Snohomish County, Washington - Chapter 3: Harvest of the Forests, 1926 (part 1 of 2)

Chapter 3: Harvest of the Forests

BIRTH OF THE LUMBER INDUSTRY - TULALIP MILI STARTED IN 1853 - MAINE LUMBERMEN ACTIVE - EXPERIENCES OF A NEWCOMER - EARLY FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES - BLACKMAN BROTHERS ARRIVE - CEDAR SHINGLE ERA BEGINS - FIRST MILL AT SNOHOMISH - FIRST LOGGING RAILROAD - DEATH OF A. J. POPE - LOGGING IN 1887 - TIMBER INDUSTRIES IN 1889 - ATLANTIC SHINGLE MARKET OPENS - THE PANICKY YEARS 1893-96 - SHINGLE MEN ORGANIZE - WEYERHAEUSER VISIT OF 1897,

When the white man came to Snohomish County he found in it as rich a heritage as nature has ever bestowed upon the brave and adventurous fortune seekers. There were miles upon miles of unbroken forest, the great trees rising in serried ranks from the level of the sea to the high peaks of the mountains. There were gigantic cedar that would have put the famous Gulliver to the blush to tell of their dimensions. There were straight, clean, towering fir trees that seemed to pierce the sky. Centuries had been consumed by Mother Nature in preparing this rich gift to civilization. The age marks of a thousand years were found in some of these giants of the forest. No one knows what was the extent of the marketable timber that stood upon the hills and valleys of Snohomish County seventy-five years ago. Nature does not measure her gifts by dollars and cents, nor by feet and inches, but by beauty and strength and solemn grandeur. Measured, however, by the practical measurements of man, Snohomish County represented millions of wealth; free for the taking. Every nature lover weeps at the thought of the rape of the virgin forest, and shudders at the scenes of desolation and destruction which followed the course of ax and fire along the wooded slopes. The blackened stumps stand today like widows garbed in mourning, faithfully guarding the graves of their dead heroes. Dante pictured the gateway to Inferno in such a fashion. But the mind which rests alone upon these scenes closes its eyes to the glory of accomplishment. Every green field, every cultivated flower and plant, every one of the beautiful homes filled with happy, contented and prosperous people; every school, every church, every comfort, every luxury which the people of this county enjoy today, was the gift of the woods; no, not of the woods alone, but of them combined with the industry and ingenuity, the toil and sweat and blood of as hardy and as adventurous a band of men as ever went forth to conquer a wilderness. Throughout the world these joint products of man and nature have gone to-add to the sum of human happiness. On all the seven seas, in every part of the navigable globe, the products of Snohomish County have been carried; oftentimes in vessels built from her forests, and many times with sails straining gallantly from the matchless spars cut from Snohomish hillsides. If it were impossible for the pioneer to estimate the billions of feet which the primeval forest of Snohomish County contained, it is just as impossible, today, to estimate the warmth and shelter which these same forests have provided for the homes of men.

The story of how these forests were transmuted into fields and homes and industries and education and culture and all the refinements of modern civilization is an epic tale of brave adventure worthy of a Homer. The riches of the famed Count of Monte Cristo were a mere bagatelle as compared with the wealth which the forests of Snohomish County gave to the American people. But while this gift was free for the taking, the taking demanded such toil and hardship as has fallen to the lot of but few communities. For, after all, the gifts of nature are not free. There is a law of compensation which is never repealed, amended, or relaxed. He, who would win, must work; he who would know ease, must endure toil, he who would rejoice. must suffer. And, so we find that the course of the great industry upon which all the wealth and prosperity of Snohomish County is founded has been marked at every turn with failures as well as with successes and that its past is strewn with the maimed bodies and souls of men, and with broken hearts.

Snohomish County was doubly generous to the pioneer woodsman. She not only provided a forest unsurpassed in wealth, but she offered great rivers to carry the forest to the sea. It was not only the best timber the world had ever seen, but it was the most accessible timber the lumberman has ever found; and at the mouth of the river was safe harbor where the largest ships might come in perfect safety to carry the product unto every clime.

Birth Of Lumber Industry

In spite of these great advantages the timber industry in Snohomish County developed slowly. None of the earliest mills of Puget Sound were located within her borders. These were located at Seattle, Port Gamble, Port Ludlow, Port Blakely and Utsaladdy, and Snohomish County seems to have been regarded solely as a great reservoir of supply, and the industry here was, for years, almost entirely confined to logging. The very earliest mills on Puget Sound were located where water power was available. It was Tumwater which founded Olympia. Bellingham had its birth in Whatcom Falls. Ali of these mills were started within a short period; the Tumwater mill not much before 1850, the Yesler mill in 1851, Whatcom mill in 1852.

Tulalip Mill Started In 1853

In reality, Snohomish County was but very little behind them as to the erection of a mill, for in 1853, John Gould and Peter Goutre established a mill at Tulalip and maintained it in successful operation until it was purchased from them by the Government, following the Mukilteo treaty with the Indians in 1855. This Tulalip mill was one of the very first mills in the Pacific Northwest. It was admirably located, with access to the sea and near the mouth of the river which was, for years, the great logging highway. This Indian treaty made by Governor Stevens was doubtless the very best thing that could have been done to insure the peaceful settlement of this entire region. But the question must arise in the mind of any student of local history as to whether, if this private enterprise had not been wiped out bv the Government, a city of pretentions would not have arisen at the mouth of the Snohonush River many years before the City of Everett was dreamed of, and again, whether, if such a settlement had been allowed to take its natural course, the great metropolis of the Northwest might not have been at the mouth of the river which leads directly from the mountain passes over which the transcontinental railroaa, weie forced to make their way, instead of at the much less favorable location at Seattle. This is all conjecture but the fate of nations and the destiny of dynasties have often been changed by no less weighty things. This Indian treaty also served to concentrate the Indians at the mouth of the Snohomish River, and in its vicinity, and while these Indians proved to be friendly, their attitude at that time was not absolutely known, nor had their friendship been fully tested. It is not at all improbable that this fact retarded the settlement and development of Snohomish County, for while there were a number of settlers on Whidbey Island and Utsaladdy at the mouth of the Stillaguamish River, which became well known for its lumber mill, there is no record of activities in Snohomish County from the date of the purchase of the Tulalip mill by the Government until about 1860. Samuel Hancock explored the Snohomish River in 1849, the volunteers under Colonel Ebey built the Fort Ebey, and other forts, a number of miles beyond the forks of the Snohomish, but the record of their expedition makes no mention of logging operations, and they brought the first oxen that are known to have been used in the county. The City of Snohomish was located, not because it was in the midst of logging operations, but because it was thought that it would be profitable to establish a ferry where the proposed military road crossed the Snohomish River. Nevertheless, there must have been logging camps near the mouth of the Snohomish in the late fifties, but they were conducted more as expeditions sent out from such points as Port Gamble, Port Ludlow or Utsaladdy and had no permanent character and were not identified as Snohomish interests. The fact that Morris H. Frost, who was a custom house officer at Port Townsend, decided that a trading post might profitably be opened at Point Elliott and that he called the attention of J. D. Fowler, who was conducting a hotel on Whidbey Island, to this business opening and persuaded him to enter a partnership and to establish a store and saloon at this place, which Frost named Mukilteo, is proof that there must have been white men as well as Indians in the vicinity whose demands they sought to supply. This was the second settlement in Snohomish County, counting that of Gould and Goutre at Tulalip as the first. The collapse of the Fraser River gold excitement left many stranded miners who made their way down the coast as best they could, finding employment wherever possible. One of these men we know was. Martin Getchell, a man who was learned in the woodcraft of the State of Maine. He took part in the gold rush of 1858, returned through this county, worked as a logger, and was one of the party who helped to do what little of clearing there was done, when Ferguson and Cady made their location in 1860. John Elwell was another who was in this region in 1858. He remained but little more than a year, and returned to his native Maine, only to make this county his home again in 1872.

Maine Lumbermen Active

The earliest logger whose name was permanently identified with the history of lumber industry of Snohomish County was Eugene D. Smith. He also hailed from the State of Maine and came to Puget Sound in 1858, working in logging camps around Port Gamble. Having accumulated some savings, he bought an interest in a logging outfit owned by Otis Wilson, and they began logging just north of Edmonds at a point called Brown's Bay. In the summer of 1863 they changed the scene of their operation to the vicinity of Lowell, a place with which his name has ever since been associated as its founder and chief citizen for many years. This partnership continued until 1865, when Smith sold his interest and embarked upon an unsuccessful mining venture in the Coeur d'Alene district. He soon returned to Lowell, however, and became the chief factor in the logging operations near the mouth of the river. Tamlin Elwell was with his father in 1858 and returned in 1863, carrying out a logging contract for the Puget Mill Company of Port Gamble. Another important early arrival was Joseph E. Getchell, who came from Maine via the Horn in 1864 and joined his brother at Lowell. Still another was John H. Hilton, who entered the employ of Brown and Foster on Brown's Bay just below Mukilteo. This camp is spoken of as "one of the oldest in the county," but the date of its establishment is not given. This camp was moved in the fall of 1865 to a point about midway between Mukilteo and Everett. Hilton left Snohomish County in 1866 and returned in 1869 to remain permanently. A sketch of his life tells that he drove logs on the Pilchuck River with Alexander Ross, George Robinson, and a man named Pullen. Not being satished with conditions, he rolled his blankets and went to Cadyville, where he purchased supplies at the Ferguson store and then found employment at Eugene Smith's camp near the present site of Marysville. In 1870 he located at Lowell, taking a homestead on what is now the townsite of Everett, in 1872. Later he was a merchant at Snohomish. W. B. Sinclair came to the county in 1864, opening a store at Cadyville and thus being one of the founders of Snohomish City. He built the Toppy, one of the first boats on the river. His early trade was largely with such loggers as Hilton. With him came Isaac Ellis, who had charge of a logging camp for Phinney & Hawke on the Pilchuck. Robert Hughes was one of the many young Englishmen who left the service of the sea '"without leave" from Victoria. In the summer of 1864, he worked in a logging camp on Ebey Slough.

