of the people in an eminent degree.

To them have been born a family of seven children, whose lives have reflected the virtues and purity of the home from whence they went out. Two of them, namely, Mrs. Alice M. Doane, and Miss Effie Jane Clark, both ladies of most exalted character, have died. The lat- ter passed away while a student at Evanston, Illinois, leaving a record for character and ac- complishments that are the pride and boast of the great institution of which she was a most beloved and honored student.

After a full forty years of honorable and use- ful pioneer life Mr. Clark and his most worthy companion are spending the late afternoon of their history in the rest of a beautiful home that overlooks one of the most charming city and country views which the human eye ever beheld, and they are well worthy of it.

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

PRINCIPAL CITIES, CONTINUED.

TACOMA.

THE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD -- THE TACOMA OF 1887-OF 1892- CAUSES-BEAUTY OF LOCA- TION-BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF MAJOR-GENERAL J. W. SPRAGUE AND COLONEL CHAUNCEY W. GRIGGS.

G EORGE FRANCIS HOAR, in an address before the Massachusetts Club of Boston, in Jnly, 1889, said :

" It is difficult to imagine what must be the destiny of that wonderful region (Puget Sound), unsurpassed on this earth for the fer- tility of its soil, and with a salubrions climate where it seems impossible that human life should come to an end if the ordinary laws of health should be observed, with a stimulating atmosphere where brain and body are at their best. * * *

* There * our children, our brethren and our kinsmen have carried the principles of New England; there on the shores of that Pacific sea they are to repeat on a larger scale, with grander results. this wonderful drama which we and our fathers have enacted here. There are to be the streets of a wealthier New York, the homes of a more cul- tured Boston, and the halls of a more learned Harvard, and the workshops of a busier Wor- cester."

When twenty years ago the Northern Pacific Railroad began its bold march across the con- tinent, its way lay over trackless prairies and into forests virgin and deep. Its forerunner at the south, the Union Pacific, had followed that long line of human bones which stretched away across the great desert, the ghastly tracing of that tidal wave of emigration which had swept to the gold fields of California. It followed in the wave of population; its objective was a rich and developed commonwealth. The new road sought an almost undiscovered and unpeopled country. The long tier of great territories which the Northern Pacific would traverse on its way to the ocean were little more than lines

upon the map. But the projectors of the road knew that therein lay the locked-up wealth of an empire, and their daring and fertile brains were populous with dreams.

Far to the westward, a natural gateway to the Pacific, lay a beautiful inland sea, bluer than the Egean and shadowed by a soaring mountain dome of snow, before whose bold and massive splendor high Olympus would shrink to the stature of a pigmy. By the shores of this sea they saw rise, in prophetic vision, a city of com- merce, beauty and wealth; a rival of San Fran- cisco, a terminal of trans-continental and trans- Pacific traffic, a mart of inland, coastwise and oriental trade. It was a dream, but when the hour struck, it was to be fulfilled with the rapid action of a romance.

In 1887 the railroad's long struggle for a pass- age across the Cascades was ended, and the first overland train, by direct route, tonched the shores of Puget Sound. Years before the direct- ors had chosen as the terminal a commanding site at the extreme head of navigation on the sound. It took its name from the great mount- ain at whose feet it lay, known in the melodions Indian dialect as " Tacoma." But the resolution of a board of directors did not make a city. In 1880, what was then Tacoma, was an Indian trading hamlet of hardly 800 people, lying close to the water's edge, and walled in by the somber forest. Three years later the establishment of an all-rail connection with Portland and the outside world, lent a quickening pulse. But the completion of the stampede switch-back found it still a struggling western town, new and raw and crude. There were a few graded streets; for the rest, the charred stumpage and fallen

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giants of the burned-over forest rose bare and black against the circling bluffs.

Were an Easterner, accustomed to Eastern slowness of development, having known the Tacoma of theu, to behold the Tacoma of to-day, he might easily conceive himself face to face with the magic of Aladdin's lamp. The Tacoma of to-day is the achievement of those short five years. In that brief time the dense jungle of a Puget Sound forest has been cut away, its rougliness subdued, and in its stead there has been planted a modern and beautiful city-a city of more than 30,000 population, of $43,000,000 of assessed wealth, with a great trade by water and by rail, with magnificent business blocks, with tasteful and elegant homes and stretching lawns, club houses and fine public buildings, eable and electric railways, with parks, with libraries, with theaters, with schools and colleges, -all the appointments of civilized life, and or- ganized on a scale which would reflect credit on a city with quadruple the population.

