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Skagit River Journal

of History & Folklore
Free Home Page Stories & Photos
The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit
Covers from British Columbia to Puget Sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan, Snohomish & BC. An evolving history dedicated to committing random acts of historical kindness

Noel V. Bourasaw, editor

810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284
Home of the Tarheel Stomp

Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

Our latest mini-reviews, suggested books to read

Caption from book: "Ave. B, circa 1885. the name of Avenue B should be changed to "Blackman Avenue" since all three brothers built homes on this street, most likely included in this photograph by the resident pioneer photographer Gilbert Horton."

Caption: "The Snohomish Atheneum, circa 1876. The society's inspiration leader was Dr. Albert C. Folsom, scientific, literate and a former army surgeon with experience in the Civil War. In his 40s, he settled in Snohomish 1869 with a broken heart from a failed marriage, but also with over 100 fossils, gems and bones. He and Eldridge Morse led the way toward the building of a museum to exhibit his collection and provide a place for meetings. Moreover, the elite of frontier Snohomish pooled their private collection of books to form a lending library of some 300 volumes, including Darwin's Descent of Man (1871). The women of the membership formed their own club and raised funds to purchase a piano for the building, the first piano of Snohomish, and it is still available for use in the library. Isaac Cathcart opened a store and upscale saloon on the ground floor — that appears to be him standing on the right." The structure was later known as the Cathcart Building.

Early Snohomish, Warner Blake San Francisco: Arcadia Publishing, 2007. Early Snohomish is just the book that those interested in Washington history need in order understand why the city of Snohomish is so important to understanding entry points for settlers during the period when Washington was a Territory and rivers were the main routes of travel, as well as the later period of the railroad boom. Warner Blake has packed this small book from Arcadia Publishing full of quality photos from the archives of the Snohomish County Historical Society and from libraries and museums all over Puget Sound and he immediately notched a place on my Top 20 Bookshelf.
Snohomish City was established in a small way in 1860 upriver from Port Gardner and the later city of Everett and became an unlikely home of culture and literature when Eldridge Morse and Dr. Albert C. Folsom established their Athaneum in the little village on the river of the same name in the 1870s. Blake reproduces previously unpublished photos and documents about the Athaneum, a museum, lending library and social center, with a meeting room and the first piano in the area.
The book also provides photos and words that describe the kernel of the town in the wilderness, Emory C. Ferguson's decision to build a cabin by the river in 1859, near the new military road that eventually stretched from Steilacoom in Pierce County through Whatcom County to the north. He explains that the road was placed inland from the Sound specifically to be out of range of British gunships. That placement was also the key to Snohomish being on the first north-south rail line in the territory, the Seattle Lake Shore & Eastern, which was built inland by Seattle interests nearly 30 years later, specifically to compete with port cities along the water. Blake found photos to illustrate both those important periods.
He also publishes beautiful photos of the Indians who were eventually displaced and the one thing lacking among the 49 men who established and settled the city: a woman. That all changed in 1865 when Mary Low Sinclair came to town. The wife of a school administrator, Woodbury Sinclair, Mary was also the daughter of the almost-forgotten John Low, one of the scouts for the Denny Party, who traveled to Alki Point in the summer of 1851 and arranged to build a cabin there for the more famous full party that arrived by ship in September. Mary was on that ship as a little girl and thus was a witness to both the birth of Seattle and of Snohomish.
Other important pioneers that Blake profiles in the book include: Isaac Cathcart, who felled trees until he saved enough to build the Exchange Hotel behind Ferguson's warehouse, and The Blackman Brothers who established an important store on Avenue C and built the first important sawmill in the area. In 1968, volunteers established the Historical Society and one of their first projects was to purchase and restore the Hyrcanus Blackman house, one of the family's homes on Avenue B. It is now home to the Museum and that is where we found Ann Tuohy a few years ago, the source of so many items for our history of the city and county; she was the archivist and indexer for Blake's book. In addition, Blake profiles Morses's singular importance as both publisher and attorney, especially for establishing the first newspaper between Seattle and Whatcom — the Northern Star, and Clayton H. Packard, who established the second paper in the county, the Snohomish Eye, in 1882 after Morse's paper failed. We profile both those men elsewhere in the Journal's Snohomish Section. Another of my favorite photo subjects is David Roby Judkins's Floating Sunbeam (Photo) Gallery (also called the Palace Gallery) that cruised the Snohomish River and other Northwest cities on the water.
One section that was especially helpful to us in understanding the placement of Snohomish on the river is the group of photos that explains how the riverfront portion of the city changed radically after World War II when an auto dealership slid down the hill into the river after a period of sustained flooding. Although many of the abandoned early historical buildings were soon bulldozed, they were eventually replaced by a riverside park. Then an urban renewal study in 1965 recommended establishing a riverside shopping mall but instead a collection of antique stores has evolved into that has made the town a Mecca for people who seek period furniture and accoutrement.
In the spirit of "It takes a village to help create a history book," among many people Blake credits are: Margaret Riddle and David Dilgard for their splendid work in creating the Northwest Room at the Everett Public Library; Victoria Harrington, the Historical Society archivist and photo restorer; Donna Harvey, archivist and family historian; Middy Ruthruff, archivist and guide to the Society's family histories; Nicolette Bromberg, visual curator for the University of Washington Libraries Special Collections; and Carolyn Marr, librarian at the Museum of History and Indistry in Seattle.
Hats off to Blake for this fine addition to our library and for all those who helped with it. As he explains, the whole project started when his friend Karen purchased the former St. Michaels's Catholic Church in 1993 at a bankruptcy sale. Like the fine historian of Utsalady, Dennis Conroy, Warner is a transplant from the East Coast. Blake was trained as a theatrical scenic designer in Boston while he taught at Boston University. He has drawn on that earlier experience as he and his partner have rehabilitated the first Catholic church in the county as an art studio. He plans to follow up this project with a heritage trail, the details of which he attributes to Dilgard's tutelage.

Links, background reading and sources

Recommended books to read, updated, including reviews of Washington, Then and Now by Paul Dorpat and Jean Sherrard; The Nooksacht's Trail and Crossing by James Berg; Lake Chelan in the 1890s, by Robert Byrd.
More mini-reviews of our suggested history and photo books for further reading.
In September 2007 we will share an extensive bibliography section that will feature some of the most useful books for students, researchers, genealogists and those who enjoy reading more about the history of Skagit County, the Pacific Northwest and the frontier.
Frank Wilkeson was a columnist for the New York Times and Sun. He lived in Sedro, Hamilton and Fairhaven from 1885-1900 and wrote about his experiences here. Read about the hobos of Sedro, the coal mines of the Skagit region, fishing and hunting on the Skagit river and much more. Also read about the new book about Frank, Old Soldier Goes Fishing.
Transcriptions of old newspapers

Story posted on August 15, 2007 . . . Please report any broken links so we can update them

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