USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. IV > Part 26
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Meantime, Captain Renton, who had gone to San Fran- cisco after selling out his interest in this mill, returned to the Sound, bringing with him boilers, engines and machinery for a new mill, which he located at Port Blakely, and not far from the point where Vancouver had anchored his ves- sels, and from which he sent out the two exploring parties which discovered Commencement Bay and Puget Sound. Here, after taking soundings with a piece of iron attached :o a clothesline he set to work to build a mill with a daily capacity of about 50,000 feet, and at a cost of $80,000. It began cutting lumber in April 1864, and its first cargo was
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sent to San Francisco in the bark Nahumkeag, in that year. Its capacity was gradually enlarged from year to year, until in 1878 or 1879, its average capacity was 20,000,000 feet per annum. In 1868, the firm became Renton, Smith & Company, and in 1874, Renton, Holmes & Company, C. S. Holmes, who had been bookkeeper for the captain since 1858, being admitted to the partnership in that year. In 1881, the business was incorporated as the Port Blakely Mill Company.
The old plant was burned in 1888, but the work of rebuild- ing was begun while the ashes of the old mill were still hot, and in just five months, to a day, from the time the old mill took fire, a new one was cutting lumber on the same site.
This company, like the Puget Mill Company, began to buy timber lands in considerable quantity soon after it began business, and in time became one of the largest land- owning concerns in the territory, or state. In the early '8os it built a logging railroad in Mason County, from salt water westward into the Chehalis Valley. The company also early bought lands near the town of Seattle, which have long since been included within the corporate limits of that city, and are now immensely valuable.
A mill of considerable capacity, for its time, began opera- tions at Seabeck, on the east side of Hood's Canal, nearly opposite the entrance to Dahop Bay, in 1857. It was built by J. R. Williamson, W. J. Adams, W. B. Sinclair and Hill Harmon. The boilers and machinery for this mill were bought at second-hand in San Francisco. It had a daily capacity of 50,000 feet, and its output was nearly all shipped abroad. It did a prosperous business for several years. These large milling concerns, the Puget Mill Company, the Renton Company, both at Port Blakely and at Port Orchard,
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the Port Madison Company, and the mill at Seabeck were all in Kitsap County, one of the smallest in area in the territory, but they made it one of the most populous of all the counties at that time. From 1857 to 1864 it was repre- sented by two members in the lower house of the legislature, while King County had but one, Pierce only two, and Thurs- ton, Clark and Walla Walla, then the most populous coun- ties, three each.
W. P. Sayward and J. R. Thorndike selected Port Lud- low on the west shore of Admiralty Inlet, near the entrance of Hood's Canal, as an advantageous site for a sawmill in 1853. They arrived there with their mill machinery and a considerable stock of goods of various sorts on July 30th of that year. Within two months after their arrival they had their first mill in operation. It had a capacity of from 3,000 to 4,000 feet per day. It was gradually enlarged, and in 1858, was leased to Amos Phinney & Company, at a monthly rental of $500. In 1866 this firm failed, but Phinney reestablished himself, and in 1874 bought the mill and organized the Port Ludlow Mill Company. He died in 1874 and the property was sold to the Puget Mill Com- pany for $64,000. The new owners enlarged and improved the mill, and in 1885 it had become a very important factor in the lumber industry of the Sound. It was accessible from the ocean, and there was a large amount of very excellent timber tributary to it. Some time after the Puget Mill Company took possession, Cyrus Walker, its manager, removed to, and made his home at Port Ludlow, where he gradually increased the capacity of the mill to 150,000 feet per day.
In the winter of 1857-8, the frame for a sawmill was erected at Utsalady at the north end of Camano Island. As
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in other new mills, its frame was composed of hewn logs. The mill began sawing in February 1858, a few months before the rush of gold hunters to the Fraser River began. In 1869, Thomas Cranney, who had been interested in the enterprise from the beginning, became its sole owner. Later Cranney took in a partner named Chisholm, and in 1873, the firm became Cranney & Chisholm. The latter was lost at sea in November, 1875, by the sinking of the steamer Pacific.
