The Name "Mt. Rainier!' 



95 



an attempt to reach the summit of the mountain, accom- 

 panied by Surgeon R. O. Craig and Private Dogue. It 

 was Mt. Rainier, although he had Indian guides, and he 

 knew some of their language. During Governor Stevens' 

 term of office, he never used any other name. 



When P. B. Van Trump and Hazard Stevens made 

 the ascent, in 1870, the published accounts called the 

 mountain Rainier. In 1876, when General Hazard 

 Stevens republished a more detailed account of that suc- 

 cessful ascent in the Atlantic Monthly, the title was "The 

 Ascent of Takhoma," with this explanatory footnote: 

 *'Tak-ho'-ma, or Ta-ho-ma among Yakimas, Klickitats, 

 Puyallups, Nisquallys, and allied tribes of Indians, is the 

 generic term for mountain, used precisely as we use the 

 word 'mount,' as Takhomah Wynatchie, or Mount 

 Wynatchie. But they all designate Rainier simply as 

 Takhoma, or The Mountain, just as the mountain men 

 used to call it the 'Old He.' " 



During the Indian War or 1855-56 in that region, the 

 man who would have dared to suggest any Indian name 

 to the mountain would have been tabooed ; but times and 

 conditions have changed. 



In 1882, Hon. Elwood Evans, then of New Tacoma, 

 (and a classmate with us in the Central High School of 

 Philadelphia,) called together several old and reliable 

 Indians to give him the proper name of the mountain. 

 We give the result of this conference in the statement 

 of Mr. Flett. 



The claim that the Indians on the east and west sides 

 of the Cascade Range always called Mt. Rainier by the 

 name Tacoma is not sustained by native evidence. This 

 is clearly shown by the proceedings of the "Tacoma Acad- 

 emy of Sciences," published in pamphlet form in 1893. 

 At this special meeting old and young Indians of the 

 Puget Sound region insisted that their name of the moun- 

 tain was "Tacobet." 



Besides these Indians in attendance, there were letters 

 read with over forty names of Indians who had declared 



