18803 Washington Territory 



the fisheries in the various towns, especially Seattle, 

 Port Townsend, New Westminster, and Victoria. 



By 1880 the territory of Washington was beginning 

 to feel ambitious. Already a number of small Sound 

 saw-mill settlements had sprung up along the mag- 

 nificent landlocked expanse of Puget Sound. The 

 most important cities were Olympia, the capital, 

 and Port Townsend, the metropolis. Tacoma 

 boasted fewer than a dozen houses, but the rail- 

 way from Portland having reached the town, it 

 had great prospects due to its incomparable site, 

 a smooth plateau sloping gently to the sound. 

 Directly in front, moreover, towers the majestically 

 beautiful pyramid of Mount Rainier, 14,520 feet 

 high, illumined on our first evening by a superb 

 alpenglow, the rosy reflection on snow from red 

 sunset clouds. Yet its noble harbor, Commence- 

 ment Bay, is not well adapted for shipping, because 

 the great depth of water, the result of deep scoring 

 by glaciers from the mountain, makes it difficult 

 for anchors to touch bottom. 



The neighboring town of Seattle, destined to be- 

 come a great city, its whole water front being 

 available for wharves and docks, was then just 

 beginning to find itself. And even so early the 

 people modestly maintained that some day the 

 population of Washington would be large enough 

 to justify its recognition as a state. With that idea An infant 

 in mind they had already laid at Seattle the founda- universif y 

 tion of the future State University, an infant in- 

 stitution located in a private residence on the hill. 

 The faculty consisted of Dr. Alexander J. Anderson, 

 the president, and his wife and daughter. To the 

 forty students, more or less, I gave a lecture on the 



C 223 3 



