TV Interview for 'Currently Kirkland.'

This was an interview about my book I did with Christian Knight of the Currently Kirkland TV program. My segment starts at 4:45.

1925: Kirkland's Silent Sentinels

A 1925 newspaper photo from a story about the arrival at the Seattle waterfront of the two Model of 1898 seven-inch howitzers and two Model of 1898 five-inch siege guns that Kirkland's American Legion post used to decorate Kirkland's north and south entrances. The two howitzers that would grace Kirkland's northern entrance are shown in the above image.

Probably no organization was prominent and powerful force in 1920’s Kirkland civic life than the Warren O. Grimm Post 83 of the American Legion.

Its members were said to “run Kirkland”. Indeed, mayors and council members of that era were often legionnaires, for example popular town physician, Dr. Ernest McKibben, Sr., served as both the post commander and as Kirkland’s mayor.

Kirkland was quite proud of its vets’ service. Given that, to honor them the legion guys decided to redecorate the town--man cave style: with artillery pieces! 

This image of Kirkland American Legion Post 83 members in uniform at the southern guns' 1925 dedication is now in the Kirkland Heritage Society's collection. The date written below was likely added by someone years later, since it is incorrect--The record is quite clear that the four artillery pieces did not even arrive in Washington until 1925. H.P. 'Dick' Everest is seen fourth from the right.

This 1920's postcard views south and shows the two five-inch siege guns mounted on their pedestals on Lake Washington Boulevard, near today's 10th Avenue South.

Harold P. “Dick” Everest—Everest Park’s namesake--graduated from Kirkland High School in 1912 and from the UW in 1917. Next came the Army, for World War One, but Everest was not sent to France’s bloody trenches, instead he was stationed at Love Field, Texas, where he worked with the crude wood and canvas earliest combat airplanes. Following the war, Everest, Dr. McKibben, Sr. and A.C. “Coal” Newell formed Kirkland’s legion post and served as its officers. In 1922, the post even obtained a war surplus freighter it moored on the Kirkland waterfront as the post clubhouse, which members named ‘Fort Jackson’.

Former East Side Journal newspaper owner and publisher, Kirkland Investment Company president and University of Washington professor, department head, vice president and acting 1951-52 president H.P. 'Dick' Everest (1894-1967) seen in 1918 as a young US Army officer and in the 1951-52 school year, as many of today's senior Kirklanders remember him. Always a Kirkland booster, Everest led the 1920s effort to secure its artillery from the War Department.

H.P. 'Dick' Everest seen in WWI (Photo Kirkland Heritage Society, Everest Collection).

In 1924, the legionnaires decided to decorate Kirkland’s north and south entrances with artillery, so the high-achieving and persuasive Everest convinced the War Department to donate four obsolete Spanish American War-era pieces: two 5-inch M-1898 siege guns and two 7-inch M-1898 howitzers, two of 30 ever manufactured, neither of which saw action. A howitzer is a type of artillery piece characterized by a relatively short barrel which uses comparatively small propellant charges to send projectiles at relatively high trajectories, with a steep angle of descent. A gun has a longer barrel than a howitzer with a smaller bore which allows firing a projectile at lower trajectories at high velocities. Howitzer were typically used for ‘indirect fire’—shelling an unseen target—whereas guns were used for ‘direct fire’—targets in the gunner’s line of sight. So, guns’ barrels are typically longer and mounted at a flatter angle, whereas howitzers’ barrels are shorter and project at a higher angle. OK, enough Artillery 101...

Kirkland teen Stella Patty is seen in 1925 next to the seven-inch howitzers near Kirkland's north entrance prior to their placement on pedestals. Her friend, Alice Peck, is seen next to them the same day (below). Images of the northern entrance howitzers have proven quite elusive until Patty descendent, Patty (Fessenden) Barnhardt and her brother Warren Fessenden donated these from their family collection to the Kirkland Heritage Society last year, so a big thanks to them! (Stella Patty was their aunt).

The Seattle Times ran a gushing story with photo on January 4, 1925 about the four weapons’ New Year’s Day arrival on Seattle’s waterfront, from California’s Benicia Arsenal, and journey east, using a tractor borrowed from Seattle’s Central Ford Agency, up the hill via Madison Street to the Madison Park ferry dock, loaded there on the boat to Kirkland where they were ultimately placed on concrete pedestals; south, on Lake Washington Boulevard near 10th Avenue South, and north, on Market Street, near the city line—then at 18^th Ave, a few blocks south of today’s Juanita Bay Park, by today’s Asian Wok Restaurant.

The two northern howitzers left Kirkland in September, 1937, when the legion donated the two to Washelli Cemetery as a veterans’ memorial. On Memorial Day 1957 one was relocated to Brier’s Abbey View Cemetery. The southern siege guns were destroyed in 1942, falling not to hostile forces, but instead to a WWII scrap drive.

The 1937 Seattle Times article showing it was the northern howitzers which were moved to Evergreen-Washelli, not the southern guns. In past years this has been the subject of much confusion. 

 

As part of a  1957 Memorial Day celebration, the Seattle times reported that one of the two howitzers was moved from Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery in Seattle to its affiliated Abbey View Cemetery, in Brier.

This 1920's postcard views south and shows the two five-inch siege guns mounted on their pedestals on Lake Washington Boulevard, near today's 10th Avenue South.

Today: 

The Model of 1898 five-inch siege guns that once stood at Kirkland's southern entrance were melted down as scrap during WWII, but this image is of an identical field piece on display at Fort Douglas, Utah. 