Experiences Of A Newcomer

William Whitfield came in the year 1865, following almost in the footsteps of Robert Hughes. On June 22, 1864, he shipped on the bark Knight Bruce at Liverpool for a voyage to Victoria, where he arrived December 24, after a voyage around the Horn of six months and two days. Together with four other sailors Whitfield, then a lad of eighteen, commandeered a boat, and by rowing all night they managed to cross the Straits of Juan de Fuca and reach Port Angeles, where a friendly lighthouse keeper restored their spirits with hot coffee and agreed to return the boat to its owner. The men started on foot through the wilderness to obtain employment. The older men easily found work in the logging camp, but Whitfield was thought to be too young and too slight for the heavy work of the logging camp. He finally got work on the ranches of J. B. Roberts and Alex Rollins at Dungeness, where he remained until the following April. With $40 gold as his accumulated wages, he went on foot to Port Ludlow and there in front of the crude store he met a kindly gentleman, who asked him many questions and gave him much good advice, but had no employment to offer him. This man was A. A. Phinney, head of the Port Ludlow lumbering enterprise and at that time one of the wealthiest and most influential lumbermen on the Sound. He was kind to the young man, told the cook to feed him well, and gave him lodgings. Later he gave him a note of introduction to McLane & Jewett, whose camp was located on the Tulalip reservation. Whitfield came on the sloop Caswell and landed at Mukilteo, his first meeting with Snohomish County people being at the Frost & Fowler store. There was no means of communication between Mukilteo and Tulalip and he walked around the beach to the little store of Preston Bros., on the south bank of the Snohomish near its mouth. Here he found the proprietor and a logger deep in a game of black jack, from which they tore themselves and secured an Indian who took Whitfield in his canoe to the McLane & Jewett camp, where he delivered his note and was given employment. He remained at this camp for two years, later working in the woods for the Puget Mill Company and other concerns until 1869, when he made a voyage to Australia and New Zealand. This work took him to different parts of the lower Snohomish Valley, and he tells that in 1866 when he made his first trip to the store at Snohomish there were four logging camps between Tulalip and the county seat. The trail, as he described it, was wide enough for one ox to be Jead through it, and 1t wound about interminably, dodging the big trees and the sloughs as best it could. A third man who came via the Underground Railway from Victoria was Henry Spurrell, who after working three years at Utsaladdy, came to Snohomish County 1n 1866, working for two years in the logging camp of J. Berry, after which he followed the example of many others and became a rancher, instead of a logger.

About the only authentic record throwing any side lights upon logging operations in Snohomish County during the '60s comes from the county records, and these, unfortunately, are more apt to tell of the liens and mortgages and mishaps than of the successes and accomplishments. The first entry on the county record having to do with the logging business, is a mortgage filed October 31, 1863, and given by David Livingston to C. E. Richards of Whatcom to secure a note of $1,200 bearing interest at 2 per cent a month. The property mortgaged included 160 acres with mill machinery, and buildings "where he is now erecting a sawmill known as the Snohomish mills." This document was witnessed by Samuel Coombs and L. B. Wyckoff. The second item was dated February 8, 1864, and entered on record June 20, 1864. It was an assignment by Jacob Sommers, T. Craney, and C. J. Noyes representing the "Sta-lah-ha-mish" Log Driving Company. This entry is noteworthy, as it contains what is probably the earliest form for Stillaguamish. Under date of February 24, 1864, M. L. Drew, A. S. Miller, and William Clendenning (Clendenning was at one time a partner of W. B. Sinclair in the store at Snohomish) assigned to Andrew J. Pope all rights of the Snohomish and Skykomish Log Driving Company, which had been chartered by the Legislature January 5, 1864 to remove obstacles and drive logs on these rivers. This assignment does not seem to have been complete, for in September of the same year Drew and Miller assigned their interests in the same company to A. J. Pope, William Talbott, and Cyrus Walker for a consideration of $550. These are the first mentions in the annals of Snohomish County of A. J. Pope, and his associates, who formed the powerful Puget Mill Company.

Early Financial Difficulties

An early business transaction was when Henry McClurg of Tualco bonded land at a junction of the Skykomish and Snoqualmie rivers to W. H. Frost and J. D. Fowler at $10 per acre on November 1, 1862. This bond was not placed on record until September, 1864, when it was assumed by William H. Wale. In

November, 1864, James Kenneda (his mark) filed on a claim "beginning onehalf mile north of a cedar tree blazed on four sides about twenty yards east from the military trail, or nearly one-half mile from the Ellis log camp going up the Pilchuck." Francis Ray filed on an adjoining claim on the same day. The earliest authentic record of logging on the Stillaguamish is the statement that Thomas Runnels began logging on the slough later known as the Jack Irvine Slough, in 1865, selling his camp three years later to S. G. Record. James Duvall logged with Runnels in 1866, later logging on the Snoqualmie and giving his name to the town of Duvall. On February 25, 1865, James Widdoes sold his timber and campsite on the Snohomish River between the C. D. McDonald and Preston Bros., to Foster and Company for $175. The story of the financial embarrassment, which was often the lot of the early loggers, is shown by a record dated June 10, 1865, when Gardner Goodridge in consideration of Freeman & Cranny of Utsaladdy paying all wages due workmen, transferred to them all interests in his logging camp and all "impertinences" thereto, including nine oxen, yokes, chains, hooks, axes, shovels, cookhouse, provisions, and ox feed, located at the mouth of the Skagit River. In 1866, disaster overtook the promunent firm of Phinney & Hawke at Port Ludlow. The first sign of this appears on the county record of January 29, when for $20,000 they sold all their lands in Jefferson, Island, Snohomish, Kitsap, and King counties to William B. Bowin and John S. Doe of San Francisco, and all equipment, including 100 yoke of oxen and the schooner Page, to the same parties for $35,000. The schooner Dublin and its cargo were not included. Less than a week later the record shows that A. A. Phinney and W. F. Hawke gave a mortgage to Isaac C. Ellis for $5,976, the security being the logging camp on the Pilchuck, 500,000 feet of saw logs, nine oxen and camp equipment. On the same day a judgment against Phinney was entered by Cyrus Walker for $4,413. There was a rush of creditors, Daniel W. Holmes filing a lien on logs, spars and timbers and Elisha Allen filing a lien on work cattle at Ellis camp, for $1,300, due from Amos Phinney & Company. In June, 1866, the creditors of Phinney & Company gave their power of attorney to Isaac C. Ellis to sell the logs belonging to the company and divide the proceeds. The next lumbermen to get into trouble were Lawrence Trenour and Thomas Cranny against whom the Bank of British Columbia obtained a judgment for over $900 in June, 1866. Among the other transactions of this period, and they are of interest in fixing names, dates and locations, are the following:

January 9, 1866 - Legislative act incorporating the Snohomish City Mill Company. Signed by Edward Eldridge, speaker of the House, January 9; by Harvey JX. Hines, president of the council, January 10, and by Governor William Pickering, January 16, 1866. The company was empowered to locate and construct a mill 'at or near the mouth of a small creek on the north bank of the Snohomish River, and on the land claim now held by E. C. Ferguson." Those named to receive stock subscriptions were Clark Ferguson, W. B. Sinclair, M. L. King, John Harvey, E. C. Ferguson and Charles Short. The capital was fixed at $30,000 in shares of $25 each. Stock subscriptions failed to materialize in sufficient amounts and this proposed mill was not built. |

September 8, 1866 - James Long sells to Thomas J. Bruce, oxen, saw logs, boat and claim on log slough near the mouth of the Snohomish for $2,000.

November 3, 1868 - W. B. Sinclair sells to Low & Company log camp on the Pilchuck, store, book accounts, etc., for $1,360. Tow & Company agreeing to pay Sinclair's debts, amounting to $1,037.

June 30, 1869 - Henry C. Hale sub-Indian agent, Tulalip Reservation, sells to Capt. John Cosgrove 400,000 feet of logs "now in lower camp, in which John Barker is foreman, on Tulalip Reservation, for $1,700. If not 400,000 feet in raft, Hale agrees to make up the deficiency by July 10, 1869."

February 28, 1871 - Eugene Smith mortgages all of his logging outfit, etc., including two booms of logs, eighty-five spars, 425,000 thousand feet of logs, etc., to Martin Getchell for $3,000. Smith and Mary, his wife, also sell 166 acres to Getchell for $400. |

March 20, 1871 - A. H. Sam (his mark) files a lien on logs owned by E. D. Smith for labor at $35 per month. Sam made affidavit that from January 8 to March 4 he had received $27 and that the sum of $36 was due him. Morris Coughlin, John Peters, D. W. Holmes, Joseph Getchel! also filed and the Puget Mull Company secured an attachment against Smith for $7,531.67. This document was attested by Benjamin F. Stretch, sheriff, and Joseph Comstock, probate judge. It is a pleasure to note that all these claims against Eugene Smith were satisfied of record by June 13, 1874, and they simply show the sudden changes of fortune which came to the loggers of the early days.

