All Over Oregon and Washington/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI.
FROM THE COLUMBIA TO THE SOUND.
Supposing the tourist to have arrived in Oregon by the usual routes of sea or overland travel, he is sure to be carried to Portland; from which point radiation to all other parts of the north-west commences. We take a steamer at that place, and retrace our course to the Cowlitz River; taking six hours for the voyage, which ends at Monticello, in time for a one-o'clock dinner. Here we find one or more stages waiting to convey mails and passengers to Olympia; and if competition be strong, for very cheap fares. Our stage on this occasion, is a long, light, open wagon, well loaded down with mail matter before we take our seats. The first six miles are along the river-bank, in sand and dust, with very little open country in sight; this portion of the Cowlitz Valley being of no great extent. Then commences the crossing of the Cowlitz Mountains.
What strikes us most in this drive, are the magnificence of the timber on the mountain, and the roughness of the country for a highway. In this July weather it is well enough, jolting through the forest, over roots of giant trees, and into hollows between them; but, in the rainy season, it is a different undertaking. However, the North Pacific Railroad is to cure this evil, in another year, perhaps. We are glad that for once we had to come this way. Such a forest as this is something to remember having seen; and fills completely our conception of solemn and stupendous grandeur. Fir and cedar are the principal trees. They stand thickly upon the ground; are as straight as Ionian columns; so high that it is an effort to look to the tops of them; and so large that their diameter corresponds admirably to their height. If there is any thing in Nature for which we have a love resembling love to human creatures, it is for a fine tree. The god Pan, and the old Druidical religion, are intelligible to us, as expressions of the soul struggling "through Nature up to Nature's God;" and as a religion free from arrogance, and the temptation to build upon itself worldly ambitions, recommends itself even in the nineteenth century. A lover of the woods must enjoy this drive, as we did, both in an esthetical and religious point of view.
It is quite natural in such profound solitudes to look for some of its most distinguished inhabitants; but our desire to meet a cougar, or a brown bear, is not gratified. Only the gray hare, and the grouse and quail, cross our road. These seem not the least to mind us; evidently unacquainted with the sanguinary disposition of man, and so audaciously familiar as to provoke an uprising of the lordly thirst for killing. The weather is fine, the mountain air and balsamic odors tonic and delightful. Altogether we are in the best of spirits for two-thirds the distance to the night station. Then growing well acquainted with the scenery about us, we begin to demand fresh excitement, and are rather glad that there is a prospect of breaking down, which requires us to do some walking and some wagon-mending; so that we arrive at the crossing of Aliquot Creek about dark, and take lodgings at Pumphrey's, on the farther side.
Pumphrey's Landing is at the head of navigation on the Cowlitz. Until the middle of July a small steamer ran up to this point, but is now discontinued until a return of high-water. It is from here that canoe passage is taken down stream to Monticello—an exciting and pleasant excursion—the river being very rapid, and the Indians very expert.
We are on the road again by day-break, crossing Pumphrey's Mountain before breakfast. The road, in all respects, resembles that of the day previous. The morning is quite cool, although it is July weather, and the blazing, open fire which welcomes us at McDonald's, gives the most cheering impression. Here we obtain a substantial breakfast, and have time to admire the comfortable, home-like appearance of this isolated station.
Our road now lies across McDonald's Prairie, from which we catch the first real view of Mount Rainier, the grandest snow-peak of the Cascade Range; which fact it pains us to admit, because we had taken Mount Hood to be the highest, and even maintained its pretensions over Mount Shasta, its California rival. But our eyes convince us that Rainier is chief among the snow-peaks, and altogether lovely. Measurement makes it just four feet higher than Shasta—so the North has the champion mountain, after all. The lights and shades upon it, as we catch frequent glimpses during the day, are beautiful beyond criticism.
There is very little good farming land along the line of the road. Where there is not a thick growth of forest, the intermediate prairies are gravelly, making excellent driving, but poor farming. Occasionally, where there is a small piece of valley land, it is of the richest description. The grass that is being cut in some of these little valleys is the heaviest we ever saw.