It is doubtful if a similar example of develop- ment so swift, so well ordered and complete, can be summoned even from the pages of the rapid growth of western cities. The discoveries of " bonanza " mines have created great mining camps like Leadville and Butte, in perhaps a like space. But Tacoma is not an uncouth min- ing camp of the frontier, but a city of Eastern appearance, Eastern people, and Eastern culture. A Pullman to be sure is more perfect architec- turally, for individual effort cannot achieve the symmetry attainable by the compactly directed expenditure of millions, But Tacoma is not, like a Pullman, the child of a corporation, al- though the Northern Pacific railroad may have stood as its god-father; and Tacoma has what a Pullman can never have, the un wearying panor- ama of the pine-darkened Cascades, the blue Olympics with their cresting snows, the broad expanse of placid sea, and best of all, the Jovian front of that most stately and superb of all the mountain peaks of the continent, Mount Rainier, frequently called Tacoma.

The growth of the new eity was swift and astonishing. But was it solid and enduring? Did it tread firm earth, or was it but the fig- ment of a " boom "? Let the last two years answer. The wild rush which had followed the completion of the railroad to Puget Sound was already over when the Baring failure drew taut the purse strings of every investor and capital- ist. The stringency was keenly felt in the long established States,-still more keenly in the new. Yet the two years which followed have done more for Tacoma than the three which preceded. Speculation stopped, building began. The long column of real-estate transfers was replaced by the tabulation of building permits. These two years have seen the rise of the city's most imposing structures,-its courthouse costing $350,000, its city hall eosting $300,000, the Chamber of Commerce, the Berlin, Bernice, Washington, Fidelity, California, Mer- chants' National Bank, Pacifie National Bank, Gross Bros., Tacoma Theater, and other splendid blocks; they have seen the beginning of con- struction of a $2,000,000 hotel, the finest on the coast, now nearing completion; they have seen a steady stride in population, in business and trade, the construction of buildings whose value aggregates over $6,000,000, the develop- ment of a jobbing trade from $10,000,000 to $18,000,000.

Such has been Tacoma's advance in the face of financial stringency, and when the last sem- blance of a " boom " had passed away it signi- fies with decisive emphasis that the city's growth, phenomenal as it has been, was not of that factitious and mushroom character so often seen. There were, in truth, deep, more potent causes operating to build a great city at the head of Puget Sound. That such a city should one day exist was a sure and fixed destiny when the idea of a northern trans-continental line first found root in the brain of its projectors.

It lies along what the prophetic finger of Senator Thomas H. Benton forty years ago pointed out as "The American road to the

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Orient." The construction of the Northern Pacific was one link of connection; the estab- lishment of the Tacoma-Hong Kong line of steamers was the second. Just as ocean com- merce has built the cities of New York, Boston, Baltimore, just as the Chinese Japanese ship- ping has been a chief factor in the growth of San Francisco, so would the establishment of com- merce and shipping, combined with its position as the terminal of a chief transcontinental rail- road, be sufficient in itself to build Tacoma to the stature of a great city.

But the conspiracy of forces goes yet deeper. Back of New York and Baltimore was com- merce; baek of Pittsburg was coal and iron, back of Chicago, Omaha and Kansas City were the granaries of the west; back of St. Paul and Minneapolis were the pine forests of Minnesota and the Dakota wheat fields; baek of Denver was the wealth of the Rockies; and by reason of these things those cities have grown great. Back of Tacoma are the wheat fields of Eastern Washington and the hop fields of the valleys of the Sound, the eoal and iron deposits of the Cascades; in the Cascades, ton, are stores of gold and silver, and round about the Sound is the greatest forest on the American continent; and by reason of these has the city achieved its present position. Here is the secret of its aston- ishing development. Had indeed the conjunc- tion of natural resources been less powerful no such development could have taken place. But whoever will give attentive examination of the various factors at work will cease to wonder at the result.

