USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. II > Part 23
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" There are probably not a dozen people in the United States who have any idea of the wonderful system of glaciers to be found on the slopes of Mount Tacoma, in Pierce County of this State. Thousands of people gaze upon this grand and majestic peak from the city of Tacoma, forty-four miles away, but have no idea of its real magnitude. The State of Washington is
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traversed north and south by mountains of lava and lava flows, forming a section of that great system which stretches from Alaska to Cape Horn, and marks upon the surface of the earth probably the mightiest geological catastrophe the world has ever seen. To the westward of this range stand three great volcanic peaks-Mount Baker, Mount Tacoma and Mount St. Helens. All are active, but not violently. Several eruptions of Mount Baker are recorded, notably that of 1853, when streams of lava covered the western slopes. St. Helens has frequently clouded the skies of Washington with dry volcanic ashes, but it is other- wise quiet and peaceable. Steam and smoke often issue from the crater of Mount Tacoma. It is probable, however, that the Puget Sound valley is as safe as any volcanic country could be, as its wonderful growth of large timber upon the foothills testi- fies.
" When George Vancouver saw Mount Tacoma in the year 1792 he named it Mount Rainier, after a friend of his in England -a British admiral and an enemy of America. In doing this he ignored the Spanish discoveries of several years preceding, and also the old Indian name, Tahoma, which is pronounced as it is spelled-Tachoma. The nearest English spelling is Tacoma, and the word is pronounced without accent."
We interrupt Mr. Plummer's valuable statement at this point to say that, as the reader may remark, we have already laid stress upon this re-christening of Mount Tacoma elsewhere, quot- ing the opinion of another erudite authority-Judge Wicker- sham, of Tacoma, who has given this matter much studious at- tention. Should the evidence now adduced seem cumulative, we can only plead the importance of a mooted question, regard- ing which so much has been said and written, and where opin- jons are held so literally and diametrically differing. We there- fore reiterate the decision elsewhere expressed. that every senti- ment of patriotism, appropriateness, and antiquity decide in favor of the ancient Indian appellation. To return : Mr. Plum- mer tells us that
" The Tacoma Academy of Science," of which he is a dis- tinguished member, "has, after an exhaustive investigation, determined that Tacoma is the name, and in this they are upheld by all the leading geographical societies, many of which have passed resolutions favoring the action of the Tacoma Academy.
Pulir MC Gregor
BOMbernman
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" Mount Tacoma rises from the sea level to a height of 14, 450 feet. It is an almost symmetrical dome surmounted by three small peaks. Above the elevation of 4000 feet the mountain is covered with perpetual snow save where the rocky ribs project and mark the boundaries of the glaciers. To those who love large figures, it may be well to say its mass is roughly about ten hundred cubic miles. Its glacial system is on the same magnifi- cent scale, and is probably the largest in the world radiating from one peak. This glacial system is simply tremendous, and far superior to that of Mont Blanc, Switzerland, which is not one quarter the size of Mount Tacoma's. The Mer-de-Glace of Mont Blanc does not cover one half the area of the Carbon Gla- cier, which is only one of the medium-sized ice rivers which flow down the sides of Mount Tacoma.
"It is a curious fact that although these glaciers are ar- ranged on radial lines, yet all their vast drainage goes westward to Puget Sound and the Columbia, forming four rivers-the White, Puyallup, Nisqually, and Cowlitz. The mountain is flanked on the south by the Tatoisch range, and on the north by the Sluiskin range, both spurs of the Cascades, forming a natu- ral park, which has lately been reserved by proclamation of the President.
" Paradise Park, on the southern slope of the mountain, is already a favorite resort of the people of Tacoma who have the strength and pluck to make the journey to this charming local- ity. Many persons who have seen the finest scenery in the world say that nature has exhausted her resources to make Para- dise Park one of the most beautiful spots on earth. Words are inadequate and photographs hardly better in describing it. The valley is carpeted with lovely flowers of every hue and dye, and dotted with clumps of mountain fir and ash. Through it runs Paradise River, which comes from Siniskin Falls with a leap of nine hundred feet. The Tatoisch range of volcanic bluffs, peaks, and pinnacles form a rugged and grotesque outline against the southern sky, while to the eastward the enormous cliffs of the Cascades rise in successive folds until lost in the distance. To the north and at the bend of the valley stands Mount Tacoma, which seems, by the very grandeur of its presence, to impose absolute silence upon both nature and he who regards it. Go, then, to Paradise Valley to learn the poverty of language.