At the first crossing of the Chehalis River is the pretty village of Claquato, which makes us wonder how it got there, so isolated it seems from the outside world. Its buildings, gardens, and orchards have a truly comfortable, even charming, appearance; and the sign, "Claquato Academy," upon the front of a good-sized frame-building, inspires us with respect for this isolated community. Altogether, it produces a most favorable impression—suggesting numerous quotations from the poets, who, we recollect with a sigh, are not, after all, very reliable real-estate agents.
The Chehalis, near here, receives the waters of the Newaukum, a small river heading in the foot-hills of the Cascades. The valley of the Newaukum, together with that of the Chehalis, above the junction, afford from fifty to seventy-five thousand acres of the best of farming land; Lewis County, which contains them, being one of the best agricultural counties in the Territory. In the Chehalis Valley is a cedar-tree, we are told, measuring twenty-one feet in diameter six feet from the ground, and is estimated to be 250 feet to the first limbs.
"We get our last coupon of rough road just beyond Claquato, a few miles of which brings us to the second crossing of the Chehalis, at its junction with the Skookum Chuck ("strong water"), another pretty spot, where we dine. Not more than three miles from here, is a fallen tree three feet in diameter at the butt, and 290 in length. Another tree, in an adjoining county, measures eleven feet in diameter, and 310 in length, and we hear of two more being fourteen feet in thickness; which is pretty well for firs and cedars. From Skookum Chuck to Olympia, is a fifteen-mile drive over gravelly prairies, separated by wooded sections. The Grand Mound Prairie is interesting from the number and regularity of the mounds, which are two or two and a half feet high, and as close together as potato-hills in a field. Various theories of their origin have been assigned, but the satisfactory one has not yet been suggested.
The entrance to Olympia is through a belt of magnificent trees, four or five miles wide. Just at the head of the sound, where the Des Chutes River falls into it, is a little, lumbering village called Tumwater, with a saw-mill, flouring-mill, and tannery. The falls of the Des Chutes are very pretty; but their beauty will ultimately be hidden by all manner of mills, which will be made to avail themselves of this fine water-power. We observe, concerning names, that the river retains its French name for falls, and the town its Indian name for the same thing. Passing through Tumwater, which is but a suburb of Olympia, we soon find ourselves in the streets of this classically denominated capital.
Olympia depends upon its location for its claim to beauty. Like all towns hewn out of the forest, it has a certain roughness of aspect, caused by stumps, fallen timber, and burnt, unfallen trees. But it has decidedly an air of home-comfort and cheerfulness, with snug residences, good sidewalks, and, to us, the singular charm of long bridges, and spacious wharves. To be suspended over water on a bridge, a long one, was always to us more fascinating than boating. To be at rest over the ever-restless water, and gaze upon its cheerfulness, and dream! In Olympia, we can do this, when the tide is in. When it is out, we can interest ourselves in watching the millions of squirming things the receding flood leaves in the oozy mud. Standing on the long bridge, too, we can gaze upon the distant Olympian Range—the most aerial mountain view in America.
The following is the history of Olympia in brief, as furnished by one of its citizens: "The land claim on which is situated the town of Olympia was settled on by Mr. Edward Sylvester, in the year 1845. At that time the whole Puget Sound country was a perfect wilderness, excepting the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company at Nisqually, then in charge of Dr. W. F. Tolmie, and a few pioneer settlers at Tumwater and the prairies south of Olympia, who came in the year before. Mr. Sylvester resided here three years alone, and in 1849 went to the gold-mines in California. Returning early in 1850, he found several new-comers, among whom were three or four families, and shortly after his return he had the town surveyed and laid out. One or two stores were soon started, which supplied several lumbering camps, and the brig G. W. Kendall, Captain A. B. Gove, was placed on the route between Olympia and San Francisco, and a profitable business started in furnishing the California market with spars and piles. A large village of Indians was situated along the bank of the bay, on the west side of the town. The road to Tumwater was not open until 1852, and the first bridge was finished the succeeding winter. All the other roads and bridges were later undertakings. The Custom-house District was organized at Olympia November 10, 1851—S. P. Moses, Collector. A weekly mail (horseback and canoe) service from the Columbia River, was first established in 1852—Messrs. Yantis and Rabbeson, contractors. The Down-Sound mails were first carried in 1854 by the steamer Major Tompkins, Captain J. S. Hunt; the same steamer was shortly after wrecked while going into Victoria harbor, and she was succeeded for the two years following by the steamer Traveler, Captain J. G. Parker. The first newspaper—The Columbian—printed north of the Columbia River, was issued on the 11th of September, 1852, at Olympia, by Messrs. Wiley & McElroy. The Methodist denomination had a resident preacher at that time, but the French Catholics built the first church, in 1852. The first school-house was built in 1853, the same being constructed at the expense of, and through the enterprise of, the ladies. The first wharf was built in 1854, by Mr. Edward Giddings. The present site remains the landing of the ocean and Sound steamers. In the fall of 1853, General I. I. Stevens—then recently appointed Governor of Washington Territory and Superintendent of Indian Affairs—arrived overland with his party of surveyors and engineers, then in the interest of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. In 1853, Olympia was made the capital of Washington Territory."