Cranney had begun getting out spars on Camano Island, for shipment abroad, in 1855, and for a time a man named Thompson was associated with him. The work required a considerable skill and much patience, for it is not an easy thing to fell a tree 250 feet high in such a way that 100 feet or more of its trunk shall not be broken or shattered. Then it is a difficult matter to get so long a timber to the water, and put it on board ship. The tree must be carefully felled and transported with equal care, and this requires that a road shall be cleared and leveled, and possibly at some points along the line bridges must be built before the timber is moved. A spar 100 or 125 feet in length, and from 35 to 50 inches in diameter at the stump end, weighs from 15 to · 20 tons, and in early days, when no logging machinery was used or invented, was moved with no little difficulty. But Cranney did a considerable business for several years in getting out spars of this kind, during which time he loaded several ships with cargoes that went to nearly every ship- building country in the world. In 1856 the Dutch ship Williamsberg took away more than 100 spars from 80 to 120 feet long. The French bark Anadyr took away a similar cargo in 1855 for a shipyard at Brest. In August, 1866, Grennan & Cranney cut a flagstaff 150 feet long, 24 inches
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in diameter at the stump end, and II inches at the top, and sent it by the ship Belmont to Paris, for the exposition held there in 1867. The stick was 200 feet long and without a blemish, when it was felled, but the ship could not carry a timber of that length, and fifty feet of it had to be sacrificed. Governor Pickering took a lively interest in this undertaking, and, in his message to the legislature in the following Decem- ber, gave Mr. Cranney sole credit for originating and carrying out this plan "of sending our native-grown national flagstaff from the territory of Washington to the world's greatest fair ever held on earth," and thus feelingly and floridly expressed his regret at the necessity for sacrificing its top- most fifty feet. "Thus it will be impossible to convey to the hundreds and thousands and millions who will congre- gate in Paris between March Ist to December, 1867, a fine idea of the magnitude of our timber trees, but shorn of its fair proportions as it is, by its being shortened full fifty feet, the glorious flag of our beloved country will float from its top, to the admiration of all visitors, far above the emblem and banners of any other nation."
In 1876 the mill at Utsalady was sold to the Puget Mill Company, by which it was operated until 1890, or later, when it was closed down.
J. R. Williamson sold out his interest in the mill at Seabeck to his partners Adams and Blinn, and together with Captain Plummer, of San Francisco, and Charles Phillips, of Whidby Island, built a mill on the west shore of Elliott Bay, near where the ferryhouse now stands, with a capacity of about 50,000 per day. It began operations in the summer of 1864. As usual, a little village grew up about it, which was called Freeport. The mill was destroyed by fire in April, 1867, but was rebuilt and began operations during the following year.
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A mill was built at Port Discovery in 1858-9 by S. L. Mastick & Company, of San Francisco. It had an annual capacity of about 6,000,000 feet, which was afterwards doubled and trebled. In 1874 its cut amounted to 18,000,000 feet. It has long since gone out of business.
In 1863 David Livingston built a small mill, with a capacity of 10,000 to 12,000 feet per day, on Snohomish River, about three miles above its mouth. Livingston also had a little steamer with which he used to tow logs, and also to deliver lumber to the settlers on and near the river, which for several years consumed the entire output of the mill, in building and improving their early homes.
A mill was also built at the mouth of Whatcom Creek on Bellingham Bay, in the winter of 1852-3, by the firm of Roeder & Peabody. It made a good deal of money for its owners during the twenty years of its existence. It was burned in 1873, and later a much larger mill, using steam- power, was erected on its site.
In the winter of 1853-4 Tobin, Fanjoy and Eaton built a small water-power mill on Black River just below the mouth of Cedar River. It had two circular saws and began operations in February, 1854, but it was not advantageously located and never did a profitable business. In 1855 Fanjoy and Eaton were attracted by the reports of the discovery of gold at Fort Colvile, and were among the first to start across the mountains for that point, and were both killed by the Indians.
In October, 1868, Charles Hansen and John W. Ackerson, of San Francisco, selected a site for and built a sawmill on the west shore of Commencement Bay, near a little town known at that time as Commencement City. The mill prospered from its start and in time became one of the largest
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on the Sound. For many years there was a sharp competition between this mill and that at Port Blakely, as to which had the greater capacity. When orders favorable for the purpose were received at either mill, it would be pushed to its fullest capacity for a working day, all its employees taking the keenest possible interest in the result, and if a few thousand, or even a few hundred feet more were cut than the previous high record, the fact would soon be known in every mill town and logging camp along the Sound, as well as in all the lumber markets on the coast. When one mill thus beat the best record formerly made by the other, there was no rest until it was again excelled, and so these two mills were upon occasion pressed to their fullest capacity until the record finally stood at or near 250,000 feet per day.
During all these early years of the lumber industry in the Sound country, all the logs were cut with axes and hauled to the mills, or to the water, where they were made into rafts, by oxen. It was not until sometime in the 'zos, or perhaps in the 'Sos that saws began to be used for felling trees. In all the mills in these days circular saws were used, except in the gangs. Some of these saws were the largest made, and the larger ones, which were nearly six feet in diameter, cut a kerf one-half inch in width through the log. An immense portion, particularly of the larger logs, thus went into sawdust. It was not until late in the '8os that band saws began to be used, and greater economy was practised.