 Evergreen-Washelli

This plaque commemorates Kirkland's American Legion Post's gift of the two northern entrance howitzers to Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery. One remains at that location today and has for 75 years been a part of Evergreen-Washelli's famous veterans' section.  

Manufacturer's plate for the Model of 1898 seven-inch howitzer at Evergreen-Washelli

     

The three images above show the howitzer at Evergreen-Washelli veteran's section today.

Abbey View

 

The howitzer which was moved to Abbey View in 1957 is missing its manufacturer's plate.

This post has been modified, but originally appeared May 15, 2012, on KirklandViews.com.

The M/V Kehloken, Then and Now

This photograph of the UW Husky crew in front of the old Lake Washington Shipyard, today's Carillon Point, was taken in 1977. So, while the image is newer than most displayed in this column, there is history there. The ferry in the background is the M.V. Kehloken, a 239 foot Alameda, CA built, all wood diesel electric that rolled off the ways in 1927 and was brought north to Puget Sound in 1937. She began work on the Suquamish-Indianola-Seattle run, but after a few years took over the Seattle-Winslow route. During WWII, her saddest task was transporting Bainbridge Island residents of Japanese-ancestry who were sent to interment camps. She was retired in 1972 and sold, her new owners towed her to Houghton tie up in 1975 at the site of the former Lake Washington Shipyards and planned to turn her into a clubhouse/restaurant. In 1979 she and much of the dock she was moored to caught fire and she burned to the waterline.

In 1983 her remains were cleaned up and towed off the south end of Whidbey Island where she was scuttled in 80 feet of water. The old M.V. Kehloken then began the final stage of her long life as an artificial reef, a popular angling and dive site today. After 29 years on the bottom she has accumulated considerable growth, which make her home to an abundance of varied marine life, an oasis on an otherwise barren, sandy bottom.

 The M. V. Kehloken during her Puget Sound years, c.1940s. 

The site of today's Carillon Point served as the Seattle Seahawks practice and training facility in the late 1970's. The M. V. Kehloken was included in the 1978 team photo.

The M. V. Kehloken and adjacent piers burned in 1979.

I have been away from the Puget Sound diving scene for a few years, but since this piece first ran on Kirklandviews.com, I mentioned this story to my super-diver friend Shannon Peterson and she got in touch with local underwater cinematographer Ryan Amberfield of Perfect Drummer Filmworks, Perfectdrummer.com. The stills below are from their just-released HD underwater film of the M.V. Kehloken as she is today, an artificial reef. Make sure to check the film out here: Kehloken Film

 

The 'C.C. Calkins' Calliope

It always astounds me how many amazing stories manage to reveal themselves when researching what seems, at first, a minor local history detail.

Today is a great example of that. I started out looking at what appeared on the surface a minor point: The historic Kirkland ferry clock. As a part of the current restoration effort, I have already amassed quite a bit of information, but in fact checking a few details regarding Captain John L. Anderson, who donated the clock to Kirkland in 1935, this seemingly quick and simple task ended up taking the better part of a Saturday, even with the benefit of a business-class, high-speed internet connection.

In my travels, I encountered a wide variety of occurrences, most of which I will share in later posts, but in relation to the Kirkland ferry clock found a unique musical steamboat, the first of its kind on Lake Washington.

John L. Anderson, born in Stenunsund, Sweden 1868, hailed from a seafaring family and at age 14 left home and went to sea as a cabin boy on a lumber and ore hauling ship his uncle owned. He fell ill on his second voyage and was put ashore in Quebec where, upon recovering, he took a job with the Canadian Pacific Railroad.

In 1888, Anderson, then 22, came to Seattle, Washington Territory, where he landed a series of deckhand jobs on various Puget Sound-based vessels.

A young and amazingly bright, ambitious lawyer-turned-speculator from Wisconsin named Charles Cicero Calkins, who went by “C.C. Calkins” professionally. Calkins, typical of many 1880’s-era speculators, came to Seattle in 1887 with $300 dollars cash and ambitious dreams. Within 10 days of his arrival he’d purchased about 21,000 acres on $19,000 of credit and within the year he held $170,000 worth of real estate, much of it on Mercer Island with his grand vision—he called it East Seattle.

Calkins and his business partners had purchased vast tracts of land on Mercer Island where they planned to carve out East Seattle, a beautiful resort community which still exists as a neighborhood on Mercer Island’s northwest shore. East Seattle’s centerpiece was the ornate, three story luxury hotel Calkins built in 1889. To shuttle guests and residents to East Seattle from Leschi Park on the Seattle side, his East Side Land & Development Company built a 78 foot steamboat—he humbly named the C.C Calkins--on the lake, south of Leschi, at John Taylor’s sawmill.  It was launched inauspiciously on March 21, 1890 with extra men being rounded up to wrest her free.

The Calkins Hotel stood on Mercer Island from 1889 until 1908 when it burned to the ground. 

Calkins personally hired the 22 year-old Anderson, who was part of the C.C. Calkins's inaugural crew, officially her quartermaster. He was given a place to live by her skipper, George Rodgers, a 42 year-old from Wisconsin. The third member of the CC Calkins's crew was its engineer, Captain Rodgers’ younger brother, Frank. It sounds like Frank may have missed his calling in life and was at heart a musician. He constructed the boat’s largest piece of equipment: a grand, boiler-supplied steam calliope which he mounted topside. It blew off a lot of steam, literally, when Frank played it, and his love of his music offset all the extra boiler stoking he had to do to keep the boat’s pressure up. 

The C.C. Calkins c.1890, I'm guessing that George Rodgers at the wheelhouse, Frank Rodgers on deck, left, and young John Anderson, right.