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Many beautiful things have been said and written about Mount Tacoma, but one glance at its majestic altitude from Paradise Park is worth a thousand pictures by pen or pencil."
Mr. Plummer's contour map of the mountain, with its de- pendent glaciers, is probably the most complete, if not the only one of its kind ; and though of course not absolutely accurate, it gives an excellent general idea of the whole. The lines of con- tours show elevations above the level of the sea of from 3000 to 14,450 feet, the contours being drawn at intervals of 1000 feet of elevation ; they cover the whole of the wonderful glacial system of Mount Tacoma.
Our own impression of the name which properly belongs to this the grandest volcanic eminence of the Pacific slope seems appropriately expressed in the following lines, suggested by an editorial in the Tacoma Ledger, and published in that journal a year or two ago under the head of "Let us call it Mount Tacoma :"
" The Indian christened it long ago with a true poetic name, For he watched and worshipped its snowy crest
When it blazed with a brighter flame,
And the lava lights o'er its burning breast Poured forth their fiery vein.
'Twas ' the mother of streams,' he saw it reach,
With white arms lifted o'er wood and beach,
With snowy finger raised on high,
Pointing its peaks to the Manitous' sky,
So he called it Tacoma ; and far and wide
That name still clung to the sunset's bride.
The nations faded, the seasons fled,
The babe was born and the man lay dead,
But the mount, with the storms of centuries stained, Its ancient title still retained,
Till in later years an admiral came,
An English sailor unknown to fame,
Unless, perchance, he helped to hold Our colonies tribute to greed of gold.
When the ' old thirteen ' with stubborn stroke
Severed the chain of that British yoke,
Vancouver, to help a friend so dear, Concluded to call it ' Mount Rainier.'
But who was Rainier, what deed had he done, What eminent action by valor won, Save this, that his friend first ploughed the bay Where many a ship erelong should lay ?
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What wonder the mountain of countless years Should veil its forehead in mist and tears, Hiding its brightness and shunning the day, Robing its glaciers in garments of gray, Bidding its summit indignantly flame As it dumbly denies this ' discovery name,' That flouts the fair fame of the 'heights only trod By moonbeam and starbeam and angels of God.' Then bid our snow-mountain its ancient name bear, Nor borrow from Britain a title to wear."
-BREWERTON.
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CHAPTER XXXVII.
TACOMA, THE "CITY OF DESTINY."
" Success to Tacoma, fair city of rest, Enthroned on the hills that the summer loves best, Encircling with emeralds, brilliant and bright, The billows that sparkle like gems in the light ; Where spring comes full early to clothe the dark pine, And bid its green tassels more verdantly shine ; Where the rose finds a welcome and blossoms beguile, Where the soft, sunny turf of their home gardens smile ; Where e'en winter disguises the year's dull decay By folding the landscape in mist robes of gray, Lending veils of the fog to each desolate pine, And white arms of vapor the firs to entwine ; Where autumn the golden brings harvests to greet, And lays her full store at the husbandman's feet ; Where the hop vineyards blossom in graceful festoons And the breath of the cedar the upland perfumes ; While the walls and the roof-trees of homes yet to be Wave in woods that shall journey far over the sea ; Where the fruit strews the sod with its shower of gold And the granaries burst with the treasures they hold ; Where the Orient's tea and the car piled with wheat Give constant employment to railroad and fleet ; For Pomona and Ceres their good gifts combine, And Flora's fair children 'neath corn-tassels shine ; Then success to the mart, that Aladdin-like grew, Where but forests unbroken the Indian knew."
-BREWERTON.
STRICTLY speaking, Tacoma has no history ; her municipal life has been too brief, her embryo condition too uneventful. Like the erratic Topsy of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," the "City of Destiny" never was born, "it growed," and still continues and is likely to keep on growing-and such a growth !