The first loggers cut the timber that was nearest the water, without regard to who its owners were, unless they were on the ground. So it happened that much land was denuded of its marketable timber, while it was still owned by the government. But as no mill would then accept logs that were not sixteen inches or more in diameter at the
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small end, much was left standing that in most lumbering countries would be regarded as very valuable. Even after all the pile timber had been cut out of this, there was still left a growth that soon became merchantable, and gave the ground an appearance, to those unacquainted with our forests, of still being covered with its original growth.
The loggers early found that they could save themselves much labor by cutting the trees ten or twelve feet above the ground. The bolls, particularly of the larger fir trees, are covered with a tough bark, from eight to twelve inches thick at the bottom, and the wood of the stump is also so thoroughly impregnated with gum as to be very heavy, and very hard to cut. The choppers found that by standing on short springboards, prepared for the purpose, and inserted in notches cut in the stump, they could get above this gummy wood and tough bark. By standing on these boards their breasts and shoulders were also saved from much of the shock caused by striking their axes into the wood, and so, while axes were used, much good timber was left in the stumps. These tall stumps gave newcomers the impression, for many years, that the timber had been cut in the winter, when the ground was covered with deep snow. Some were so confident that this was the case, that they refused to accept the true explanation when it was given them, preferring to believe until convinced by the actual experience of a winter or two in the territory, that the story was told them to con- ceal the fact that its winters were of the true hyperborean kind.
Our forests not only suffered from the lavish wastefulness of those who first began to reap the rich harvest which they offered, but fire also did much damage in them, during these and many succeeding years. But it is customary to blame
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these early loggers and the settlers for more damage than they really did. Doubtless the loggers were careless enough, and many of the settlers would have been glad to find more expeditious ways, if they could, to destroy millions of feet of the tallest and straightest fir, cedar and hemlock trees in the world, because they simply encumbered the ground and prevented them from cultivating it. They felled as many of them together as they could, and set fire to them by as many different means as they could invent, and in as many different places as possible, and still they made progress very slowly. Even when the brush heaps left by the loggers and pile-cutters caught fire during the dry summer months, and the flames were communicated to the standing timber in their vicinity, a great amount of damage was rarely done.
Neither the settlers nor the lumbermen were responsible for all the fires in our forests, the evidence of which is still visible. There were fires that did much damage, measured by present-day values, long before either came to the country. "The Journal of Occurrences" kept at Fort Nisqually shows that there were great fires in the timber in August, 1835, and in October, 1836, or ten years before the first Americans arrived .*
It was not possible to take any effective measures to make defense against these fires until the State was admitted, and even then it took a good deal of time to organize the means that were to be used. As the mill companies increased their
'The country around us is all on fire, and the smoke is so great that we are in a measure protected from the excessive heat, " is the entry for August 14, 1835. That for October 1, 1836, says: "The weather is gloomy from the smoke around us," and on the 18th the entry is: "The country around us is all on fire." During both these years the fires continued for nearly a month, during a large part of which time the smoke was so thick as to nearly hide the sun during days together.
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holdings of standing timber, they did what could be done to lessen the danger. The loggers were required to burn the tree tops and other wreckage they left behind them, when they could do so with least danger, and to see to it that the fires thus kindled were not allowed to spread beyond control. The counties established certain police regulations, which were enforced with more or less vigor, and by these and other means the amount of damage is gradually lessened year by year. But the actual annual loss is still greater than it should be.
CHAPTER LIX. SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.
T HE children of the early settlers in Washington, like those of the early settlers elsewhere, had but scant opportunity to attend school. The first school houses were log cabins, furnished with rude desks built against the walls on two or sometimes three sides, and rude benches made of puncheons, or sometimes of sawed lumber. In these rude school houses a teacher was generally employed for three or four months during the winter; usually there was no summer term. Frequently the teachers could do little more than furnish instruction in reading, spelling, writing and arithmetic. Sometimes the preacher, if there was one in the neighborhood, was em- ployed, and people then thought themselves fortunate in having a man of so much learning to instruct their children. In the towns private schools often furnished the larger part of the educational advantages. The Catholic priests frequently started schools in which they were themselves the teachers for a time, until they could procure lay brethren, or the sisters of some order to take charge of them. Such was the beginning of some of the institutions, which are now the pride of that church in the state. The other denominations also started schools in a modest way, and one of these, Whit- man College at Walla Walla, founded by Rev. Cushing Eells, one of Whitman's associates, is now one of the fore- most institutions in Washington, if not of the coast.
The books used in these early schools were of many kinds, and prepared by almost as many authors as there were chil- dren to use them. Often they had served for their parents, when they went to school, for school books in those days rarely went out of date. Fathers and mothers had found them good enough in their time; why should'nt they be good enough for another generation ?