It would be over-just to Tacoma, and unjust to other representative cities of the State, if we did not say here that these great factors are com- mon, in a great measure, to the other cities of the sound, and are the pledge of a future of growth and power in that whole region of which this city will be an expressive type. It would be impossible for ns to do more than give them this generalization withont attempting to lead our readers into the domain of statistics.

For the rest of the story, the reader is invited to visit and behold with his own eyes the city itself. Man, maker of cities, may have sum- inoned to life the wealth of its forests and its hills, have made its valleys hum with the voices of industry and set its beautiful harbor with ships, bnt the hand of man could never have sculptured her imperial hills, and dowered these with an air and view that take us back for com- parison to the land where civilization lay in its cradle, and awoke to poetry under the soft skies of Greece. Cireling the waters of Commence- ment Bay and terraced like a broad amphitheater, lie the bluffs on which the city is bnilt. The business part ocenpies the narrow strip of shore line, and the lower terraces; above these, rising tier upon tier, is the residence portion; the green sward of the lawns, green the whole year round, giving an exquisite setting to the gayer colors of the handsome modern homes. These latter are one of the remarkable features of the city ; their cost exceeding those of any city of equal or even much greater size. In every direction stretch vistas of exquisite beanty. Only the far horizon limits the wide view-a horizon set np for almost its entire rim, of the Cascades and the Olympics. "Lifting far their crystal climb of snow," and high over these, Mount Rainier, rearing his snowy battlements far above the clonds. The air seems still with a singular serenity, and soft as a caress. Neither seorch- ing blasts nor fierce, cold cyclones, blizzards nor thunder-storms disturb its peace. Roses, blos- soming as never roses of Sharon blossomed, scent the air from May to Jannary. The sum- mer is a long Inne, and winter a mild Novem- ber.

And it is perhaps this rare union of physical wealth and salubrity of elimate, opportunity for business and restful, restorative air, that has won so many wealthy, cultured and intelligent people to this new city. Here the race for wealth is not won at the price of a rnined con- stitution; here health and fortune, suecesstnl business and daily enjoyment of life may go

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hand in hand. It has converted many a tourist to a resident, and contributed powerfully to that splendid march of development we have told. It will be a potent factor in the city's progress toward the attainment of its manifest destiny, so much of which it has already claimed for its own.

Following are sketches of representative citizens of Tacoma:

MAJOR-GENERAL J. W. SPRAGUE, than whom no name is more intimately associated with the development of Tacoma, justly deserves men- tion in the history of Washington, which State he helped to create.

John Wilson Sprague was born in Washing- ton county, New York, April 4, 1817, his parents being Otis and Polly (Peck) Sprague.

The founder of the Sprague family in Amer- ica was William, who came from England in 1628, landing in Massachusetts in September. He settled at Naumkeag (Salem), and was known as one of the leading planters of Massa- clmsetts. He was appointed by Governor Endi- cott to explore and take possession of the country west of Hingham, and in 1636 several parcels of land were given this explorer by the town of Hingham. From the latter town, lie re- moved to Charlestown and made peace with the Indians there, two of his brothers being the first settlers of that place. William died at Iling- ham, October 26, 1675, after a long and useful life spent in the service and development of his country. One of his sons, Anthony, had a son Jeremiah, among whose children was Knight Sprague, whose son Asa had a son Otis, the father of the subject of this sketch. Asa Sprague, the grandfather of the General, was born at Hingliam, the old family seat, and Otis was a native of Worcester, Massachusetts, but eventu- ally removed to New York State.

John W. Sprague, whose name heads this sketch, was a mere boy when his parents re- moved to Troy, New York, where he resided until he was twenty-eight years of age. He was educated in the common schools of that eity and at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. On

completing his education, he embarked in the wholesale grocery business as a member of the firm of Wallace & Sprague, in which he con- tinned for five years. At the end of that time he removed to Hnron, Ohio, then on the front- ier, where he established himself in the for- warding and commission business and in lake commerce, as a member of the firm of Wright & Sprague, and later, of Wilbur & Sprague, who, in connection with their regular opera- tions, built, owned and operated vessels. It was in the midst of these active and profitable en- terprises that the war of the Rebellion broke out, when, prompted by patriotism, Mr. Sprague at once took his stand in defense of the Union.