November 3, 1871 - C. E. McLane of Port Ludlow conveys all his log and spar camps on the Snohomish and 150,000 feet of logs at Priest Point to Alexander McLane for $424.89.

January 24, 1872 - F. S. Dunbar sells fir lumber on his claim to M. L. Wright for $200, the lumber to be cut within one year and the sale including the use of ground for logging camp for four years. This claim was in section 14, township 29-4. By far the most important transaction shown in the records of this time was that fled on May 24, 1872, recording the sale of 15,100 acres of land to the Puget Mill Company by the board of commissioners of university lands, for $22,651. This sale was actually made September 16, 1863, to Andrew J. Pope and Wilham C. Talbot, composing the Puget Mill Company. It was done under authority of an act of Congress, July 17, 1854, by which lands were set aside for the use and benefit of the university. By an act of the territorial Legislature dated January 11, 1861, Daniel Bagley, John Webster and Edward Carr of King County were named as the board of commissioners, Daniel Bagley being made president of the board on February 22, 1861. This would make the price of the lands about $1.50 an acre and was the foundation of the Puget Mill Company, which was the controlling interest in the logging and lumber industries of the Sound for many years.

Blackman Bros. Arrive

The year 1872 was notable in the industry for the coming of two other important factors - John Elwell and his sons, all experienced Maine woodsmen, returned to Snohomish County and began a business career, which lasted for many years; and Blackman Bros., who were perhaps the most constructive forces in the early history of the industry in Snohomish County, appeared on the scene. There were three of these brothers, all of whom had odd and unforgettable names. They were EYhanan, Hyreanus, and Alanson. They came from Bradley, Me., and were the sons of woodsmen. Before coming here they had been associated for seven years in the lumber business in their native town. They first landed at Fort Gamble and next worked for E. D. Smith in the camps near Lowell. In the spring of 1875 they opened a camp of their own on the shores of Blackman Lake, where they operated for nine years. They were bold, resourceful, and sagacious business men. They knew every phase of the logging and mill business, both as it was carried on in the East and on Puget Sound. They met many ups and downs of fortune but their energy and determination were such as to overcome all its difficulties. They contributed more to improve the methods of logging than any other three men who ever operated in this territory. They were the fathers of the shingle industry, introducing the first shingle machine and doing much to bring the excellence of the cedar shingle to the attention of eastern buyers. The modern logging railroad is the direct descendant of the maple rails, which Blackman Bros. were the first to use. Alanson was the oldest of the three, having been born in 1840. He was the mechanical genius of this remarkable trio and was the patentee of the famous logging truck, and with his brother, Elhanan, was the inventor of the tripper shingle machine. Elhanan, next in years, seems to have been the best of the three as a camp and mill operator. Hyrcanus, the youngest, was more of a bookish nature, had been a school teacher, may be termed as accountant of the firm and was the one who took the largest part in politics, serving as mayor of Snohomish and as a member of the territorial Legislature. 'They were among the few operators at that early day who did not engage in the liquor traffic as a part of their business. It is the purpose here. however, merely to introduce the characters in this great drama of the woods and to let their own acts develop the plot and tell the story.

It is not until the advent of the newspaper that one is able to gather those personal details which clothe records and statistics with flesh and blood. The Northern Star began publication in January, 1876; during the three years and a half of its existence one is given many glimpses not only of their business transactions, but of their work and play, and these not alone of the principals and owners, but of that great army of laboring men, whose work was perhaps the hardest, most fatiguing and dangerous of any ever performed by a like number of men in any field of labor. The working hours of the camp were from before dawn until the night had closed. Until recent years, the men were expected to furnish their own blankets and bedding. The berth built against the wall and the sack of hay or straw was the lodging furnished. Often the fare was worse than poor. There are numerous instances where the men left camp in a body in protest against the quality of the food. The work was extra hazardous. Death by fallen trees or by drowning when the drives down the river were on were of frequent occurrence. The man who worked long in the woods without having their mark placed upon him by some maiming of his body was an exception, not the rule. These men played as hard as they worked, and their play was just as rough and boisterous. They drank, and at times they got drunk. They gambled whenever they had opportunity and cash. Every town and every camp catered to and rather encouraged their vices. The camp's store and saloon was counted on by many operators to reduce their wage bill and many a lumberjack found that at the end of the season he had but little money coming to him. In the towns there were open saloons, open gambling, and open houses of prostitution. As a rule, the lumberman who got into trouble at any of these places had but little chance to secure justice, for he was regarded as legitimate prey, and the authorities and the saloon element too often worked hand in hand. If the logger failed to give up his money voluntarily, over the bar or across the gaming table, he was "rolled," which was a pleasing euphemism for being knocked on the head and robbed. The logger who went to town usually expected to get back to camp "broke." He was seldom disappointed. What he wanted was to get as much so-called fun for his money as possible, and if he did this, he accepted a broken head and a flat pocketbook good-naturedly and got his money's worth in the long run by his enjoyment in recounting his adventures. He settled his disputes with his hands and hoofs. There were no Marquis of Queensbury rules, and a fight meant that somebody got badly whipped. But the logger had many virtues. He worked hard and took joy in his work, of which he was very proud. There was no effort to "limit production," and a logging crew would work harder to make a record than for any amount of wages. They became very skillful. Many of their skidways were real engineering feats. It was a common saying that a man could drive a nail with the fallen tree, and this was not an exaggeration. They took their lives in their hands with each day's work, and they learned to rely on each other and thus developed almost perfect team work. They were, almost without exception, honest men. Beyond their sprees and their disputes among themselves, they committed few crimes. They had the greatest respect for a good woman and such were perfectly safe in their hands. A large majority of the successful ranchers, business men, and lumber operators of the county worked in the woods at some time in their career and were graduates of the school of the ax. While in the later years logging camps became extensive and rather expensive affairs requiring considerable capital, in the earliest days, when timber was comparatively free, a logging camp might consist of not more than one or two men, and it was wonderful what they accomplished with an ax, a wedge, and a peavy as their only tools. Selecting their force victim on the hillside by some stream, they felled it so accurately that it laid in just the desired position to be wedged and jacked into the water. Naturally, as the river banks were stripped, and logs had to be moved a greater distance, more extensive operations were necessary, and what may be termed "placer" logging gave place to "quartz mining" for the timbered treasure. Another division of the work was that of driving the logs. This also required great skill and daring. It, too, was at first done by the individual loggers, usually, almost necessarily, done codperatively at times of high water. Priest Point, off the Tulalip reservation at the mouth of the Snohomish River, was the great point of assemblage and the clearing house from which the logs were rafted to the various mills. Priest Point took its name from the fact that it was at one time the location of an Indian school instituted by Rev. Father E. C. Chirouse. At times millions of feet of logs were assembled here, and one of the great sources of loss was when, by storm or freshet, these logs were carried to sea. Later this work of driving was carried on by men who devoted themselves entirely to that branch of the business. 'There were then four distinct angles or interests in the lumber business. There were the workmen, the owners of the logging outfits, the boom drivers, and the mills. The mill men were almost without exception in the logging business also. each of these interests had its own special grievances and problems. The workmen had to contend with long hours, poor food, and bad quarters. The logvers were faced at times by prices which made all their work unprofitable, and they also took great risks of fire and flood. The mill men were apparently in best posi- 'tion. They largely fixed prices and their employees' scaled and graded the logs, thus determining the price to be paid, and from this the logger had no appeal. The mill man was, however, confronted by general market conditions and the state of the times, and his fire hazard was also very great, so that in spite of his supposedly favorable position the record shows the long list of failures as well as a few successes.

Cedar Shingle Era Begins

Until 1885 shingle making was done by hand and was the favorite home occupation of every rancher, especially during the long winter evenings. For years the shingle was almost the only article of export from Snohomish County farms, and it was the one thing which could be counted on for ready cash. 'The shingle was to the Sound what wampum was to the Indians. With the introduction of the shingle machine the industry was revolutionized. But as the machinery was not complicated or expensive, its use was not confined to large mills and there were and are today a large number of small plants throughout the county. The fine wearing qualities of the cedar shingle finally became known throughout the country, and it became justly popular everywhere, creating a demand which seemed unlimited. During the hard times from 1893 to 1898 building operations almost ceased throughout the country and the lumber interest suffered heavily. Instead of erecting new buildings people were forced to repair old buildings and to reroof their houses. Thus the shingle again came into its own and during these years it was the life preserver to Puget Sound. But again it was overdone. Shingle mills sprang up like mushrooms. Car famines added to the difficulty and prices were depressed far below any margin of profit. In this way a large portion of the great cedar forests were sacrificed at a loss. Nevertheless, they provided bread and butter at a time of great need. It was not until the dawning of the twentieth century that the business became concentrated and the stupendous modernized plants which we have today became possible. With this came better hours and better relations with labor and a more solid basis of prosperity for the entire industry.