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The famous legislature of 1853-4 framed a school law-or rather Judges Lander, Monroe and Strong framed it, and the legislature accepted and enacted it, and like most of the acts so framed at that session, it proved quite sufficient for several years.
School superintendents were elected in most of the coun- ties, but they generally rendered but little service. They were required by law to visit the schools in their counties, at least once each year, and to make reports to be filed in the office of the governor, and, if convenient, to publish them in some newspaper for the information of the public, but Acting Governor McGill, in his message to the legisla- ture in 1860, had complained that this requirement seemed to be wholly disregarded. Rev. Cushing Eells was one of the early superintendents in Whitman County, but he at- tended to the duties of the office most punctiliously, as was his custom in everything. There were forty or fifty school districts in the county, and he thought it his duty to visit every one of them. He traveled from school to school on horseback, carried with him some food, and a little grain for his horse, and they often lunched together and sometimes slept together, while on these official trips, for it often hap- pened that people were not prepared to furnish him a bed, and in such cases he either slept out of doors, or on some hay in the barn or shed which sheltered his horse. It was not until 1872 that a territorial superintendent was provided for, and Rev. Nelson Rounds was appointed.
By the organic act creating the territory, Congress had set apart two townships of land for a university, and this was regarded as a fairly munificent endowment in that day. So important did an institution thus provided for seem likely to become, that like the capital and the penitentiary, several
REV. DANIEL BAGLEY.
Born in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, September 4, 1818. He married Susannah P. Whipple in August 1840, and removed to Illinois. In 1842 he became a minister in the Methodist church. In 1852 he crossed the plains to Oregon, and in 1860 he removed to Seattle, where he immediately took an active interest in the founding and upbuilding of the territorial, now the state, university.
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
of the towns were anxious to have it located in their neigh- borhood. In the winter of 1854-5 the legislature located it at Seattle, but provided for a branch at Boisfort, to which one of the townships of land was assigned for its support. But this was manifestly such a bad arrangement, that it was set aside by the legislature of 1857-8, and the university and its branch were reunited and located at Cowlitz Farms.
But nothing was done to construct buildings, or get the institution started under either of these acts. At the next session the fight to remove the capital to Vancouver was begun, and the university became an important element in it. Mr. A. A. Denny was a member of all the legisla- tures in which this war was waged, and as he was leaving Seattle for Olympia in 1860, Rev. Daniel Bagley said to him that if he could get the university located at Seattle, and have him appointed commissioner, with power to sell the lands given it, he would get the buildings so well started before the legislature met again, that it would be difficult to remove it. This Denny succeeded in doing. But by this time it had been made a condition that the town securing the capital or the penitentiary should give the territory ten acres of land as a site for it, and the same condition was now made with regard to the university. Denny met this demand by promising that the ten acres should be provided, and he subsequently gave something more than eight acres of it himself, while Charles C. Terry and Judge Lander gave the remainder. Daniel Bagley, John Webster and Edmund Carr were named as commissioners, and Bagley became chairman of the board with full powers.
The ground devoted for the institution is now near the busiest part of Seattle and seems likely to become, at no distant day, its business centre. At that time it was covered
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by a forest so dense that the surveyors could hardly get through it. The town was a straggling hamlet. Its site had only been cleared as far north as Columbia Street, and as far east as Third Avenue. The first step therefore in building the university was to get its site cleared, and this was done by contracting with Hillory Butler, L. B. Andrews, Lemuel J. Holgate, C. B. Bagley, James J. Crow, Ira Wooden and others to clear from half an acre to an acre each, and take land when money could not be provided, in payment. The work was begun early in March 1861, and was com- pleted in about two months. The clearing cost from $275 to $317 per acre, the contractors counting their time at from $2.50 to $4 per day.
There was much grumbling at the time because the site was so far from town, and so hidden by the woods, and in order to remedy this difficulty somewhat, the ground lying between it and the bay was cleared as rapidly as it could be done, so that people approaching from the bay-and all people came to Seattle from that direction in those days- could see that the university was really located there.
The price of government land at that time was $1.25 per acre and there was no lack of it, but the law provided that the university lands must not be sold for less than $1.50 per acre. This might seem to have been difficult to do, but Bagley managed by making judicious selection, to make sales at the higher price. He could furnish title more promptly than the government did, and this was a strong point in his favor. He could also select lands that were desired by the mill companies, and watching carefully for opportunities of that kind, he procured money enough, by the time the site was cleared, to begin building. During 1861 and the early part of 1862 a general school building,
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a boarding house, and a house for the president were finished, and the university of Washington Territory was formally opened, with Asa Mercer as principal, in the fall of the last named year. It was little more than a fair public school at first, but year by year it advanced until it became an institution of recognized standing. Its first class was grad- uated in 1876, and since then there have been graduates every year.
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