It happened, as modern progress counts time, or, as the chil- dren's fairy stories begin, "in the long ago" of 1852, when, upon a certain spring day of that year, one Nicholas Delin lo-
FTC STEEL BARGE COMPANY EVERETT WASHINGTON
PUGET SOUND WIRE NAIL & STEEL COMPANY EVERETT . WASHINGTON_
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cated his donation claim at the extreme head of Commencement Bay, within what are now the corporate limits of the city of Tacoma, a rough sketch of which, with the original Indian names, showing Delin's selected location, the author has examined, for which, with its accompanying certificate, giving under oath the testimony of many Indians as to the native names of Tacoma and other mountains, we acknowledge our indebtedness to the friendly interest taken in our work by Judge James Wicker- sham, of Tacoma.
Little did Delin or the first settlers who built their rude log- cabins in the humble hamlet of old Tacoma dream as they listened to the stroke of the axe, the crash of falling timber, or the drone and buzz of the little mill eating its way into the pine, that the hills, so rude and desolate, that towered above them would, as years rolled on, look condescendingly down upon their comparative littleness and poverty as a rich new neighbor moved suddenly in is apt to do. Yet all these changes, so wonderful and unexpected, were erelong to be. But we must not antici- pate.
Early in the spring of the following year (1853) Delin formed a partnership with Colonel Simmons, the original pioneer of Puget Sound, and a man named Hayes to build two saw-mills, one on Delin's claim, the other at Skookum Bay. The builders employed by them-Hodgdon, Ethridge, and Taylor-reached the mill site on April 1st, showing that there are wise as well as foolish things begun on that inauspicious day, and commenced operations, cutting their frame timbers about where the present Jefferson Street intersects Pacific Avenue. There' was then at this point an old Indian " medicine house," some 40 × 60 feet in size, which the workmen engaged in putting up the mill util- ized to live in. One of their employés, Jake Barnhart, took the claim subsequently transferred to Peter Judson. In due time the mill, a small water-power affair, located at the present site of its larger successor, Paulson's, or Dock and Twenty-fifth streets, was completed and got to work, shipping its first cargo of lumber to San Francisco on the brig George Emery, Captain Trask. This officer found five fathoms where now the " tide land" is scarcely bare at high water, showing that the débris of the Puyallup is still feeding the " mud flats" and encroaching on Commencement Bay-a fact which, when they come to build
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a proper outside embankment or sea wall, should save much fill- ing in and strengthen the pile structures.
We break off our own narrative here to interpolate informa- tion just received from the valued correspondent, Judge Wick- ersham-to whom we have referred. He writes :
" As a matter of history, our neighboring town of Steilacoom is the interesting spot in our county-Steilacoom and Fort Nis- qually. But Tacoma dates back as far as Steilacoom, although it bore no prominent part until the location of the railroad ter- minus, in 1873, on the shores of Commencement Bay.
" About the summer of 1852 old man Judson (the father of Steve and John Paul J., the lawyer) took a donation claim ex- tending from near Seventeenth Street along the water front to about the Northern Pacific's headquarters building-Seventh Street -- three hundred and twenty acres, covering all of what is now the wealthy business portion of Tacoma. The land north of the Judson claim was filed on by a logger of the name of Barnhart, but after it was robbed of its timber it was allowed to go back to the Government. The Indian war drove out all these people, and the town site of Tacoma was an unbroken wilder- ness without a single white inhabitant till in the year 1868, or about that time, Job Carr and his sons, Howard and Anthony, appeared upon the scene. Then came General McCarver" (of whom we shall speak at length), "who took a claim alongside of the Carrs and began to talk city."