Frank’s great musical moment came in May, 1891 when the C.C. Calkins greeted the visiting President Benjamin Harrison. As Harrison approached the dock, Frank entertained the sizable crowd with his pipes, first with “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” followed by his rendition of “Home Sweet Home.” Harrison boarded the steamboat Kirkland for a spin around the lake and the C.C. Calkins and a flotilla of other boats followed, with Anderson tossing roses after the president’s boat as Fred serenaded with Lake Washington’s only steamboat calliope.         

Click here to see a short YouTube to hear music coming from a steamboat calliope.

 This is not the C.C. Calkins, but shows another 19th century steamboat-mounted calliope.

Also, if you could have had any song played, what would you have chosen?

1882: The Clark Family Tragedy

Diphtheria was once the messenger of a horrible death. It is an acute, infectious, bacterial disease that typically kills by asphyxiation. It chokes the life out of its victims. The bacteria, Corynebacterium diphtheriae, spread through respiratory droplets produced by the cough or sneeze of an infected person. The bacteria most commonly infect the nose and throat. The neck often swells as the victim struggles to breathe and swallow. The throat infection produces a gray-black or dirty-white, fiber-like covering, a tough adherent membrane, which typically blocks the airways which, unless relieved by intubation or a tracheotomy, usually kills the victim. Toxins, produced by the bacteria, can spread through the victim’s bloodstream to other organs, such as the heart, and cause death if the death is not caused by suffocation. Diphtheria has been all but eradicated in industrialized nations through vaccinations. This was not the case in 1882. Then it was a dreaded disease.

The Clark’s land patent, awarding them hard-won  title to their homestead in today’s Highlands neighborhood.

Martin and Eliza Clark, 28 and 26, came to San Francisco from Iowa by the transcontinental railroad in 1876 or possibly 1877, and from San Francisco took a sailing ship to Seattle with their two daughters, Sarah, 2, and Ora, 4.

According to their youngest son, Dr. Charles Walter Clarke, MD, writing years later, Eliza was petite, about five feet tall, with blond hair and a “merry disposition.” He described his mother as a devout Christian and a devoted wife and mother who came from pioneer stock. She was a descendant of Mayflower pilgrim Edward Doty, one of two indentured servants obligated to a tanner and merchant named Stephen Hopkins. Doty also signed the Mayflower Compact. Elisa’s later ancestors were among the first settlers in Ohio, who later pushed west to the then-frontier of Illinois and later Iowa.

Highlands Neighborhood pioneer Eliza Clark on her Kirkland homestead, c late 1800s

Martin’s ancestors were also early colonial settlers, arriving in Massachusetts in 1635 and later pressing on to Vermont, New York, and finally Iowa in 1854. Also a devout Christian, Martin was, like his father, a cobbler who hand-crafted fine shoes. But the prospect of independence, opportunity, and free land under the Homestead Act lured Martin to bring his young family to the wild frontier that was Washington Territory in the 1870s.

The family staked a claim near Green Lake, then well outside Seattle’s city limits. They built a cabin and made other improvements required by the government for a settler to gain title under the Homestead Act. Soon Eliza gave birth to a boy, Willis. But prior to proving up, the term for the process of gaining title to the land, the claim’s poor soil and other factors prompted Martin to sell his rights, for $175. In October, 1882, the Clarks moved east, across Lake Washington, to the dark primeval coniferous forest that then covered the Eastside.

Martin staked out 154 acres in what is today’s Highlands Neighborhood. The Clark’s claim was the hill and swampy bottom land below it. The claim contained less timber than most Eastside homesteads—Martin estimated there was fewer than 100,000 board feet on the land. And, like most of Kirkland, the soil was third-rate, composed mainly of sandy loam

Walter described his parents’ homestead: “Over mile after mile after mile stretched tall fir trees and hardly less imposing cedars. Measuring four to six feet in diameter at the height of a man, the firs towered one to two hundred feet toward the sky. Between these forest giants were smaller trees and shrubs—alders, hazel nut, willows, maples and ash. The forest floor was carpeted with vines and moss. Wild flowers grew in sunny spots. The terrain was a series of hills and valleys. In the valleys ran cool clean water abounding in brook trout and frogs. Large ferns decorated the margins of these streams about the deeper pools rushes and lilies crept from the marshy edges into the limpid water. Birds, rabbits, an occasional harmless snake and too friendly skunks inhabited the forest near the lake, but deep in the wilderness were black and brown bears. Those trappers and prospectors who penetrated the farthest into the forest told of hearing the blood-curdling scream of the cougar.”

The Clark homestead is shown in blue. Modern streets are shown for reference on this 1870 government survey map.

While Eliza and the children waited in Seattle, Martin readied their “ranch.” He cut what he called a road—today we’d call it a trail—three-quarters of a mile long, from the lake to their claim. As the site for their cabin he picked a hill in the center of their land. To make room for the new cabin he had to cut down two massive trees. This he did with the help of a friend and a double bitted ax and a ten-foot crosscut saw, or misery whip as these iconic tools were called. The mammoth trunks could not be used as timber, for there was no way to move them. To clear the logs and debris from their home site, Martin simply burned the logs and the stumps where they lay.

 

Dr. Charles Walter “Walter” Clarke and his sister Margaret (Clark) Habernal c.1910 with Margaret's daughter Theodora (Habernal) Wales. Dr. Clarke crafted a semi-fictionalized account of the Clark tragedy, wherein some names were changed, but homestead and other records confirm the events of those sad days in 1882. According to Clark decedents, Dr Clarke added an ‘e’ to his last name for professional reasons.