On the first call for troops, he raised a com- pany, and reported at Camp Taylor, near Cleve- land. May 19, 1861, this company was assigned to the Seventh Regiment of the Ohio Infantry, which was shortly afterward ordered to Camp Dennison. Here the regiment re-or- ganized for three years' time, and was ordered forward to West Virginia. August 11, 1861, while Captain Sprague was proceeding, under orders, from Somerville to Clarksville, with an escort of four mounted men, he was captured near Big Birch river, after a sharp chase of about three miles, by a detachment of the Wise. Legion, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Crohan. Captain Sprague was taken to Rich- mond, where he was confined about six weeks in a tobacco honse, after which he was trans- ferred to Charleston, South Carolina, being eon- fined first at Castle Pinckney and afterward in the Charlestown jail. January 1, 1862, he was sent to Columbia, South Carolina, and on the 5th was removed to Norfolk, Virginia, to be ex- changed, and on the 10th reached Washington city. While on his way to join his regiment, which was still stationed in Virginia, Captain Spragne received from Governor Tod a com- mission as Colonel of the Sixty-third Ohio In- fantry. This latter regiment was at Marietta, Ohio, but its organization was incomplete. This was rapidly accomplished, however, and on the '10th of February, Colonel Sprague moved for-

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ward with his regiment, to report to General Sherman, at Padneah, Kentucky, and immedi- ately on arriving there was ordered to report to General Pope at Commerce, Missouri. Under the latter officer, Colonel Sprague participated in the operations at New Madrid and Island No. 10, after which he joined the army at l'ittsburg Landing. IIe moved with the army against Corinth, and subsequently commanded his regiment in the battle of Inka, but was only slightly engaged. The Colonel again partici- pated in the battle of Corinth, October 3 and 4, 1862. On the 4th, his regiment was posted on the right of Battery Robinett and lest more men, in porportion to its size, than any other on the field. More than one-half of the men were killed and wounded, and but three line officers escaped unharmed.

Subsequently, Colonel Sprague was, for some time, engaged in various operations of minor importance. In the latter part of 1863, his regiment re-enlisted, ouly seven of the men present deelining to re-enter the service. Colonel Sprague has always looked upon this almost unanimous act of his regiment as equal in im- portance to any of its deeds on the battle field.

In the latter part of January, 1864. Colonel Sprague was assigned by General Dodge, to the command of the brigade, consisting of the Forty-third and Sixty-third Ohio Regiments, the Twenty-fifth Wisconsin, the Thirty-fifth New Jersey, and the Third Michigan Battery. In April, the brigade marched from Chatta- nooga with the Army of the Tennessee, under General MePherson, and formed part of the grand army under General Sherman. Colonel Sprague was actively engaged during the entire Atlantic campaign, and at Resaca, Dallas and Nicojaek creek. At Decatur, on the 22d of July, he was, to quote from a history of the war, "conspicnous for coolness and bravery. At Deeatur, Colonel Sprague was covering and guarding the trains of the entire army, consist- ing of over 4,000 wagons. He was attacked by superior numbers, and the contest continued for more than four hours; but by his own bravery

and ability, no less than by the courage and prompt obedience of his men, the enemy was finally repulsed, and only one wagon was lost. Ilis brigade lost 292 men, killed and wounded."

Colonel Sprague was appointed Brigadier- General July 29, 1864. After the fall of Atlanta, he moved with General Sherman to Savannah, and thence northward on the cam- paign of the Carolinas. After the surrender of the Rebel armies, he moved from Goldsboro, through Raleigh and Richmond, to Washing- ton eity, where he participated in the grand review of Sherman's army. Ilis command hav- ing been disbanded at the close of the war, he was assigned to duty by the Secretary of the War as Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, with headquarters at St. Louis, Missouri. The district under his charge comprised the States of Missonri and Kansas, and subsequently the Indian Territory. In September, 1865, General Sprague's headquarters were removed to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he remained until November, when he resigned. In the mean- time he was offered the position of Lientenant- Colonel of the Forty-first United States Infan- try, which he declined, and he was brevetted Major-General of Volunteers, to date from March 13, 1864. To quote again from the work previously referred to: "His character as a soldier is nnimpeachable, and his influence with his regiment, and later with his brigade, was almost unbounded. No one who knew him as a soldier failed to esteem and love himn. He was always prompt, efficient and brave."