This McCarver, or to more appropriately and respectfully designate him, General Morton Matthew McCarver (he having served as Quartermaster-General of the State of Iowa), was no ordinary man. As Warwick was a king-maker, so was McCarver destined and designed to become a founder of cities. As the real pioneer and projector of the fortunes of Tacoma, where his universally beloved and respected widow (Mrs. Julia A. McCarver) still resides, and as the father-in-law of C. P. Ferry (known as the " Duke of Tacoma"), General McCarver is well entitled to the extended biographical notice at our hands, which is his due. Indeed, the history of the city cannot be written without ac- knowledging his agency. We therefore devote to him a space which we have accorded to no other individual. His biographer thus describes him :
" Born in Lexington, Ky., on January 14th, 1807, General
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McCarver was a man of independent and determined mind, of great courage and enterprise, which, combined with love of ad- venture and a roving spirit, well fitted him for the life-work he was destined to perform. After serving in the Black Hawk War, and having married (his first wife) a Miss Jennings, of Galena, Ill., he left his home, intending to locate upon lands soon to be opened to settlement by treaty with the Indians he had assisted to subdue. He was then twenty-six years old. Halting at a point on the Mississippi, then known as Flint Hills, he found shelter for the night, before crossing over from the Illi- nois to the opposite shore, beneath the hospitable roof of a pio- neer named George Buchanan, whose wife during the night gave birth to a son, who before McCarver's departure was christened after his father (George Buchanan), and who afterward, by one of those singular coincidences which go to prove that 'truth is stranger than fiction,' became the general's host when he went to examine the site of the future 'City of Destiny,' stopped as Mr. Buchanan's guest at his residence a few miles distant ; and then, as if to complete the resemblance, this young Mr. Buchanan's wife also gave birth to a boy during the few hours of the general's stay, who ere he left the house was in like manner christened George Buchanan." An angel guest and winning man truly was this locater of cities yet to be ; even the children seemed to follow him. To proceed with our biographi- cal sketch-and we regret that our space does not permit us to enter more fully into the details of the general's busy, adven- turous and most useful career. "Upon the following morning he crossed the river, made his selection, located, and built a cabin on land about to be vacated, on the top of the Flint Hills, by the Sacs and Foxes ; but as the treaty was not yet ratified and the troops were ordered to drive out trespassers-as in the Okla- homa troubles of our own day-Jefferson Davis, then a lieu- tenant of cavalry, stationed at Fort Snelling, was ordered with his command to evict the squatters, and at once proceeded down the river to oblige them to depart. His soldiers, acting without orders, burned McCarver's home to the ground, thus forcing him to leave his new home till the full ratification of the treaty. Returning in June of 1834, when this much-coveted territory was thrown open for settlement, he founded a town, speculated in lands, took the contract for carrying the mails, and became
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during his nine years of residence the most prominent citizen of the afterward thriving city of Burlington. He was," says his biographer, " a leading member of the convention which formed the Iowa State constitution, one of the men who went from St. Louis to attend the first public sale of lands at Chicago, and the only one of the parties who had the courage and foresight to invest in the then muddy shores of the creeks now bridged by the many avenues of the Columbian Exposition city. In 1843 he emigrated to Oregon and settled on the Tualatin Plains. Later on, with Burnett (afterward Governor of California), he projected the town of Linnton (named in honor of Senator Linn). Becoming convinced that this was a mistake the general moved to Oregon City, where he engaged in farming, and was elected a member of the Oregon Provisional Legislature, of which body he was chosen speaker. Here his wife died in 1845. He took part in the Cayuse war, in 1847, and in 1848 married Mrs. Julia A. Buckalew, who still survives him.
" Then came the rush for gold to California, and the general, carried away with the tide of treasure-seekers, started overland with a Mr. Hannah, reaching Feather River in August. Here McCarver selected as a location on which to found a town the site of the present city of Sacramento. He formed a partnership with his old associate, Governor Burnett, and embarked in mer- chandise and real estate, building their store with their own hands. In 1849 Hannah bought the general out, he having been elected a member of the Monterey Convention that framed the original State constitution of California, under which she was admitted. In 1849 Hannah returned to Oregon, bringing with him Mrs. McCarver." They journeyed by water, and a wild and dangerous trip it was-worthy of being recorded, if only to show the traveller of to-day, who chafes if the " overland flyer" is an hour or so too late, what it was to change location in the forties on the Northwest coast of America. We are told that
" They left San Francisco on the bark John W. Decatur, bound for the Hudson's Bay Company station, now Victoria. Reaching the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca (which, it is more than probable, De Fuca never saw), the wind failed, and the bark was obliged to stand out to sea until the next day, when, running in with a fair breeze, she took a squall at the entrance of the strait and encountered heavy seas, which carried away her
CE Paul
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rudder, made a hole in her stern, and stove her timber heads. After battling with stormy waves for four-and-twenty hours she was only saved by the cutting away of her mizzen-mast. An entrance being finally effected, she got inside, but was forced to anchor and wait for the flood tide, when she drifted up the strait, anchoring on the ebb. The second night inside an alarm of 'Indians ' was given, and every one was ordered on deck armed. Upon their approach within hailing distance the sup- posed savages proved to be a Captain Scarbrough, a pilot of the Hudson's Bay Company's station, who, sighting the vessel in distress, had engaged a crew of Indians and come to their relief. It is needless to say that he was warmly welcomed by the storm- tossed people within the bark. They arrived at the Hudson's Bay Company's station after a passage of thirteen days, and travelled thence by canoe to the Nisqually River, from which point two days on horseback brought them to the Cowlitz, then down the Cowlitz by canoe and up the Columbia four days to Oregon City, which they reached on January 1st, 1850, having been twenty-seven days on the passage.