With the clearing completed, Martin brought rough cedar boards and shingles across from a Seattle mill in his rowboat and built a cabin about ten feet high and 24 by 26 feet, with four small rooms and two windows facing west. He also built and populated a chicken house, and for the children he fashioned a cradle and cribs.

Then Martin fetched his family. Walter wrote that Martin hefted Willis to his shoulders, tucked bundles under his arms, seized bags in his hands and led the way up the trail to the cabin while Eliza followed leading Sarah and Ora by their hands and carrying baskets and clothing under her arms. Each little girl dutifully carried some piece of kitchenware as they trudged up the muddy trail.

Walter recorded his mother’s reaction to her first glimpse of their homestead: “It’s wonderful, Martin. I’m glad we are home.”

Neighbors were few and widely scattered. The John DeMott family claim, about a mile away, was the present location of Kirkland’s downtown. About a mile east of the Clark’s homestead lived a native family. Walter referred to them as “Siwash,” a Chinook trade language term for Indians, derived from the French word sauvage for ‘savage.’ Walter described the couple as “…harmless people but ignorant and dirty” and their dwelling as a “hut” constructed of cedar bark. He wrote they were “old” and were called Sam and Mabel. They lived mostly on a diet of the fish they caught. These condescending words are some of the few early observations of native habitation recorded about Native Americans who lived among early Kirkland settlers, and were probably typical of the time.

Bill Perrault, a mysterious and fascinating character, lived about five miles to the east, deeper in the forest. Bill was a tall French-Canadian trapper who lived alone in a remote shack with his many hunting dogs. He made his living selling animal pelts he collected on his trap lines. Though other area settlers viewed Perrault with suspicion, because he had no interest in improving land, the Clarks offered him friendship and hospitality.

Their Eastside forest ranch generated no revenue, so Martin earned his living in Seattle as a shoemaker, staying in a boardinghouse weekdays and returning home on the weekends. Apprehensive about leaving Eliza and the children alone, Martin acquired a sizable dog they named Job and a double barrel black-powder shotgun of unrecorded gauge. Martin taught Eliza to fire the scattergun, but she didn’t care for it--being petite the recoil hurt her shoulder. The shotgun was stored loaded on the wall near the stove to keep its powder dry. Job was large and the cabin small and filled with the family, so Job was an outdoor dog. He would often howl at night at the unseen and unheard off in the darkness.

One night when Martin was in town Eliza heard a sound she thought was someone trying the cabin door. Nearly eight months pregnant, deep in the wilderness with her small children, her imagination conjured frightening scenarios involving Indians trying to harm them. Though Puget Sound-area Indians were typically peaceful people, there were occasional alcohol-related incidents of the type also frequently seen in the white population—especially among the young lumberjacks and seamen. Eliza arose from bed, dressed and examined the door and looked out the windows into the darkness, straining to see an intruder. In the twinkling firelight of the woodstove’s dying embers, she saw a blurred, shadowy shape and shining eyes. Panicked, she pulled the double barrel shotgun from its hook, raised the butt to her shoulder, pulled the trigger.

Ka-BAAAM! Eliza discharged a barrel and sent pellets blasting out the window’s glass. Black powder smoke and stench filled the cabin. The face vanished. Her shoulder throbbed from the recoil and the children were screaming and crying, awakened by the report. Dropping the shotgun, Eliza embraced her terrified children.

Little Lutie grew up to be a beautiful woman, seen here in 1904. In 1905 she married Ollis Patty, who had stopped in Kirkland to visit family briefly on his way to Alaska. Quite understandably, meeting young Lutie changed his plans--he canceled the trip, married her and the couple had four children. In 1905, Ollis became Kirkland's first City Treasurer, a position he held for about 40 years. Also in 1905, Lutie and Jennie Lowe were Kirkland High School's very first graduates. Lowe was unable to attend commencement, so Lutie received the very first KHS diploma alone on the stage. It is also interesting to note that Lutie is not wearing cosmetics, she was just a naturally very striking woman--then considered 'paint', wearing makeup was not considered socially acceptable by women of 'good' reputation, usually limited at that time to women who worked in the 'theatres' and saloons of Seattle's infamous Tenderloin District.

“It’s alright my darlings, nothing shall harm you,” she whispered, scooping them up, tucking them all into her bed. She recovered the shotgun and sat on the foot of the bed, cradling it in her lap as she spent the remainder of the night with her finger on the gun’s second trigger, listening and watching the door and windows attentively.

As dawn illuminated the east, fingers of warm light began poking through the primeval forest. Eliza dreaded walking out the cabin’s door into the clearing, convinced she’d see the intruder’s bloody corpse splayed on the ground.

Morning’s light filled the cabin. Eliza finally forced herself to arise and walk to the now glassless window through which she’d killed the intruder. She peered out and her eyes adjusted to the light. She saw no lifeless Indian, no white prowler, no bear or cougar. To her horror, she had killed their beloved dog, Job.

Eliza late in life, c. 1920

Martin stayed home after Job’s death because Eliza would soon give birth to their fourth child. There was plenty to do. He needed to plant a garden and resume the endless task of clearing his land.

Jeannie DeMott served as midwife for the birth of the new baby, a healthy girl they named Lucy, after Martin’s mother. Her siblings called her “Lutie,” and that she remained for the rest of her days.