At the close of the war, General Sprague was appointed General Manager of the Winona & St. Peter Railroad in Minnesota, and removed to Winona. In the spring of 1870 he assumed charge of the interests of the Northern Pacific Railroad west of the Rocky Mountains, and under his direction the road from Kalama to Tacoma was constructed in 1871-'73, and he afterward controlled its operation, and had charge of the land department, as well as of all the varied interests of the company between the

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Rocky Mountains and Puget Sound. He also built 325 miles of the line east of the Rockies, between Wallula and P'end d' Oreille lake. He eontinned in control of the operations of the Northern Pacific in the West until 1882, when his health failed, as a result of the exposures to which he had subjected himself, as well as from the over-activity of his life, and he resigned.

IIe established the Tacoma National Bank, which was the first national bank ever organized in the metropolis of Washington. In 1889 he sold out his interest in this bank, but has been president of the Union Savings Bank & Trust Company since January, 1892, and is also viee- president of the Puget Sound Savings Bank. Aside from his connection with these insti- tutions, and the attention he necessarily gives to his varions interests, General Sprague is practi- cally retired from active business. IIe was one of the organizers of the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce, and was president of that body dur- ing the first three years of its existence. Ile is a member of the Loyal Legion, having been commander of the Oregon department in the first year of its existence, and when the Wash- ington department was organized he was chosen as its first commander.

June 22, 1843, General Sprague was married in Huron, Ohio, to Miss Lucy, daughter of Judge Jabez Wright. She died in the follow- ing year, leaving one daughter, Lucy L., now the wife of John W. Wickham, Jr., of Huron, Ohio. January 10, 1849, the General was married to Julia F., danghter of Judge George W. Choate, and she died in 1887, leaving four children: Otis, Winthrop W., Clark W., and Charles. He was married. in 1890, to his pres- ent wife, who was formerly Mrs. Abbie (Wright) Vance.

General Sprague's whole life has been marked by responsibility, power, energy and ability, and he has left his impress indelibly upon the history of the State of Washington.

COLONEL CHAUNCEY WRIGHT GRIGGS, presi- dent of the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Com-

pany, and one of the foremost citizens of Wash- ington, was born December 31, 1832, in Tolland, Connecticut, which place has been for four generations the family seat. The founders of the family came to America early in its history, and their descendants have since figured promi- nently in church matters, in politics, in business affairs, and in the various wars in which the conntry has been involved.

Captain Chauncey Griggs, father of Colonel Griggs of this notice, who obtained his title as an officer in the war of 1812, was a Judge of Probate at Tolland and a member of the State Legislature of Connecticut for a number of years. The mother of the subject of this sketch was, previous to her marriage, Heartie Dimock. The Dimocks of New England, through Elder Thomas Dimock, an early settler of Barnstable, Massa- chusetts, trace their descent from the Dimocks of England, who from the time of Henry I to that of Victoria have held and exercised the office of hereditary champion of England, and for the same have been knighted and baroneted. The Dimocks were prominent in the Revoln- tionary war, and some of them served as officers of prominent command. The foregoing items are taken from published volumes of Conneeti- cut history and genealogy.

The subject of this sketch received a com- mon-school education at Tolland, and at abont the age of seventeen years went to Ohio, where he was for a short time employed as a clerk in a store. Returning home, he finished his edu- eation at the Monson Academy, in Massachu- setts, at that time one of the best institutions of its kind in New England. He subsequently taught school for a while, and in 1851 went West, first settling in Detroit, where for a brief period he had employment in a bank, after which he went to Ohio, where he was engaged in mercantile business. He next went to Iowa, from which State he returned to Detroit, where he was for a time interested in the furniture business with his brother. Thence he went to St. Paul in 1856, and soon was busily engrossed

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An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 38

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902 Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1056

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1056