The details of this change and development are full of interest. By 1874 logging had long been developed on the Stillaguamish and it had become a formidable rival of the Snohomish Valley. Working about a half mile from the point where Runnels began logging on the Stillaguamish in 1874, J. S. Record, with eight ox teams, established a record in July, 1874, when he put 700,000 feet of logs into the Stilaguamish River in twenty-two working days. The annals of lumbering during these years are full of these accounts of good work done and of the monster logs produced. Mention of the gigantic Snohomish County "toothpicks" has never failed to draw a glad smile from a Snohomish County audience or Snohomish County readers. The newspapers frequently commented upon these feats of the camp and these monarchs of the forest. As these comments were concerning the exceptional, they are worth preserving in the annals of the lumber industry of the county. In June, 1876, mention was made that Elwell and son at their Snoqualmie camp had felled a tree 200 feet in height ; the first log was twenty-two feet long and seventy-six inches in diameter. Three similar logs were cut from the same tree, the top of which was spoiled in the fall. In 1877 boast was made of the curly maple, part of which had been sent to San Francisco and part used for the bar top at the Riverside Hotel and a table top of the Masonic Lodge at Snohomish. This maple was cut on R. D. Hilton's place and sawed at the Bennett and Witter mill. In December, 1877, mention is again made of the product of the Elwell camp on the Snoqualmie. The item said "300,000 feet of spars and long timbers were run by Snohomish this week. They were from 50 to 125 feet long and were the finest lot which ever went down the river. They came from the Elwell camp." The paper further comments, "The Elwell family is the largest family in business on the river. John Elwell, Jr., runs a camp on the Skykomish, and the senior Elwell is a member of the logging firm of Getchell and Elwell on the Snoqualmie. Besides these camps, in which the family has an émterest, Tamlin Elwell has an outfit for running logs and Walter Elwell does the outside business for the camp on the. Snoqualmie." In May, 1878, it was reported that there were over 2,000,000 feet of logs in the boom at the mouth of the Duwamish, the largest amount ever boomed there at one time. 160,000 feet of these logs belong to George Brackett, and in Tune of the same year appears the statement that "eastern men are surprised at the size of our trees and the width of the lumber. Three boards on J. Rucker's porch make a width of eleven feet six inches, and although split by hand, the floor is as smooth as if sawed and planed." In May, 1882, we find that "in fourteen working days of April, Hamilton and Morrison, on the Sultan, put 350,000 feet of logs in the water, the best day's record being 45,800 feet. .\ month later it was reported that the Puget Mill Company at Utsaladdy cut 165,000 feet of lumber in a day, this being the largest amount ever done on the Sound, in proportion to the size of the mill and the number of employees. This mill had been put in repair by Supt. Cyrus Walker in 1878, and Utsaladdy was an important point, with a hotel and a stor= operated by B. L. Martin, who moved there from La Conner. The record log reported in 1885 was a twenty-four foot fir log ninety-six inches in diameter at the large end and eighty inches at the small end. Joe Muscereau claimed to the bess log driver at that time, when in ten days and with five men he boomed out 10,- 000,000 feet of logs from Duvall's sheer boom and ran them to Priest Point. This was part of the Snoqualmie drive and was said to be the finest ever on the river. In 1887 it was boasted that more logs had been cut in Snohomish County than in any other county on the Sound, and mention is made of the "toothpick" 154 feet long, fifty-six inches at the butt and twenty-eight inches at the top, which was taken out of Blackman Bros. camp, towed to Blakeley and shipped to the California State fair at San Francisco. Jasper Sill's camp claimed the Stillaguamish record in 1887, putting 141,115 feet of logs into the water from 6 o'clock to 6 o'clock of one day with fifteen men and ten oxen. Many of the logs were sixty inches in diameter and all were cut, sawed, and swamped in the one day. John Gowen was the teamster. On July 1, 1887, Jasper Sill's crew on the Stillaguamish put 144,000 feet of logs into the water with an ox team, a record which has hardly been beaten in the Sound basin. From the Skykomish in 1888 Mann & Taylor's camp claimed distinction for a log twenty-four feet long and seventy-three inches in diameter at the small end, this tree making 7,224 feet of lumber. The log drive made in December, 1888, of 22,000,000 feet was said at that time to be the largest ever made on the river. The prize log of 1889 was a fir sawed at Tacoma, from the Snohomish River. It was 110 feet long, eighty-two inches at the butt and fifty-three inches in diameter at the top, and sawed over 10,000 feet. These are doubtless but a few of the accomplishments and but a small number of the giant logs, but these references serve to show the spirit of pride and rivalry in workmanship which existed and to explain why the lumbermen of the East were astounded at the magnificent production from the forests of Puget Sound.

Market quotations on lumber products in January, 1876, were as follows: Shingles, $2 per thousand; ship knees, 40 to 50 cents per inch; logs, $5 per thousand; hewn timbers, 10 cents per foot. Oxen were also quoted at from $150 to $200. The logging business was brisk; six camps were reported on the Stillaguamish, employing fifty men and fifty oxen. Laighton & Mercereau ran four booms of logs containing 500,000 feet from Snohomish City in 1876. Two booms from the Mill's camp on Ebey Slough contained 600,000 feet and one from Mowatt's camp 300,000 feet. This was a new firm of log runners and comment was made that prior to this time and since 1864 Hugh Ross had been the only regular log runner on the river and had practically controlled the business. Cranny of the Utsaladdy mill went into bankruptcy in February, 1876, and his mills, steamers, and equipment were placed in the hands of the United States marshal. In March, 1877, this property was sold to the Puget Mill Company for $35,000, after which it was enlarged and reequipped throughout and became one of the most important mills on the Sound. But while the Utsaladdy mill failed, others were pushing on and establishing new enterprises. Blackman Bros., who made their start in 1875, were showing great energy and enterprise in developing their camp on the Pilchuck, and they built a logging railway out from Snohomish City, using fir rails with maple caps. Another new enterprise was the Bennett & Witter mill at Glenwild on the Pilchuck River.

First Mill At Snohomish

This was the first lumber mill in the vicinity of Snohomish City. Work began on it in 1876 and it was in operation by the close of that year. It had a capacity of 10,000 per day and was located near several logging camps on the Pilchuck. The first board sawed at this mill was donated to the Athenaeum building at Snohomish and the first order for lumber was placed by Lot Wilbur and hauled to town by James Masterson. Snohomish took great pride in this great mill and in January, 1877, 1t was purchased by E. C. Ferguson and his father-in-law, H. D. Morgan. They soon added a planer and were able to furnish the lumber for the fine new residences which the three Blackman brothers erected for themselves in May, 1877. A new saw and other machinery was added in June, and a local newspaper commented "the best, clear cedar lumber ever seen in this county was cut at this mill." By August the mill was running day and night and substantial improvements were being made to the dam. This business prospered and in March, 1878, still further improvements were made, and it was stated that "about twelve white men and a gang of Chinamen are now at work on the main ditch." The new flume was completed in April, and through the enterprise of E. C. Ferguson a plank road, the first in Snohomish County, was constructed from Snohomish City to the mill. Ferguson sold his interest in March, 1879, to J. D. Morgan, and the business was conducted under the name of H. D. Morgan & Son until 1883, when

B. H. Morgan bought his father's interest and it was known as Morgan Bros. Mill. A sash and door factory was added at this time, the first sash being manufactured October 24+, 1883. The following year the manufacture of furniture was begun. During the late '70s a most important logging interest into the vicinity of Snohomish was that of Blackman Bros. Their camps on Blackman's Lake were among the largest and best managed in the county. They opened a general store at Snohomish which did a large business, built the finest homes in the city, and prospered mightily. It was not until 1881, however, that they became known through the Sound country as the inventors of new machinery which was eventually to revolutionize the logging industry.