As one of the first babies born to area settlers, Lutie drew gift-bearing visitors from neighboring homesteads. One day buckskin-clad trapper Bill Perrault appeared near the garden with his lever-action rifle resting over his shoulder and a bundle under his arm. After Martin greeted him, Perrault said, “Me I bring a petit cadeau for baby,” handing his gift to Eliza--a small, soft squirrel pelt rug which fit perfectly atop baby Lutie in her cradle.

That autumn, after returning home from Sunday services the two older girls complained of sore throats. Eliza, thinking they had colds, rubbed their necks with camphor-impregnated chicken fat and wrapped them in woolen stockings.

But the girls did not improve. Martin felt their feverish heads and peered down their red, inflamed throats. Eliza gave them sweetened water and put them to bed. But the girls tossed in their cribs all night and by morning it was obvious they were seriously ill. Martin looked at their throats again. The inflammation and redness was gone, replaced with an ugly, dirty white membrane that their tonsils and descended their throats. No longer feverish, the girls felt cold.

Martin raced down his trail to the DeMott’s place. “Grandma” DeMott was experienced with sickness and remedies. Martin hoped she could help his little girls. After he described their symptoms she looked at him gravely.

“Martin, your little girls have malignant croup or diphtheria as they call it now. It is going around Seattle and is very catching. I cannot come help you as I might bring the disease home to my grandchildren, it is terribly dangerous.” She sent Martin home with an ‘essence’ that was to be boiled in water, instructing that the girls must breathe the vapor. As Martin left, Grandma DeMott said, “I will pray for you.”

When Martin returned home the girls’ breathing was labored and they struggled for breath. Eliza was desperately trying to comfort them. Martin boiled water and essence in a pan and when he lifted little Sarah’s head so she could breathe the vapors she managed a weak smile for her dad. When Ora’s turn came she was far less responsive. The Clarks continued the vapor treatment throughout the day, but by evening Ora was seized by coughing, vomiting, and breathlessness. After midnight Ora slipped away. Her face turned purple, and, straining to breathe, she died. Martin carried his nine-year-old to the bed of he and Elize and covered her with a clean sheet.

Exhausted and in shock, Eliza watched Martin embraced her and reminded her that they had to focus on saving their other daughter. Through the night and into the next day they desperately administered the steaming essence vapors to Sarah. But as night fell, the six-year-olde slipped away and joined her older sister in death.

Martin and Elizawere paralyzed with grief. Willis called from his bed for a drink. Martin rose and brought his only son a cup of water. To Martin’s horror, the boy fingered his neck. His throat hur. Bringing an oil lamp nearer, Martin examined Willis’ throat. It was red and inflamed. The Clarks boiled more essence and had the boy breathe the vapors. It was all they knew to do.

A soft knock at the cabin door revealed Bill Perrault, distressed, fur cap in hand, ready to help his friends, unfazed that he was exposing himself to the deadly diphtheria. Perrault asked what could he do and Martin sent him to Seattle, in the desperate hope he might return with a doctor. The trapper sprinted down the trail to the lake, returning hours later with bad news: no one would come to help the Clarks.

As Perrault and Martin struggled to save the boy, Eliza passed out from exhaustion and shock. Though encouraged by the fact that Willis didn’t struggle to breathe as his sisters had—the girls died of asphyxiation—his ashen complexion was an ominous sign. Rapidly accumulating toxins were attacking the little boy’s organs. Martin held the steaming essence pan and Perrault lifted the boy from the crib and held him over it to breathe the vapors. But Willis had stopped breathing. His eyes were closed. Martin pressed his hand on his limp, motionless son’s small ches. There was no heartbeat. The three-year-old was dead.

Martin shouted in grief, awakening Eliza, who sprang from the bed and ran to her son’s side. Barely audible, the devastated woman whispered,“Our little boy is dead!”

Tears streaming down her face, Eliza dashed from the cabin into the dawn. Martin followed her a little knoll that today provides a beautiful view of downtown Kirkland, the lake, the Seattle skyline, and Olympic Mountains on the horizon. Martin held his wife.

“If I could only go with them!” she sobbed.

“We still have little Lutie, she needs you, and so do I,” Martin replied.

Bill Perrault dug three small graves. With cedar boards left over from building the cabin, Martin made coffins for his children. Eliza dressed them in their Sunday clothes and changed into her best dress. Martin donned his Sunday suit and then placed the bodies of Ora, Sarah, and Willis in their coffins and carried them to the their graves on the sunny knoll. The Clarks and Perrault read verses from the Holy Bible and they prayed, and then were silent for a time. Finally, Eliza gathered Lutie and with Martin returned to their cabin. Bill Perrault remained behind and filled in the three small graves. When he finished, he stopped at the cabin, bid the Clarks goodbye and disappeared into the dark forest.

Eliza awoke with a sore throat the next morning. Desperate, Martin decided to take her into Seattle. As he hastily constructed a litter from saplings, Perrault arrived and when Martin asked for his help, and the Frenchman replied, “Mais oui, certainement.”

The men carried Eliza and Lutie down the trail to Martin’s boat and rowed the five miles across the lake, finally carrying them another four miles down a muddy trail called Madison Street today and into the smelly, smoky little sawmill settlement of Seattle.

Martin’s worst fears were realized. Seattle’s one hospital refused diphtheria cases and no hotel or other lodging allowed them accommodations. They slogged desperately over Seattle’s notorious deep muddy roads with the sick woman and the infant. The epidemic monopolized Seattle’s few doctors. Residents, fearing diphtheria with good reason, offered no assistance. With darkness approaching, with no shelter at hand, and in despair, a kind woman approached and asked, “Are you in trouble?”

The woman wore a nun’s habit. The sister approached and Martin and Perrault described their plight.

