The Log Cabin Living: Artifacts from 19th Century Life exhibit at Job Carr Cabin Museum encourages visitors to take a closer look at more than 20 objects in the museum's collection.
The Tide Flats, The Indian Reservation, The Foot Hills and Mount Tacoma. From the 1889 publication Tacoma Illustrated.
Puyallup Lands and Survey Explorations
The region surrounding Commencement Bay in South Puget Sound has been home to the spuyaləpabš (Puyallup) from time immemorial. Members of the tribe fish in their ancestral waters, hunt on their ancestral lands, and weave baskets from materials growing in their ancestral valleys amongst many other traditions. The tribe lived in multiple villages spreading from the base of təqʷuʔmaʔ / təqʷuʔbəd (Mt. Rainier) to the Puget Sound with fishing as their primary source of food. The Puyallup are one of the many Lushootseed speaking Native Nations in the region and language continues to play a vital part in their culture today through their language revitalization program.
In 1792, the area where Tacoma stands today was first sighted by European explorers when British Captain George Vancouver traveled in the Pacific Ocean. He dubbed many local landmarks, including Puget Sound and Mt Rainier, in honor of his crew and friends. Almost 50 years later, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the US Navy led the first US Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean. He named Commencement Bay to commemorate the starting point of his 1841 survey of Puget Sound.
J.D.S Conger, The Old Delin Mill, 1878, in Puget's Sound: a narrative of early Tacoma and the Southern Sound (University of Washington Press), 118.
Development on the Bay
American settlers slowly began trickling into the South Sound in the 1840s and 1850s with the development of Tumwater, Olympia, and Steilacoom. The first non-indigenous settler on Commencement Bay was Nicholas Delin, a Swedish carpenter. In 1852, he built a water-powered sawmill near the mouth of the Puyallup River, attracting a few others like the Sales family. The following year, Peter Judson's family filed a claim for 321 acres of land along the hillside of what would later become Downtown Tacoma; he and his sons Stephen and John cleared the land and began farming grain and oats. There were also a small assortment of tradespeople living on the bay including a cooper, fishermen, and loggers bringing felled trees to the Delin mill. The small community intermingled, with Peter Judson's niece Gertrude marrying Nicholas Delin in 1854. By the next year, however, all the white settlers left the bay due to the Puget Sound Treaty War.
William Sales helped Nicholas Delin to build a sawmill near what is now S 25th and Pacific Ave. His son James, pictured here, was born nearby. This photo of James and his wife Josephine was taken on his 75th birthday in 1928. From the image archives at the Tacoma Public Library.
While some of these folks resettled in other areas of Pierce County, only a few returned briefly to Commencement Bay after the conflict was over. The Judson family permanently relocated to Steilacoom, where Stephen Judson became a leader in state and local politics. Their original home on Commencement Bay later burned. Nicholas Delin found his mill still in decent condition when he restarted operations in 1857. By 1861, however, he left for Seattle, then Olympia, and finally settled in Portland, Oregon. Milas Gallaher, whose name appears adjacent to the Judson land on the plot map, purchased the mill but soon gave it up. The foundations were sinking and the saws were unreliable. Job Carr was involved with tallying the last batch of lumber from the mill in 1865 before it was permanently abandoned.
The Puyallup people renogiated the unfair Treaty of Medicine Creek and in 1856 they were allotted 18,062 acres stretching from the Puyallup River along the north shore of Commencement Bay. The treaty also preserved the tribe's permanent right to hunt and fish in their traditional areas. While much of the Puyallup allotment was later subdived and forced into sale, the Reservation boundaries remain similar to those surveyed in 1873. The reproduction plot map on display at Job Carr Cabin Museum shows the Puyallup lands on the north shore while settlers in the 1860s staked claims on the south shore of Commencement Bay.