Olympia, besides being the capital of the Territory, and county-seat of Thurston County, has a most favorable location with respect to the rest of the Territory, being at the head of the Sound, at a point nearest the Columbia River and Gray's Harbor, and about equidistant from all the principal valleys in Western Washington. It has also great advantages in the way of water-power that is contiguous to tide-water. The falls of the Des Chutes furnish, alone, a 1,600-horse power, at the lowest stage of water, and may be made to furnish much more at a slight expense in conducting water from the Nisqually River. Another stream, Percival's Creek, is capable of being made a waterpower almost equal to the Des Chutes, by cutting half a mile of ditching; the same drainage reclaiming twenty thousand acres of the best grass lands. A comparatively small expense would build a dock at Olympia, covering 1,800 acres, in which vessels could be kept afloat when the tide is out; and such a dock will no doubt be built before long, whether or not this city becomes—what, of course, it aspires to be—the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The population of Olympia is about thirteen hundred.
Western Washington, unlike Western Oregon, has no chief river, with its numerous tributaries, draining a great valley; but it has, nevertheless, its central body of water, into which flow frequent small rivers, draining the Puget Sound Basin, which is bounded, like the Wallamet Valley, by the Cascade and Coast ranges, on the east and west, and by their intermingling spurs on the south. These rivers, unlike those of Oregon, are all affected by the ebb and flow of the tides; and have their lowest bottom-lands overflowed. The Sound itself is not one simple great inlet of the sea; but is an indescribably tortuous body of water, which is not even a sound; being too deep for soundings, in some of its narrowest parts. So eccentric are its meanderings that the whole county of Kitsap is inclosed so nearly in the embraces of its several long arms, as very narrowly to escape being an island.
That particular arm of the Sound upon which Olympia is situated is six miles in length by from one to one and a half miles in width; narrowing to a quarter of a mile when opposite the town. At low-tide the water recedes entirely at this point, leaving a mud flat all the way from here to Tumwater, a mile and a half south. The mean rise and fall of the tide is a little over nine feet; the greatest difference between the highest and lowest tides, twenty-four feet. Vessels come in on the tide, and lie in the mud to discharge; going out again on the high-tide. The construction of a dock would give them water to lie in of any sufficient depth.
The land adjacent to this inlet is considerably elevated along the shore, and rises yet higher at a little distance back, being level, however, in some places. The same general shape of country surrounds the whole Sound, the land having a general rise back from it for some distance. This, of course, must be the case, where a basin exists of the character of this one. That portion of it which lies adjacent to the Sound possesses a porous, gravelly soil; nevertheless, heavily timbered with trees of immense size. This belt of timber is several miles in width. The roads through it, and across the small prairies which lie on its outskirts, are all that could be desired in the way of natural McAdam, and furnish delightful driving. One thing we observed regarding these beautiful prairie spots, was, that along their edges, where they receive the yearly accession to their soil of the leaf mold of the forest, the orchards and gardens looked very thrifty; and also that wherever there was a piece of bottom-land, on any small stream, the hay-crop was the heaviest we had ever seen.
About ten miles back from the Sound, on the east, the country commences to improve; and from there to the foot-hills of the Cascades furnishes a good grazing region, with many fine locations for farms. The foot-hills themselves furnish extensive clay-loam districts, suitable for grain-raising; and will, when cleared, become very valuable farming lands. Around the base of the Coast or Olympian Range, on the west, there is also another large body of clay-loam land; and to the south, between the Chehalis and the Columbia—or, more properly, between the Columbia and the higher ground which separates the Columbia Valley from the basin of the Sound—there is a still larger district which may be converted to grain-raising. But the vicinity of the Sound, within a distance of from ten to twenty miles, affords little land that is good for grain, except that of the river-bottoms, and of that only certain portions.