“Come with me, we will care for your wife and child.”

Years later Walter wrote that Martin described their rescue by the nun as a miracle. The nuns found a doctor who would treat the woman and her baby. Eliza recovered, and Lutie never showed symptoms of the disease that killed her siblings.

Lutie, Margaret and Walter, on Eliza’s knee, seen c. 1887 on the family homestead. The background suggests the family was still clearing their land.

After Eliza recovered Martin rented a house in Seattle for the three of them and he returned to shoemaking. An affidavit in their homestead file states that they remained in town for about four months. Martin and Eliza now faced an important decision. Would they return to their homestead and its haunting reminder of their pain or would they start fresh elsewhere?

Martin put this question to Eliza and she did not hesitate. They would to return to their ranch. She intended to plant flowers near the graves. She would not leave her children.

With Bill Perrault’s help, the family did return and began anew. The Clarks had two more children: Margaret, born in 1885, and Charles Walter—who Martin nicknamed “Captain” —born in 1888. They also took in and raised two abandoned kids, John Royle and Mary Clark (not related).

Well earned happiness. Martin Clark with his granddaughter Margaret Alice (Patty) Fessenden (1906-96). After their tragedy, the Clarks took great joy in their children and grandchildren.


As time went on Kirkland grew. Like most of Kirkland’s homesteaders, the Clarks sold portions of their 154 acre claim to pay taxes and other obligations incurred during the tough depression years following the 1892-3 failure of Peter Kirk’s steel mill. The Clarks were among the founding members of the First Baptist Church of Kirkland, which began in Houghton in 1888 and moved to Fifth Avenue, across from today’s Kirkland City Hall, in 1889. The Kirkland Cemetery was established in 1888 and at some point after that the three Clark children who died in 1882 were removed from their graves and moved there where they rest today with their parents, older sister Lutie, her husband Ollis Patty, and their daughter Stella Patty.

A sad, final footnote to the Clark story is the census record that reveals that another of the Clark children died in childhood, likely in Iowa, before the family came west. Many of Kirkland’s settlers lived with similar heartbreak. Such losses, unimaginable today, were part of life for Washington Territory’s pioneers.

Most of the Clark family rest together today in the Kirkland Cemetery. Margaret Habernal is with them there as well. Eliza was true to her word, she and Martin never left the children they lost in 1882.





Note: This article was informed by an account written by the late Dr. Charles Walter Clarke, MD. For reasons unknown, he changed his surname’s spelling to ‘Clarke.’ All dialogue and related details came from his account. Federal census data also contributed, as did the Clark’s Government Land Office (GLO) land file, opened in 1883 and completed in 1888. It was recently purchased by the Kirkland Heritage Society (KHS) and contains an abundance of fascinating detail about the Clark family’s early years in Kirkland. KHS recently ordered GLO files for a large number of Kirkland pioneers, primarily of those who settled the three newly annexed neighborhoods. Heartfelt thanks to Patty (Fessenden) Bernhardt, Lutie (Clark) Patty’s granddaughter, for her generous donation to KHS of precious family photos, including several of her grandparents and great grandparents, Martin and Eliza Clark. Special thanks to my amazing friend Marianne Reinsfelder for her inspiring support and encouragement with this article. (Originally appeared on Kirklandviews.com, June, 11, 2011). 

Lutie's granddaughter, Patty (Fessenden) Barnhardt with Matt McCauley in 2010 at the Kirkland Heritage Society Resource Center. Mrs. Barnhardt has kindly donated many items that have helped bring to life the story of her Kirkland pioneer family. (Loita Hawkinson photo)

One of the first babies born in today’s Kirkland, little Walter Clark grew up, becoming Dr C. Walter Clarke, and in spite of the tragedy his family experienced, Walter grew up to become a distinguished, award-winning physician, medical researcher, and president of the American Social Health Association, dedicating his career to the eradication of the enormous human suffering caused by venereal disease.

A Look to the Past: Kirkland – Regarding Henry… the first to permanently settle in Kirkland

In telling the story of Kirkland’s beginnings there was a tough, brave young man–some would say still a boy–now long-forgotten by most. His name was Henry and he was the first, literally the first, to take a land claim in the rugged wilderness of 1870 that would become Kirkland. He also had the distinction of being one of the three young men who petitioned King County for Kirkland’s first road, which was also the Eastside’s first King County road.

But there is no plaque dedicated to him. No park, street, creek, hill, school or trail is named in his honor. He has fallen victim to an unintended historical slight: Invisibility.

At least until now.

An early Washington Territory logger with his double bitted axe and ‘misery whip’ crosscut saw. This would have been a familiar scene to Hubbard and Goldmyer. 

During the late 1860s to early 1870s three to 12 man logging crews worked Lake Washington’s shoreline, harvesting the big trees by hand. These pioneer loggers had no oxen teams and steam donkey yarding engines were not yet in use; the trusty, iconic 3-foot gauge geared locomotives were still decades away. Facing incredible danger, with no safety gear, the early loggers carved notches–sometimes as high as 10-20 feet off the ground–in the trees’ trunks with their double bit felling axes to position themselves above these trees’ wide bases. Into these notches, the lumbermen inserted stout planks–called springboards—on which to stand and then began the physically demanding ax work: carving out the ‘backcut,’ a wide, deep notch in the trunk. Once a sufficient backcut had been slowly chipped out, the team switched to a long crosscut saw, called a ‘misery whip.’ A man gripping a handle at either end, they sawed, back and forth, until the mighty giant toppled into the backcut and violently crashed into the forest floor. Sometimes, a fallen tree would hang up in surrounding trees and create one of the most dangerous situations in the woods. Such hung up trees were called ‘widow-makers’ and clearing them was often deadly. Logging then was a trade of indescribable danger, in fact it still is.