First Logging Railroad

They patented a large truck which ran on wooden rails and which was designed to take the place of the skidway ; one team of mules thus being able to do the work of eight yoke of oxen. They next applied the use of steam to this truck, and it thus became the forerunner of the logging railway of today. They also used the first donkey engine used in this county in the logging business. Other loggers were quick to take advantage of this invention and soon more than thirty of these outfits made by Blackman Bros. were in use throughout the Sound. One of these wooden railroads was installed at the Pillchuck camp in 1882, as there is a note to the effect that the steamer Nellie towed 17,000 feet of maple rails up the river for that purpose. In the fall of 1882 the Blackman Bros. made plans for their first sawmill and secured ground below the old Stretch wharf at Snohomish for that purpose. W. F. Eddy was the mill man in charge of the erection of this plant, which was built on piles on the right bank of the river. It was well equipped to have a capacity of 15,000 feet per day. It was also planned for the addition of a grist mill at a later day and the patent trucks, twenty of which were then in use, were to be built there. Under the firm name of Blackman & Howard, operations had been opened at Mukilteo in 1883, and one of these steam trucks with wooden tracks was used there, and it was reported that it 'did good work on a grade of one in nine." The mill was in operation by July, 1883, and it was noted that whereas a few months before Blackman Bros. had been shipping tumber from Seattle they were now shipping it to Seattle. In May, 1885, Blackman Bros. were working two crews at Beacher Lake and getting out 50,000 feet of logs daily. A fire started by Isaac Cathcart to clear his stock range in .\ugust, 1885, got out of control and burned the logging outfit of Blackman Bros. on Lake Beacher. The loss was complete and the crew and teams had a narrow escape, thirty men being thrown out of employment. This was the first of the disastrous fires which caused great losses to this firm. Ilowever, they were not dismayed by fire and at their Snohomish mill they installed the first shingle machine in Snohomish County. The first sawed shingle ever made in Snohomish County was manufactured at Blackman Bros. mill in Snohomish on October 26, 1885, and this should be regarded as an important date in the history of lumbering in the county. They had at this tume one of the most extensive lumber businesses on the Sound, their pay roll for 1885 amounting to $50,000. Another important improvement made by this enterprising firm was in 1886. They had built up a considerable trade with the Ikast, shipping shingles in carload lots. The rate to Chicago was 75 cents per hundred, and green shingles weighed 280 pounds per thousand. When dry they weighed but 210 pounds, and the Blackmans figured that they would save $118 per car if shingles were shipped dry. They therefore introduced the first steam dry kiln used in the county, and perhaps the first used on Puget Sound. This was in September, 1886. By January 1, 1887, they had manufactured 4,000,000 feet of lumber, 3,000,000 feet of which had been shipped to eastern market. Their success in eastern market was a great encouragement to other mill men and prompted them to improve their mill in March, 1888, by the addition of a 70-horsepower engine, three boilers, a scantling machine, and four new shingle machines; the mill when improved employing about one hundred men. In November, 1888, G. D. Stinson negotiated the purchase of the logging camp and timber holdings of Blackman Bros. in the vicinity of Marysville, where they had also been operating for some time. In 1889 Blackman Bros. sold a large part of their logging interests to the new firm of Afflick & Allen, who had just come to Puget Sound from Michigan. As a publicity effort, Blackman Bros. manufactured shingles from twenty to twenty-four inches in width and sent them east as exhibits. Another side of the picture is presented, however, when it is told that in June, 1889, one crew of twenty-five men quit on account of the poor food. When their camp at Pilgrim's Bluff in August, 1889, made a shipment of seven carloads of logs on one train another record had been established. Perhaps the labor troubles had something to do with the fire which swept their mill at Snohomish in September, 1889, as it was believed to have been of incendiary origin. The fire occurred while a great crowd was listening to a campaign speech by Congressman Wilson, and almost created a panic. The water pressure proved ineffectual and it was only by the gallant efforts of a bucket brigade that the town was saved from destruction. The mill was a total loss, and 130 men were thrown out of employment. It was announced, almost at once, that a new and larger mill would be erected at Batt's Slough, a mile southeast of Snohomish, and this mill was built and ready for business in the opening year of the next decade.

As early as January, 1887, H. Mills proposed that the loggers form an association to build a boom on the Snohomish River, pointing out that while the loggers paid the log runners to run to Priest Point, there was no indemnity against loss, and the loggers' pay depended solely upon good luck. No action was taken, but the sentiment existing may have influenced Hugh Ross, the veteran log runner of the Snohomish, to sell his apparatus, which he did in February, 1877, to Tamlin and Edgar Elwell. At the same time Frank Dolan sold the Pilchuck boom to H. Mills, who planned the erection of a shear boom at the entrance of Ebey Slough, which in connection with the one on Pilchuck would be of great help to the lumbermen. The boom of Field and Austin on the Skykomish parted during the night of March 12, 1877, and as the Pilchuck was not hung, a large number of the logs went out to sea. This was followed by the giving way of a portion of the jam at Fiddler's Bluff, carrying with it the Pilchuck boom and Blackman Bros. boom, the latter containing 60,000 and the former 20,000 feet of logs, and a large loss was involved. In the spring of 1877 there were four logging camps on the Skykomish, two on the upper Snohomish, five on the Snoqualmie, and two on the Pilchuck, and it was said that twenty-one camps would run their logs to Priest Point that season. The camps of E. D. and Warren Smith were also running full handed at Lowell, but the loggers felt great uneasiness because the mill companies were not buying or contracting for logs. In many respects, however, this season was the most favorable the logging interests had known. Much work was done on both rivers, the Star stating that "we learn from Deputy Sheriff Whitfield, just returned from the

Old Way Of Logging University Of Washington

Stillaguamish, that parties are at work removing the jam from that river. This removed a great drawback to the settlement of the upper Stillaguamish." And "the pile driver is at work on the boom at the head of Ebey Slough, a large force being employed. Mr. Mills is determined to have it ready before the fall freshets. The jam at the head of the slough has been cut away." What Blackman Bros. were to the vicinity of Snohomish, E. D. Smith was to Lowell, who was not only a great logger, but an extensive rancher. Both his logging camps were running full handed in the summer of 1877, and it was reported that he would also cut about 150 tons of hay. Forest fires were very bad during this year, and they were reported as "burning in every direction." Mill men showed no inclination to buy and the loggers were finally urged to stop cutting, in order to strengthen the market. The price rose to $5 per thousand by November, 1877, with the prospect that all on hand would soon be sold. This was the cause of great rejoicing, as it was felt that the sale at a reasonable price would do much "to restore a state of financial prosperity to this valley that has not been experienced here for months past." The extent of the shingle industry in 1887 is shown by an item to the effect that the steamer Yakima took 106,000 shingles from the Snohomish River to Port Gamble, returning the next day with twenty tons of freight and leaving the following Sunday with 240,000 shingles. The comment was made "the yield of shingles for this winter on the Snohomish River is upwards of 1,000,000, worth over $2,000." "Two of the veteran Jumbermen died during this year. Thomas Dixon, well-known logger, was a victim of consumption, dying at Tulalip on February 28, and James B. Follansbee died at Coupeville April 6. He had for some time been associated with Captain Barrington in logging on Port Susan Bay. Special activities noted in the industry for this year include.the contract for a large lot of dimension ship knees by Mckay. These were cut near the Mathews place at the Forks. Late in the year Warren Smith brought oxen, supplies, etc., from Seattle to begin logging on Ebey Slough. He expected to employ twelve oxen and twelve men and use a part of the Ross road and rollway. Reviewing the work of the year, it was said that from January until December, 1877, there was but little money in circulation as there was no sale for logs, but in December a large amount was passed, to the credit of the river. J. B. Roberts was forced to make an assignment in the spring of 1878 and a number of the camps closed down, it being reported that logs were "flat in the market at present.'' Fire destroyed the old logging works back of Lowell in August, 1878. The origin was unknown, but E. D. Smith believed it to be the work of an incendiary. His lower camp was completely destroyed, together with roads and bridges, and work at the camp was stopped for the season. Runnels' old camp on Port Susan Bay was dismantled in September and the cook house burned, but Runnels began work at a new camp back of the lake near Snohomish. The Munson & Fillason camp on Port Susan Bay, established in 1871, continued, however, and it was stated that they had enough timber to keep them hauling for five years. In December, 1878, Puget Mill Company announced that it would take 5,000,000 feet of logs as soon as they should be ready for towing. The price, however, was but $4 per thousand and this fell in 1879 to $3.50, which was about the lowest point ever reached. At a meeting of loggers held in December, 1878, it was arranged with Henry Jackson and Benjamin Stretch to boom out and sort all the logs in Ebey Slough boom at 25 cents per thousand. During the seasons when logs were assembled Priest Point was the scene of great activity and the temporary home of many log runners. Their buildings were located on the reservation. The

Indian agent doubtless had some cause to believe that the presence of these men was debauching his Indian charges, and in February, 1879, on his orders, all the loggers' houses on Priest Point were torn down with the exception of the one owned by Harry Spithill. The agent also threatened to move the scow, upon which the log runners lived, below high water mark. The continued opposition of the agent finally caused the use of Priest Point to be abandoned. The growth of shingle manufacture on the Stillaguamish is evidenced by the statement that on March 11, 1879, Cuthbert Bros. landed 47,000 shingles on Pearson's wharf at Stanwood. These shingles were brought down ona raft from Record's Slough and were made at the Barrington camp at "the old Butler place."

Death Of A. J. Pope

In June, 1879, occurred the death of Andrew J. Pope, founder and senior member of the lumber firm of Pope & Talbot, principal owners of the Puget Mill Company. Andrew J. Pope was the son of William Pope, one of the most extensive lumbermen of Maine. He was born at East Machias, Me., and brought up in his father's business, thus acquiring a most thorough and practical knowledge of it in early life. On the discovery of gold in California, 1849, the father freighted a vessel with lumber and sent it around the Horn as a speculation. Two young men, William C. Talbot and J. C. Keller, who had had business relations with the older Pope, were sent with the vessel and Andrew J. Pope went across the Isthmus, arriving before the ship and preparing for the sale of the cargo. As he was the nominal consignee, he at once became known as a lumber dealer.

The other young men went up the coast as lumber prospectors and were at once impressed with the wonderful forest resources of Puget Sound. They in turn enthused Mr. Pope, and in 1851 he returned to the East and procured the machinery for the large mill which they erected at Fort Gamble. J. C. Keller had charge of the mill, W. C. Talbot acted as its agent in San Francisco, while Mr. Pope carried on the lumber trade and disposed of the products. Jeller dropped out of the business in 1859, and it was continued under the name of Pope & Talbot and as the Puget Mill Company. They purchased large quantities of university and other lands and their holding in Snohomish County amounted to more than 30,000 acres and in Washington territory far exceeded 1,000,000 acres. At the time of his death Mr. Pope was several times a millionaire. An account of his death published in the San Francisco Bulletin concluded: ''Mr. Pope, though a very prominent and enterprising merchant and an upright and patriotic citizen, never sought prominence as a public man. He was known as a moral and upright man, though not a professor of religion. He never made a display of his wealth, and by some was considered penurious, but those who were most intimate with him pronounced him a most charitable man and one who never refused to open his purse to any worthy object, though always dispensing his alms with utmost privacy. He leaves a wife and three children to mourn his loss."