1856 Puyallup Indian Reservation Map. From the U.S. National Archives Catalog.
Development Plans after the Treaty
Eight years after the establishment of the Puyallup Reservation, Job Carr became the first permanent non-Native settler on Commencement Bay. In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill granting the Northern Pacific Railway 40 million acres of the public domain as an incentive for constructing a railway from the Great Lakes to Puget Sound. Hearing this, Job traveled from the midwest with hopes of identifying the railroad's terminus. On Christmas Day 1864, he found his claim on Commencement Bay. One of Job Carr's favorite stories was identifying his land claim. He was fishing with some companions from the Puyallup Reservation. They paddled a canoe to Gig Harbor, and on the return trip passed along the south shoreline. Carr stood up proclaiming "Eureka! Eureka!" and told his new friends that he had found the perfect spot. Soonafter, Job was felling trees and bucking logs to create a clearing and build his cabin near the base of what is now Tacoma's Carr Street.
Job Carr's original cabin photographed by Anthony Carr, ca 1866.
Job Carr’s two sons Anthony (1865) and Howard (1866) joined their father, quickly staking claims nearby. Later, Job's daughters Mattie (1867) and Maggie (sometime after 1891) arrived in Tacoma.
The McCarver Home, on the Edge of Dense Timber, in 1872. From McCarver and Tacoma by Thomas Wickham Prosch.
In April 1868, another pivotal figure, Morton Matthew McCarver, arrived in the area. One source claims that McCarver learned about the development potential of Commencement Bay when he chatted with Nicholas Delin in Portland. McCarver was a town booster and shared Carr's vision of Tacoma as the possible terminus of the railroad. He approached Job with a proposition to purchase a large portion of land and grand promises of bringing major development and attracting the attention of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Word soon spread that Tacoma was a promising investment.
Reproduction plot map of Tacoma land claims on display at Job Carr Cabin Museum. This map also appears in Puget's Sound by Tacoma historian Murray Morgan.
Names on a Map - Tacoma Land Claims in 1868
A nearly identical version of the museum's map appears in McCarver and Tacoma, by Thomas Wickham Prosch and is dated 1868. The Carr family is represented, as are M.M. McCarver, his business partner Lewis M Starr, a banker from Portland, and Starr's brother Lucius V Starr. By this time, several of their land claims are no longer contiguous, as the settlers have begun selling and trading portions of their original parcels. McCarver would soon buy out additional adjacent plots.
The Judson and Delin names are still shown on the map, although in 1868 their land claims are long abandoned. After 1873, the railroad subdivided these areas and sold the lots creating New Tacoma through its real estate business, the Tacoma Land Company.
Tacoma Harbor in 1868. Map of Land Claims Tacoma Townsite. This version of the map appears in McCarver and Tacoma, by McCarver's son-in-law Thomas Wickham Prosch, published in 1906.
On the map, we see three names with close ties to the Carr family: Mahon, Byrd, and Stewart. William Mahon's parents arrived in Puget Sound about 1849, when he was a very young child. His father served as a Private at Fort Steilacoom before the family homesteaded in the Parkland area. William Mahon grew up to marry Mettie Carr in 1869.
Secondly, the Byrd family claims are owned by brothers G.W. and W.P. The extended Byrd family began migrating to Puget Sound in 1852, building a sawmill and gristmill on Chambers Creek near Steilacoom. Job Carr occassionally assisted as a millwright with tasks such as dressing burrs on the flour grinder. In 1869, Anthony Carr married Josephine Byrd, daughter of Mark Byrd who worked at the family mill. George Washington (G.W.) Byrd platted Tacoma's Fern Hill neighborhood in 1888.
The third connection on the map to the Carr family is A.W. Stewart. Abraham Williamson Stewart was a government-employed carpenter and wagon maker for the Puyallup Reservation. His wife Jerusha / Jerutia White Stewart gave Job Carr a pet kitten named Tom the Cat when he first arrived in the area.