US Deputy Surveyor Walter B. Hall’s 1870 map of township 26N, 5E shows Juanita Bay much larger than it is today and Martin Hubbard’s cabin on the eastern edge of his claim, adjoining Goldmyer’s 160 acres. 

Lacking any mechanical means to manipulate logs on the ground, these early Eastside lumbermen cut the trees growing closest to the water first. Once down, the giants were cut into sections and ‘bucked’ (limbs removed) and then rolled into the lake. After about 1880, the lucky crews had oxen to assist in the exhaustive process. Once a raft of logs was assembled, then began the arduous task of moving it down the lake. Because powered towboats did not appear on the Lake Washington until well into the 1870s, these early days of hand-logging often required the lumbermen to drop an anchor from a row boat, ahead the log raft, then slowly winch the raft to the anchor, and repeat the process over and over, inching the raft down the lake to the Black River, where the logs were floated–with much painstaking effort–into Puget Sound and to the mills where they were cut into boards and used locally or shipped to distant markets.

When in October and November of 1870 US Deputy Surveyor Walter B. Hall led his team through the two townships that comprise today’s Kirkland, the maps he drew as part of his surveys revealed something the 1850s General Land Office surveys had not: Settlers.

During October, Hall and crew surveyed Township 26N, Range 5E, which comprises today’s north and south Juanita, part of Finn Hill, Totem Lake and Kingsgate neighborhoods and farther north, into today’s Woodinville and east about four miles beyond the Sammamish Slough.

Walter B. Hall’s map of township 25N, 5E shows just two cabins south of Juanita, those of Nancy McGregor and her son James Popham, misidentified as “J. Tahham,” on today’s Yarrow Bay, then called Pleasant Bay. The Popham brothers and their mother would abandon their claims in 1874 and relocate to California. 

Hall noted the existence of only one dwelling in the entire 36 square mile township. It was a cabin on the north side of Juanita Bay—where today’s Juanita Village development now stands—and it belonged to logger Martin W. Hubbard, who’d turned 21 a few months earlier. Hubbard was from New Hampshire and had filed a claim for 157.5 acres on the north side of Juanita Bay.

Just across the lake at Sand Point, 25 year-old, Virginia-born William Goldmyer took a claim late in 1868. Goldmyer, the son of German immigrants, had traveled from Ohio to San Francisco, arriving in 1861. In 1863, his youthful wanderlust propelled him to hike from California to the fledgling Washington Territory. He later wrote that he made the journey on foot so he could, “get a good view of the country.”

William Goldmyer built a cabin and worked as a logger along the lakeshore. By 1870, his 19 year-old brother Henry was living with him. Perhaps young Henry looked longingly across the lake to Juanita Bay, where land was just becoming available to those who would settle on and improve it, or for purchase at $2.50 per acre.

Around the same time Hubbard established his claim, Henry Goldmyer claimed 160.35 acres at the northeast side of Juanita Bay, which prior to the lake’s lowering nine feet 1916 when the Lake Washington Ship Canal’s Montlake Cut was excavated, Juanita Bay was much larger and the shoreline was well past today’s 98^th Avenue NE. It seems logical that the young loggers would choose to make their claims on Juanita Bay, which appears a superior, well-protected site on which to store and raft logs—a huge log pond, of sorts.

Hall’s survey crew moved south into Township 25N, 5E in November, 1870. That township comprises the remainder today’s Kirkland neighborhoods and Houghton, east to Lake Sammamish and runs south, just past Meydenbauer Bay. On the lake at today’s Houghton were then two cabins, one belonging to Nancy McGregor, a widow, and another belonging to her grown son, James Popham—who Hall misidentified as “J. Tahham.” A second Popham brother, William Thomas “Tom” Popham, had a claim at the very southern portion of today’s Yarrow Bay but had not yet built a dwelling there.

Life on the lake was tough and lonely in 1870 and carving homesteads out of the thick, wet forest under frequently dreary gray skies extracted a considerable physical and mental toll on the first settlers. Many noted symptoms of depression. For this and other reasons, large numbers of early homesteaders sold or simply abandoned their claims prior to being awarded title by the federal government. Nancy McGregor owned her claim but her health was and issue and by about 1874 she and her sons had sold their claims and had moved on to California. Not much was recorded about them, but an early 20^th century newspaper article, informed by interviews with surviving pioneers who had known them, revealed the Popham brothers as highly skilled hunters and during their short time here they shot six cougars and many black bears—bear steaks being very popular settlers’ fare.

Goldmyer and Hubbard’s signatures, from their 1872 road petition.

Kirkland Heritage Society’s president, Loita Hawkinson, and I have both researched extensively the name Juanita’s origin. Hawkinson has unearthed a newspaper clip of that name being used in 1872, the oldest reference located thus far. Many modern published explanations of the settlement’s name state that the community was originally called Hubbard, after Martin Hubbard. Some of these writers mention a “Hubbard family,” but records show Hubbard never married and had no natural or adopted children. In the 1880s, the US Postal Service awarded Hubbard a mail contract and at that time the small settlement that had sprouted on the bay was called Hubbard by the US Postal Service, but it had been called Juanita well prior to the postal designation. Legend holds that the place was named after a then-popular song, Nita Juanita, but documenting this legend has been quite challenging.