With the exception of the hard times of the "90s, the period from 1879 to 1882 was the dullest ever known on Puget Sound. This was not merely a local condition, but was general throughout the Pacific coast. Immigration ceased, no railroad building was done, and there was little or no market for the products either of farm or forest. The little newspaper at Snohomish was suspended, thus closing the only avenue from which details of the logging industry could be obtained. There was some awakening in 1882, and by the next year there was a general revival of business which culminated in Snohomish with the building of Everett, and which was checked, but not stopped, by the panic of 1893. There is then but little history to be recorded of the logging and lumbering interest from 1879 to 1882 save that they carried on bravely in the face of adversity. A second newspaper, the famous Snohonush [tye, opened in 1882, and through it one may again get glimpses of the activities of this great industry. In January, 1882, E. D. Smith was operating two at Ebey Slough and Point-No-Point. Blackman Bros. operated three camps - one at Mukilteo, where steam cars were used, one on the Pilchuck, and one on Blackman's Lake. Tamlin Elwell, who first began logging near Monroe and who later purchased the log running business from Ross Brothers, sold this business in 1882 and established a logging camp on the Pilchuck in partnership with Henry

F. Jackson, where they continued for three years, after which they removed to Port Gamble and three years later to Mukilteo. In 1889 Elwell bought the Jackson interest and operated on Lake Washington with Ulmer Stinson as his partner. The Olympia Standard said of E. D. Smith, in February, 1883, that he did the first logging on the Snohomish River at Lowell in 1863 and had been there ever since, having taken 40,000,000 feet of logs off 1,900 acres, and that he had 25,000,000 feet standing and would build a railway and put on a large force. At this time there were six camps on the Pilchuck, seven on the Stillaguamish with a capacity of 120,000 feet daily, and three on Ebey Slough, these last being operated by E. D. Smith, William Afflick and A. L. Jones. The price of logs had advanced from $3.50 in 1879 to $7 in April, 1883. The number of men employed had increased threefold. On Puget Sound there was one mill of 180,000 feet daily capacity, another of 150,000 feet, and one of 250,000 feet about to be opened. Foreign shipments ran trom 3,000,000 to 7,000,000 feet per month, and coast shipments averaged 15,000,000 feet. Some two dozen smaller mills supplied the home trade. Wages were quoted as greasers $40 and teamsters $110 per month. 1883 was the vear of many improvements. FE. D. Smith consolidated his camps at Point-No- Point and Ebey Slough with a branch railway and employed sixty men, twenty-four mules and thirty-two oxen, making this one of the largest camps in the county. Blackman Bros. built four dams on the Pilchuck, and U. Stinson put in a dam and flood gate at Frenchy's Slough. As an encouragement to Al Faussett, whose daring feats in the passage of various falls have excited much interest and given the people many thrills in 1926, 1t may be well to mention here that it was reported in August, 1883, that "logs go over Snoqualmie Falls, 287 feet, without a blemish." Labor was beginning to assert its rights, and they rebelled against the program of work from daylight to dark at the Jennings camp at Port Susan, and "rolled their blankets"; but the camp found it easy to obtain new men. Wages on the Snohomush fell to $20 and $80 per month in 1885 as against $40 and $135 the preceding year. The loggers' pay roll of the county for 1886 was estimated at $120,000, and it was at the close of this year that the mills at Port Gamble, Port Ludlow, Utsaladdy, Tacoma and Seattle reduced working hours from twelve to ten hours. The newly organized Knights of Labor were credited with this victory. The mill at Port Blakely refused the demands of labor and serious trouble was threatened. Van Zant, a labor organizer from Whatcom County, was placed under arrest, and an employee elected by the labor element as a justice of the peace was discharged from the mill. Armed deputies were employed to overawe the strikers, but in time this null yielded to public opinion and a ten-hour day was adopted, to remain as the standard until the days of the Great War. 1883 was a good year, the high wate of October releasing logs to the value of $350,000, but in 1884 eight of the eighteen logging camps were closed on account of low prices, and it was said that others would close soon. This was followed by a revival of business in 1885, Stinson's camp on Frenchy's Slough being reported as "ready for a big summer." Smart & Marian bought the Frederickson timber on the Skykomish and put in a new camp. Pearl & Thompson put in a big boom at Steamboat Slough, using cable and 300 piles. It was said that the Snohomish output was then 40,000,000 feet per year and that much of it had been lost in previous years. This statement would appear to have been well grounded for in September, 1885, the Pilchuck boom went out and 2,000,000 feet of logs went out to sea. Anti-Chinese agitation was at its height at this time, and E. D. Smith and other loggers discharged the Chinamen in their employ. The first logging camp above the Forks of the Stillaguamish was established in 1886, and Stillaguamish loggers organized a boom company at the mouth of the river and agreed to be responsible for all logs after they reached tide water at Hatt's Slough above Florence. Hamilton and Morris opened a logging camp near the mouth of the Sultan in 1886, and E. D. Smith reopened operations at Lowell, much to the joy of that settlement. The twelve logging camps on the Snoqualnie employed 140 men and 3,000,0CO feet of logs went down that river in May, 1886, from the following camps: U. Stinson, 10,000,000 feet; E. H. Elwell, 650,- 000 feet; D. O'Leary, 650,000 feet: Duvall, 400,000 feet; Merwin, 300,000 feet. The biggest drive made on the Snohomish River up to 1886 was made in December of that year without a loss, thanks to the Pearl & Thompson boom, and logs cut on the Sultan by Hamilton & Morris brought $6.50 at Tacoma. It was stated in 1887 that more logs had been cut in Snohomish County than at any other place on Puget Sound and that since 1860, 1,000,000,000 feet of saw logs had been cut. For several years the annual output reached 75,000,000 feet. It was estimated that there was from five to ten billion feet of timber still standing.

What may almost be called the first manufacturing done in Snohomish County was clone in 1887 at the E. D. Smith camp when Captain Stone made the axes for the camp, manufacturing from ten to twelve a day. The cutting of 500 cords of hemlock bark for Seattle and Olympia tanneries was also something new for the lumber industry. Of real importance to the loggers was the final recognition of the government scaler by the mills of the Sound. E. McTaggart was appointed government scaler in 1879, but the mills would not acknowledge his authority and used their own scale, which the loggers declared was about 5 per cent lower but which they were helpless to contest. In September, 1887, the Puget Mill Company accepted the government scale and the other mills were soon forced to adopt it also.

Logging In 1887

An interesting statement as to wage conditions in 1887 gives the following statistics: "The average wage of the men who swab and lubricate the skids with dogfish oil is $30 per month. Swampers, barkers and hook tenders, $40; skidders, who must keep road in repair, $50; log cutters, $60; teamster, who must shoe and take care of three to eight yoke of oxen, $60 to $125; cooks, $40 to $100; head sawyer, $6 per day; other sawmill hands, $30. Logs are worth $7.50 per thousand. Every mill on the Sound except those on Bellingham Bay are running full time."

HISTORY OF SNOHOMISH COUNTY 699 Brackett giving 300 acres of timber as a bonus. It was begun in 1887 and completed in 1888. McHugh also built a mill on the Currie place near Edmonds, so that city

Report Of Logging Industry For Year 1887

Three new camps on the Skykomish not included in above were those of Averill & Co., Crow & Co. and P. Lannon. The output of logs was about 80 per cent greater than for any preceding year.

An evolution was wrought in the logging methods on Puget Sound during the decade just preceding. Prior to that time the only means employed in transporting the timber from the stump to the raft were the old-fashioned skid and ox team. Then a man would secure the right to cut the timber from some rich timber claim near tide water and in a short time and with little expense he would begin towing the logs to mill. The first tramway and logging car ever used in the woods of Puget Sound was built by McCann & Davis of Tulalip and used on the reservation in 1872-73. Much of the logging was still done in the primitive way in 1887, but the railroads were gradually supplanting the skids and the locomotives leaving less and less work for the faithful ox teams. The logging roads consumed large sums of money, but they paid almost from the start and extensions were pushed rapidly. The industry furnished the best market for Snohomish County farms. One farmer reported that during 1887 he had sold $700 worth of produce off of seven acres of hottom land to the loggers in his vicinity.

Benjamin Stretch was active on the river in 1888, putting double engines on a large scow for pile driving and to haul logs into the river, a 400-foot cable being used. Prices were not satisfactory to the loggers in 1888 and there was a meeting at Seattle for the purpose of effecting an organization. Representative loggers who attended from Snohomish County were E. D. Smith of Lowell, Blackman Bros., Isaac Cathcart, U. Stinson, George Ladd and William Iilman.

With the introduction of machinery a new era began in the shingle industry and the great rush of new mills began in earnest in 1888. A mill of 30,000 capacity was built at Edmonds, Johnson & Co. built a mill at Stanwood, Windsor, McDonald & Co. of Michigan erected a saw and shingle mill, with logging railway, at Bothwell's Landing, and I. N. Mudgett & Sons put up a steam shingle mill at Blackman's Lake. I. N. Mudgett came to the coast from Boston in 1883 with a "grub stake" of $1,000, advanced by friends. He worked first as a shoemaker and then as a wood sawyer, in the meantime taking a claim and building himself a home. He made a success of his mill, which was soon employing twenty men, and he later turned its management over to his sons and retired to take life easier at Snohomish. The opening of the Hackney claim at Mukilteo, which was estimated to contain 60,000,000 feet of logs, was another 1888 venture, made by Elwell and Jackson.