" General McCarver himself, who had prospered greatly in California, returned to Oregon in 1851 by sailing vessel, bring- ing with him the hull and machinery for a steamboat, which he put together and launched upon his arrival, this being the first steamboat on the Columbia River. He afterward built another boat above the falls of the Willamette and ran her from Cane- mah to Corvallis. All this time he was managing a nursery and orchard in Oregon City and taking first prizes for his fruits ex- hibited in California. So scarce was fruit at that time that he received $18 a bushel for apples.
"Ever a busy man, he experienced all the vicissitudes to which activity and enterprise are liable, sometimes floating on the top wave of success, then finding himself in the trough of the rough water of some unexpected financial storm. He ac- cumulated a fortune, went to New York, and was the first man there ever engaged in selling quartz mines on the market. Dur- ing his absence his buildings and other property in Idaho City were destroyed by fire, and 1866 found him back again in Port- land, comparatively speaking, a poor man." Here, in partner- ship with Starr, the president, and Steele, the cashier of the First National Bank of Portland, he made enough in buying up
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war claims to enable him to embark upon an enterprise which had long engaged his attention, and whose successful evolution entitles him to so large a place in our history. He determined to locate a town at some point on Puget Sound, which should be so advantageously situated as to become the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad-an enterprise then regarded as the future great transcontinental highway.
" It was a day big with the fortunes of the yet unborn city of Tacoma when General McCarver, having formed a partnership for that purpose, of equal shares, with Messrs. Starr and Steele, mounted his horse and left Portland for the purpose of locating on Commencement Bay, 'the town that, after a careful study of its geographical position, he had decided upon as having the best harbor facilities, and being so situated as to make its con- nections with the interior easily accessible by railroad. This location he thought would eventually commend itself to the managers of the great railroad line as the best site for the west- ern terminus of their road.'
" A careful examination of the surveyor's maps in the Land Office at Olympia, where he first proceeded, only strengthened the general's previous determination to select the site of 'Old Tacoma,' and he at once started to visit that point, stopping, as we have already stated, the night previous to his arrival at Com- mencement Bay, at the home of the George Buchanan, so queer- ly mixed up with his wanderings five-and-thirty years before. It is said that this singular occurrence, so intimately connected with earlier incidents, and recalling, as it must, vivid recollec- tions of his former successful enterprise, was a large factor in inspiring hopes of an equally fortunate result in the present venture. Who shall say ? All great men are supposed to be more or less superstitious ; and it may be that McCarver saw the ' sun of Austerlitz' again about to rise with old-time radiance upon his present plans. He remounted his horse, and before noon stood gazing from the summit of the bluffs on the placid waters, then unbroken by any keel save the light pressure of the Indian's canoe, whose primeval forests knew no smoke but that of the camp-fire, and no clearing save where a few pines had fallen to feed the mill. It would be curious to know his thoughts as he thus stood contemplating the site of the great city yet to be. We are told in some quaint story that a stout old member
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of the council of New Amsterdam-whether of 'Hard Kopping Piet ' or Walter von Twiller we are unable to state-drowsing among his cabbages on a hot afternoon in a summer of long ago, saw in the smoke wreaths of his pipe as he dreamed a wondrous vision of the city that was yet to be-the New York of to-day- and marvelled with a great astonishment. It is just possible that some such prophetic fancy of McCarver's might have im- agined the light mist clouds of the sound folding their silvery robes into shapes of dome and spire, of busy street and mast- crowded harbor, of mart of trade and legislative hall ; that the winds sighing through the tree-tops overhead may have sounded to his ear like the far-off hum and murmur of the multitude yet to throng its streets. Who shall say ? If so, he had at least a far slighter foundation to build upon than the Dutchman of whom we have spoken, for he dreamed beneath the shadow of his roof, while the general's visions, if such he entertained, were baseless save for the droning of the little mill or the fantastic figures of the clouds as their shadows glided over the placid mirror of the bay.
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