During the summer of 1872, Hubbard and Goldmyer performed another Kirkland first: They petitioned for the Eastside’s first King County road. The two young men, along with John Steeves, who had homesteaded land due east of Juanita, on the Sammamish Slough, spent three days surveying the route of their proposed road:

“Commencing at Henry Goldmyer’s Landing on the East side of Lake Washington thence running on the section lines between 29 and 32 to the quarter post between sections 28 and 33…through the Western portion of John Steeve’s and William Wells’ claims.”

King County records from August 6, 1872 clearly show that Goldmyer, Hubbard and Steeves are responsible for Kirkland’s first road, today’s NE 116th Street. 

The men filed their petition on August, 5, 1872 and the next day it was accepted and declared a road, designated King County Road Number 33. By 1877 it was called R. Langdon Road, after Rowland Langdon, who arrived that year and homesteaded today’s McAuliffe Park. Today we know Hubbard and Goldmyer’s road as NE 116^th Street.

On August 3, two days before the men filed their road petition, Samuel and Caroline French, recent arrivals from Maine with their grown son, Harry, paid Alfred Smith $350 to relinquish his land claim near Nancy McGregor’s place, at today’s Houghton. Smith had not yet acquired title to the land and Sam French essentially paid Smith to abandon the 77.8 acres to him so French could complete the residency and improvement requirements—called ‘proving up’ one’s claim—to acquire the first title, called a ‘patent,’ from the government. The French family was long credited as being Kirkland’s first permanent settlers, but since South Juanita was annexed into the City of Kirkland, that title must go to Hubbard whose residency not only pre-dated the Frenches by two years, but who, with Goldmyer and Steeves, had also managed to establish a county road just as the French family was arriving.

In 1876, Goldmyer sold his Juanita claim—he’d owned it outright since October 10, 1872 via a cash sale making Henry the first Kirkland pioneer awarded a patent—and had moved to 10 acres just south of Seattle’s Beacon Hill. He continued to spend his time logging on the Eastside, however. Often loggers of this time stayed in temporary camps located wherever they were cutting trees.

Once his debts were settled, all that remained in Martin Hubbard’s estate was just enough to purchase his grave marker. 

The June 1, 1877 Daily Pacific Tribune newspaper contains a brief, final mention of Henry Goldmyer. On May 30^th, he and his logging crew were floating a raft of logs down the Sammamish Slough (Then called the Squak Slough). Standing upright on a wet, bobbing, loose collection of logs was risky; Henry slipped and fell. His head struck one of the logs and everything went black, forever.

An 1887 news account of Martin Hubbard’s death. 

His crew watched in horror as he slipped beneath the surface and under the raft. They searched all day for Henry, but to no avail. The following day a group of Indians found his body washed up on the shore. His remains were taken into Seattle and on June 2 his funeral was held in Yesler Hall and he was interred at Lakeview Cemetery, then called the Masonic Cemetery, though his grave is unmarked because after the debts were settled his estate did not have enough money leftover to purchase one, though he’d done reasonably well for himself financially by 27 year-old pioneer standards. By that time his brother William was married with young kids and it seems likely that it just wasn’t in the family’s budget for him to provide one for his little brother Henry—but that’s just speculation.

This 1920 Map of Juanita Bay shows the current shoreline with a solid line and the pre-1916 lake level with a dashed line. It clearly shows that the foot of NE 116th St was originally at the lakeshore. 

With some tragic irony, a decade later, on May 28, 1887, Martin Hubbard, then 37, was, like his old pal Henry, standing on a floating log raft–though Martin was on Juanita Bay. As Goldmyer had done, Hubbard slipped off a wet log and struck his head, lost consciousness, slid beneath the lake’s surface and never awoke. His body was located the following day by O.C. Shorey’s undertaking firm of Seattle, submerged iunder15 feet of water. Shorey’s invoice was included in Hubbard’s probate records and reveals that Shorey tacked onto the bill an additional $2 charge for removing Hubbard’s remains from the lake. His burial clothes were $10 and his coffin cost $40.

Taken from the foot of NE 116th St, this is the approximate location of Goldmyer’s Landing today, facing south. The building, constructed in 1969 as a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant, is on land that was lakebottom prior to 1916—the old shoreline was (roughly) at the sidewalk. The Juanita Bridge is in the background. Very few people realize that this unremarkable scene is actually Kirkland’s most historic site of the pioneer-era. 

When he died Hubbard still owned all the Juanita Bay land, less the nine acres he’d sold Dorr Forbes for a shingle mill. Hubbard and his business partners also owned a team of oxen used in their logging business. Based on an affidavit in Hubbard’s probate file containing Forbes’ testimony, Hubbard’s logging outfit was a ramshackle, hand-to-mouth operation. Hubbard had no family out west, his estate’s executrix was his sister who lived back east. He was also buried at Lakeview, though his grave is marked with a simple, flat stone that his estate paid a little over $200 for—that was all that was left over after his debts were paid.

After Henry’s 1877 death, new settlers started arriving. These were not bachelor lumberjacks, but married couples with children, many of whom put down Juanita roots lasting for generations. They’d never met Henry Goldmyer, but knew Martin Hubbard for a decade before his accident. It is perhaps for this reason that irrespective of his hard work and colorful, albeit short, life that local legend and written history gave Henry short shrift. Martin W. Hubbard was remembered, but Henry H. Goldmyer was forgotten, becoming Kirkland’s invisible pioneer.
At least until now.

(Note: Special thanks to Tom Hitzroth, a Kirkland native and noted authority on Eastside pioneers, for sharing his collection of period documents and extensive research on Goldmyer and Hubbard).