Mill building continued in 1889. One of the new men to invest was J. A. Theurer, who was destined to have a long and honorable career as a Snohomish County lumberman. He came to the county in 1888 and erected a shingle mill on Lake Beecher in 1889, later establishing a like plant at Snohomish. He was one of the many who went down during the panic days of 1895, but he "carried on" by leasing a mill at Granite Falls with R. R. Hambridge, which was operated successfully until 1899, when the concern joined in the formation of the Canyon Lumber Company at Robe. This company built a sawmill of 40,000 feet per day and a shingle mill of 75,000 daily capacity. It was in 1907 that the business was concentrated at Everett and the large plant erected which today gives employment to an average of 350 men. Mr. Theurer, the bankrupt shingle maker of 1895, became president of this flourishing business in 1922. Slater & Brown built a shingle mill near the railroad junction at Snohomish in 1889, and another ambitious project was the formation of the Snohomish Lumber Company by J. R. Boyd, W. G. Stevens, \W. S. Dow and James Ordway, with $50,000 capital. Work on their mill site a half mile south of Snohomish was begun in July. J. R. Boyd hailed from New York State and was but thirty-five years old. Stevens, age thirty, and Ordway, age twenty-seven, came from Vermont in 1883. Ordway was the practical mill man of the company. Dow was also a young man who came to the coast from Minnesota in 1883. Dubuque & Barrett made their first shipment from their new mill on the Pilchuck July 29, 1889, for the erection of the new schoolhouse at Snohomish. The most important new enterprise of the year was the large new mill, +5 by 250, erected by E. D. Smith at Lowell, a lumber capacity of 40,000 feet and 100,000 shingles. It began operation in 1890. The year was not without its mishaps. In July, Day Bros. sawmill near the junction was destroyed by fire, but it was rebuilt at once. In August, C. A. Dumlap was killed by a falling tree on his place four miles west of Snohomish. It was the next to the last tree to be felled. He was warned, but as he stood fifty feet away he thought himself safe. limb of the tree struck him and he was killed instantly. He was a young man, had been married but three months, and the tragedy stirred the sympathies of all.

The fall drive of 1889 was very successful, the Skykomish and the Snoqualmie rising slowly for three days to a fine driving stage, and the logs came down the river in a steady stream. The loggers and their drives (in 1,000 feet) were as follows: Joseph Averill, 500; Ayers & Boyle, 3,000; Passage & Tilman, 500; I. D. Sherwood, 2,000; Conway Bros., 1,500; George Mann, 2,000; Crow & McShane, 2,500; Ladd & Hogan, 2,000; P. Lamon, 500. The 8,000,000 feet of the Snoqualmie drive was not included in the above. The total output of the season was estimated at 38,000,000 feet.

George R. Proctor in a newspaper article published May 29, 1889, gave a terse statement of the logging camps on the Skykomish River, as follows:

"Ladd & Hogan, at Fern Bluff, twelve miles fron Snohomish, haul threefourths of a mile, timber very large and of best quality; fourteen men.

"At the Big Eddy - Ayers & Boyle; main road three-fourths mile; Ayers driving six yoke, Tommie Conniff yarding with three yoke. -\verage thirty-three logs per day.

'Hagerty - two camps - finest haul on the river. Claude Melville driving team in upper camp and making it hot for choppers. "Brown's camp, next above."

Timber Industries In 1889

A review of the lumber trade for the year 1889 gave the number of mills in the county and their production as 23,300,000 feet, valued at from $12 to $50 per thousand. It continued: "The Snohomish Lumber Company and the C. Dubuque mills have been in operation about three months and the Cathcart & Moore and Andrews & Anderson mills about one month. Blackman Bros. mill burned, after nine months' operation. Mills employ 400 men. The machine shingle is but three years old, but the eight mills in Snohomish County aggregated 115,000,000, valued at $2 per thousand. At Snohomish there are five sawmills with daily capacity of 100,000 feet, three shingle mills, capacity 150,000, and two sash and door factories. The new Blackman Bros. mill will be ready in February.

"The production of logs for 1889 in Snohomish County was 150,000,000 feet, 50,000,000 on the Stillaguamish and shores of the Sound and 100,000,000 on the Snohomish and its tributaries. There were twenty-five camps, employing 800 animals and 1,000 men, with a pay roll of $500,000. Men were employed an average of eight months.

"The large holders on the Sound are as follows: Puget Mill Company of Port Gamble, Port Blakely Mill Company, St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company, Tacoma Mill Company, Pennsylvania Lumber Syndicate, Port Discovery Mill Company, Washington Mill Company, Alger & Hawley, Seattle Lumber Company, Satsap Railroad Company. These ten concerns control 620,000 acres; six of them owning 548,000 acres. Their standing timber is estimated at 18,600,000,000 feet, enough to last fifty-six years.. The 'Big Six' have eight mills with a daily capacity of 1,235,000 feet per day. All are in the 'trust' except the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company." |

The historical statement accompanying this review lacks something in accuracy, but is of interest, and the following synopsis of it is given: After the California gold excitement, logging began on Puget Sound in Hoods Canal, by gravity, on the sloping banks with canthooks and jack screws and small crews consisting of chopper, sawyer, swamper, cook and boss. The loggers bought neither land nor logs - just took them - and cut only the choicest timber near the banks. Next came the "skid," with oxen and ten to fifteen men. The skid roads were graded and had small timbers and ties six feet apart. A boy with a can of oil and a swab lubricated the skid in advance of the team. Until 1879, logging was done entirely on the streams. Later "sawing down" took the place of "chop down," and Blackman Bros.' car and tramway were used instead of the skid on long hauls. In some cases standard gauge railways were installed, the skidway still being used to railways and rollways. The most common timber is the red fir and the most valuable red cedar finishing at $60 per thousand. Cedars ten to twelve feet in diameter three feet from the ground are not unusual, and there are many fir trees 100 inches at the butt and scaling from 15,000 to 20,000 feet. Last year a fir cut on the Snohomish and sawed at Port Blakely was 150 feet long and squared twenty-four inches. The first logging operations on the Snohomish were by Alexander Spithill at Marys-

Logging Scene Near Edgecomb, 1892

The new enterprises for 1889 included the Star Shingle Company (P. A. Parker, J. A. Near, J. A. Harter) on the Snohomish River near the Noll mill, capacity 50,000 daily; Weber Shingle Mill (J. F. Weber, J. A. Theurer), the output of which was, August, 1,400,000; September, 1,360,000; October, '1,300,000 ; November, 1,100,000: December, 1,100,000. Cathcart, one-fourth of a mile from Lake Beecher on the S., L. S. & E. Railway, was a new institution, Cathcart & Moore having erected there a two-story steam sawmill and sidetrack and late machinery at a total cost of $25,000.

In 1890 H. W. Tilman erected the first sawmill on Lake Stevens, and the Haller City Mill Company and the Snohomish Boom & Improvement Company were incorporated. Steam was turned on for the first time in the Smith mill at Lowell in April, 1890, Smith then operating three camps, employing sixty men. Incidents of the year were the closing of many mills on account of the scarcity of logs, which went up from $5 to $7.50, following the Seattle fire in 1889; a protest was filed by C. W. Andrews and seventy-seven others against the obstruction of Ebey Slough by the piles driven for a boom. They declared this obstructed navigation and compelled them to raise their dikes. R. V. Tompkins, the defendant, declared that lumber was the chief industry of the county and that the boom must remain. The hearing was before Ancil B. Bell. who found the slough navigable and ordered the obstruction removed. The purchase of the logging business of Tamlin Elwell by Ulmer Stinson for $7,500 was another trade event. This year was prolific in reports of big trees. A fir was cut on the Pilchuck which measured 100 feet to the first limb, was thirteen feet six inches in diameter and would scale 50,000 feet. Another "largest fir tree' was cut near Edmonds. It was 325 feet tall and fortyfour feet in circumference. The largest tree in Washington was claimed to be a cedar on land owned by Ulmer Stinson. This was twenty-three feet in diameter and was hollowed by fire. It stood two miles east of Snohomish on the Skykomish road near the Short schoolhouse. The shingle record for the year was made by the Ballard null. which cut 113,000 shingles in one day on a double block Perkins machine. :

On December 5, 1890, the Puget Mill Company closed the mill at Utsaladdy. This was one of the oldest mills on Puget Sound and there are many conflicting accounts of its origin. G. B. Joergenson of East Stanwood states that Weiney, original criuser for the Puget Mill Company, was authority for the statement that Thomas Craney, first settler at Utsaladdy and who built the first sawmill there with Marshall and Campbell, in 1857, was a sailor and that in 1847 he rigged and outfitted a large schooner in his native province of Nova Scotia and came around the Horn with her in 1848 or 1849 and located at Camano Island. For several years he got out ship timbers and spars. In 1853 Grinnan, Marshall and Campbell obtained a complete mill outfit in San Francisco and started on a schooner to Utsaladdy, but owing to a terrific storm the captain found the vessel to be listing and threw the cargo overboard. This left Grinnan flat broke, but all proceeded to Utsaladdy, where Campbell and Marshall jomed Craney in the mill project which was completed in 1857.