For, as before noticed, these streams coming into the Sound are affected by the tides, the lowest land being overflowed daily. That portion of each valley which is free from submersion furnishes the most fertile soil imaginable for the production of every kind of grain, fruit, and vegetable—if we except melons, grapes, and peaches, which, owing to the cool nights, mature less perfectly than in Eastern Washington. The valleys of these small rivers, like those of Western Oregon, already described, are covered at first with a rank growth of moisture-loving trees, such as the ash, alder, willow, and poplar. But they are easily cleared; and the soil is of that warm, rich nature, that it produces a rapid growth of every thing intrusted to its bosom. Owing to the fact that these valleys are narrow, and head in mountains at no great distance, they are occasionally subject to floods. As floods never occur, however, except in the rainy, or winter season, a proper precaution in building, and harvesting his crops, should insure the farmer against loss from them when they do occur.
The rivers which empty into the Sound on the east side are the longest, with the greatest amount of alluvial lands. They are the Nisqually, Puyallup, White, Sikamish, Cedar, Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Stoluquamish, Skagitt, and Nooksahk. Several of these have two or more branches of about equal importance, and all of them are navigable for certain distances; the Skagitt for a distance of fifty miles. This last-named river rises far to the north-east, in British America, and flows through mountain gorges for long distances, like the Columbia and Frazer rivers. Everywhere in the neighborhood of these rivers, and the Sound, is timber of excellent quality for lumbering, and in great quantities. The streams flowing into the Sound from the west are in all respects similar to those on the east side, except that they are shorter, and have less bottom-land. They rise in the Olympian Range, and have but a short distance to flow to reach their outlet.
With regard to the great business of the Sound—lumbering—so much has been written, that more seems superfluous. In a chapter on Forests, we shall give a full account of the timbered lands both of Oregon and "Washington, together with the amount of lumber annually produced. It is unnecessary to say more in this place, than that the shore-line of the Sound is over sixteen hundred miles in length; and that its shores everywhere are heavily timbered, except where fires have, in some places, ruined the timber. Leaving out all burnt and unsuitable timber, the amount is still enormous which is excellent for lumbering, and easily reached. Milling companies buy logs at $4.50 per M.—the loggers having but short distances to go, and every facility for hauling at a trifling expense; nor will they work a piece of timbered land producing less than thirty thousand feet per acre—the more common yield being twice or thrice that amount. Water-power is commonly used only in the small mills, all the large exporting establishments using steam. Of these large establishments, there are sixteen in Western Washington, fourteen of them being on the Sound.
Although fishing, as a business, has not yet received that attention on the Sound which it has on the Columbia River, it should, in the near future, become a large and profitable trade. Nor would the curing of fish be confined to salmon alone, as on the Columbia it now is. Cod are taken in the Sound, and all along the coast to the north. Vessels are already running from the Sound to the fishing-grounds in the Russian seas, and off the coast of Alaska; and others are yearly being built for this trade. They are brought to the more favorable climate of the Sound to be cured; and the finest cod ever put up on the Pacific Coast have been cured in Washington Territory.
A fish for which the Sound is somewhat celebrated, is the Eulachon—a small, but good-flavored fish, of so oily a nature that the Indians dry it to burn for torches: hence it has also been called the candle-fish. The experiment of expressing oil from the dog-fish, for commerce, has lately been tried, we hear, with favorable results. The oil sells readily for fifty cents a gallon to the millmen, as machine-oil. Halibut is common in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and all along up the Gulf of Georgia, and beyond, through the whole extent of those continuous sounds by which the Northwest Coast is slashed in every direction. Other kinds of fish, good for the table at stated seasons, abound in the waters of the Sound and its tributaries—such as smelt, sardine, oysters, and clams. The speckled trout is taken in every mountain stream, above the reach of tide-water.
We notice in Olympia how abundant are berries, both wild and cultivated—the blackberry season, in particular, being at its height. All manner of small fruits seem abundant, and flowers and vegetables "a drug in the market." New as the country is, people seem to live well, dress well, talk well; and are planning a new empire—and all without any great or exhausting effort.