Job Carr's survey telescope, from the Carr family collection at the Washington State Historical Society. Land claims were surveyed before they could be recorded on plot maps with county or territorial government officials.
Other notable names on the plot map include Dewitt Davisson who held the influential position of Pierce County Sheriff. He oversaw the territorial prison at Steilacoom – an antiquated stockade jail that housed inmates until the McNeil Island prison's completion around 1875. Davisson also operated a small furniture factory at Steilacoom Lake. And finally, John Gale was a miner and blacksmith who earned recognition in Tacoma for selling gold.
A map of Tacoma the following year would look much different, as new players saw Tacoma's potential for growth. In March 1869, Janet Elder Steele opened the Steele Hotel and Job Carr operated Tacoma's first post office from his log cabin. Eight months later, Anthony Carr and M.M. McCarver filed competing plats for Tacoma City. By December, the Hanson & Ackerson Mill opened on the waterfront, firmly establishing Commencement Bay as a center of the lumber industry and a trading port. The mill started a boom as laborers, artisans, and shopkeepers arrived with dreams of the coming railroad.
Photograph of Tacoma, ca 1870, from the Carr Family Collection. The view shows a growing city from about the location of the current Job Carr Cabin Museum looking eastward. Job Carr's original log cabin is the nearest building on the left side of the picture. Tree stumps are visible in the foreground, as lumber is being processed into lumber at the newly opened Hanson & Ackerson Mill. Homes and businesses have started to spring up along what would become N 30th St and several masts are visible from ships docked along the waterfront.
Take a closer look at the Museum's plot map in this short video:
Sources
Admin. “The Puget Sound War.” Native American Netroots, Native American Netroots, 3 July 2011, nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/996.
Bowlby, Mary. “The Carr Family: Separate Lives and Tacoma Reunion.” Job Carr Cabin Museum, Job Carr Cabin Museum, summer 2015, www.jobcarrmuseum.org/blog/the-carr-family-separate-lives-and-tacoma-reunion.
Clarke, S J. USGENWEB Archives - Census Wills Deeds Genealogy, 1928, files.usgwarchives.net/wa/pierce/bios/davisson173gbs.txt.
Daniels, Joseph. “Mining History of Pierce County, Washington Coal Fields, 1860 ... - DNR.” Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources, www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_ofr79-1_mining_history_pierce_co.pdf. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.
“George W. Byrd Residence, Tacoma.” Washington State Historical Society, Washington State Historical Society, www.washingtonhistory.org/research/collection-item/?search_term=byrd&search_params=search_term%253Dbyrd&irn=129140. Accessed 1 Dec. 2023.
“George Vancouver .” Northwest Power and Conservation Council, Northwest Power and Conservation Council, www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river-history/vancouvergeorge/. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.
Hunt, Herbert. Tacoma: Its History and Its Builders. S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1916.
“Inflation Rate between 1854-2023: Inflation Calculator.” CPI Inflation Calculator, Alioth, www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1854?amount=3200. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.
Morgan, Murray, and Michael Sullivan. Puget’s Sound: A Narrative of Early Tacoma and the Southern Sound. University of Washington Press, 2018.
Oldham, Kit. “Swan, James G. (1818-1900).” HistoryLink.Org, HistoryLink, 9 Jan. 2003, www.historylink.org/File/5029.
Prosch, Thomas Wickham. McCarver and Tacoma. Lowman and Hanford, 1906.
Rochester, Junius. “Wilkes, Charles (1798-1877).” HistoryLink.Org, HistoryLink, 17 Feb. 2003, www.historylink.org/file/5226.
“Treaty of Medicine Creek 1854.” GOIA, GOIA, goia.wa.gov/tribal-government/treaty-medicine-creek-1854. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.
About the Author
Madeline Teddy completed an internship with Job Carr Cabin Museum in Fall 2023. She was a graduate of University of British Columbia majoring in history and classical Near Eastern religious studies. She hoped to take her studies further and become a museum curator.