August Pierson, one of the oldest residents of Stanwood, declares, on the other hand, that when he returned from the Fraser River in 1860 he landed at Utsaladdy and remained there for six months, and that there was no mull there then, nor for some time later. K. P. Frostad, who has lived on Camano Island and who was for several years an accountant for the Puget Mill Company and also a county commissioner of Island County, states that Craney and Grinnan built the first mill in 1866, a small plant with a capacity of about 30,000 feet per day. According to Mr. Frostad, the original mill had two small, old-fashioned circular saws and one edger. Following the announcement of the closing of this old mill, it was given out that the lumber trust would close two-thirds of the mills on Puget Sound, pooling earnings and running a few mills full time, instead of having all the mills running about one-fourth time as they were in March, 1891, when this announcement was made. This arrangement was carried out to a large extent and it was not until December that there was a good market for logs, the Puget Mill Company then buying all the logs on the Stillaguamish at the Stanwood boom to fill a large Australian order. This put money again in circulation and stiffened prices.

Atlantic Shingle Market Opens

J. J. Hill pursued the wise policy, now abandoned under our modern system of railroad control, of encouraging the shipment of western products to the East by offering low rates. The Maple Leaf Shingle Company of Snohomish was one of the first to take advantage of this, shipping six carloads of shingles to Boston, where they took the eastern market by storm. This was one of the pioneer shipments which brought the products of Puget Sound to the favorable attention of eastern buyers. Among the improvements planned in 1891 was the building of a logging road by the Stinson Mill Company, from the Pilchuck to Marysville, and the closing of a deal by the Kirkland Lumber Company for the site of a new mill at Snohomish. The most serious disaster of the year was the burning of the fine new mill just erected by Blackman Bros. at Snohomish. This was a fine mill, costing $100,000. It was temporarily closed and negotiations were under way for its sale. Hardly a vestige of the mill was left, and this final disaster at the hands of an incendiary discouraged these prominent lumbermen so greatly that they did not rebuild. This last Blackman fire occurred just eighteen months after their first mill at Snohomish was burned. Another incendiary fire was that which destroyed the Elwell & Stinson logging camp and all its buildings at Mukilteo.

An important acquisition to the lumber industry of Snohomish County was when the sash and door factory of Robinson & Parmenter was moved to Everett from Tacoma in 1891. It did not appear as a matter of great importance then, however, as it was but a small concern, employing four men. In 1892 Parmenter retired from the business, but it thrived under the able management of Thomas Robinson. The Robinson Manufacturing Company was the outgrowth of this enterprise, in 1900, with Robinson as president and E. R. Nickerson as secretary and treasurer. Nickerson sold his interest to C. D. Fratt in 1903, and he is still the secretary of what has grown to be one of Everett's most prominent industries. A sawmill employing about fifty men was built in 1895 by Mr. Robinson. The sash and door factory was rebuilt in 1900 at its present site at the foot of Twentyfirst Street, Everett, and in 1905 a new sawmill, of 60,000 feet capacity, was added. This null now has a capacity of 200,000 feet per day and the plant covers sixty acres, with docks, railways and all the equipment of a most modern plant. From the four men employed in 1891 the plant has grown until it employs 500 men, with an annual pay roll of $700,000 and a yearly business exceeding $2,500,000.

The year would not have been complete without its big tree. The cedar, six miles from Arlington, sixty-eight feet in circumference and twenty-three feet in diameter, fairly capped the climax. The tree forked about seventy feet from the ground and there was room for forty men to stand inside its hollow trunk, as the tree was but a shell, although alive. A remarkable feature of this giant of the forest was that bark was growing inside the hollow trunk.

The record of 1892 consists almost wholly in the establishment of new saw and shingle mills. The Mudgett mill moved from Marysville in March to a location two miles below Snohomish along a line of the Everett & Monte Cristo Railway, and its shingle mill was soon in operation with 50,000 capacity. Railway officials received more applications for the building of logging spurs than they could possibly handle. The new sawmill at Granite Falls, of 25,000 feet capacity, opened May 1. The Moffatt & Stone mill, which was established at Sultan in 1890, was compelled to double its capacity, the new railroad having boomed that town. In April Everett boasted that it had two sawmills in operation with daily capacity of 30,000 feet each and that mills were being erected at the mouth of Deadwater Slough and at the mouth of the old river, with a shingle mill soon to be in operation on salt water. The Wirkland Mill Company at Snohomish sawed its first lumber April 20, 1892, and the Noll shingle mill resumed operation, employing fifteen men, making it one of the largest shingle mills in its locality. Carr & Tobias established a shingle mill at Hartford, and a new sawmill was built at Monte Cristo. The Machias Shingle & Lumber Mill began operation in July. The English Logging Company of Marysville, which employed seventy-five men, made a new departure when it began shipping logs to Seattle, via the Great Northern, in May, 1892, and the Stinson Mill Company increased its force to 300 men. The shingle men attempted to get together to regulate prices and production and J. R. Crocker, returning from a meeting at Portland, announced that the price had been fixed at. $1.75 per thousand and a 10 per cent discount to jobbers, and 10 cents per thousand off to retailers buying fifteen cars. Logs had gone down to $6 per thousand by July, 1892, but the demand was good, and there were few signs of approaching hard times. The heaviest loss by fire during the year was that of the Dodd & Dwyer shingle mill at Lowell, the loss being $30,000. The rivers were very high in November, 1892, and a log jam endangered the Great Northern bridge at Snohomish, while the new shingle mill at Arlington was washed away, the engine and boiler being left standing on end in the middle of the Stillaguamish. The largest log reported for the year was one sluiced into the Stillaguamish River in March; it was twenty-four feet long and eighty-eight inches in diameter at the small end. As World's Fair commissioner, E. C. Ferguson sent to Chicago for the Washington exhibit a section of fir bark eighteen inches thick, which was cut at Machias by Charles Larson and was said to be the thickest bark ever known. The era of prosperity and progress continued, and even gained momentum throughout the spring of 1893. The Washington Boom Company planned to spend $50,000 in building the largest boom in the State of Washington at the mouth of the Snohomish. Three new shingle mills went up on the line of the Everett and Monte Cristo, between Hartford and Granite Falls. A train load of forty cars of shingles left Everett March 23, 1893, for Minneapolis, two engines being required. A contract for three miles of logging road was let by Samuel Coulter, to reach a great body of fine timber at Cherry Valley. The Kirkland Lumber Company at Snohomish ordered additional machinery and expected to increase its force to 110 men.

Tie Panicky Years, 1893-96

\ new logging camp was opened at Yew, with twenty men, to get out long timber from 70 to 120 feet in length. The Smith sawmill resumed at full capacity in April. G. W. Colvin received the machinery for a new shingle mill to run in connection with the Anderson sawmill, to begin operation in June. The donkey engine was rapidly superseding oxen and horses in the logging camp. F. C. Fowley, C. Knapp, and S. Root took charge of the Haller City mill, and a new sawmill at Silverton was so rushed that it soon had to put on double crews. The biggest timber owners in Washington at this time were given as the Puget Mill Company, 180,000 acres; the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company, 160,000. Henry Hewitt, Jr., was said to be the largest individual owner, and other heavy owners' names were L. H. Northy, A. Hayward, D. A. Blodgett and Governor R. A. Alger of Michigan. TIE PANICKY YEARS, 1893-96

The first note of distress showing that business was not what it should be was ~sounded in June, 1893, when the shingle men of Washington and Oregon met at Seattle to plan means by which they might raise prices, cut wages, and reduce production. In July the logging camp of Gierin & Pearl closed down, and the men were discharged until the return of better times. By August the pessimistic opuuon was expressed that even a revival of business would not benefit the Northwest until the following spring, as logging camps, mines, and mills were shut down, and even though money should be turned loose in the fall it would be impractical to open up so late in the season. The Noll shingle mill, which had closed, was opened by its employees in September to run on a codperative basis. This was the first of the cooperative shingle mills in Snohomish County, and they proved an important feature of the hard times. There were some bright spots remaining, for the Quinton Friar Mill at Lowell was running at full capacity in September, and in November the Puget Mill Company began buying logs for thé first time in many months. The output of Everett mills for the year was given as 23,300,000 feet of lumber and 92,000,000 shingles, the mills employing 200 men with a monthly pay roll of $14,040. Fifteen Snohomish County shingle mills were represented at a meeting held at Seattle in December for the purpose of codperating to "raise prices back to a living basis." The year closed with the disheartening news that the Marysville Shingle Company had been closed on account of car shortage and that the Haller City Manufacturing Company's plant had been sold by the sheriff to W. F. McQueston. Among the interesting notes of the year was the testing of the stumps and roots of Washington fir for turpentine, but this did not prove practical. A shingle packing contest, a feature of the Fourth of July celebration, was won by W. S. Crook, who. packed 5,000 shingles in one hour, one minute and twenty-seven seconds. The big tree record of the year included one discovery by L. E. Beach. Tt was alive with a straight trunk 100 feet high from where it was broken off. It was twenty-seven feet in diameter and over eighty feet in circumference. The biggest tree at Edmonds was cut up into firewood for Brackett's wharf, its 100-foot hody making 100 cords of wood. It was thirty-four feet in circumference. J. P. Millett, the Cherry Valley logger, filled an order for the California Midwinter I-xposition with a fir log 130 feet in length and thirty-six inches square.