CHAPTER XXVII BEGINNINGS OF TACOMA--BUILDING OF DE LIN MILL AT HEAD OF BAY-JOB CARR'S COMING CARR SELLS TO GENERAL MC CARVER, TOWN-BUILDER-THE "HOG'EMITE TERMINUS" SCHEME-PHILIP RITZ SUGGESTS NAME "TACOMA" FOR NEW CITYTOWN PROMOTERS DISAPPOINTED AT RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS CHOICE OF LOCATION-STRIKE AND BARRICADE AT CLOVER CREEK-ARRIVAL OF FIRST TRAIN, AND DRIVING OF LAST STRIKE-FIRST NEWSPAPER-SEATTLE, DEEP IN GLOOM BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO BE MADE TERMINUS, BOLDLY RESOLVES TO BUILD RAILROAD AS HER OWN AND DOES SO-COMMUNITY WORKERS BUILD THE GRADE-SEATTLE DEVELOPS COAL PROPERTIES OLYMPIA ORGANIZES TO BUILD RAILROAD—-BUILDING OF STATE'S PRISON AT SEATCO-RAILROAD DOESN'T LIKE NAME AND "BUCODA" IS INVENTED. At the close of the Indian War Nicholas DeLin and family returned to the home and sawmill at the head of Commencement Bay. Here they remained until 1861 when the mill was sold and the family moved to Seattle. DeLin found employment there on the new buildings of the University and later moved to Olympia. From Olympia they went to Portland and it was in the latter city that DeLin met Gen. Morton M. McCarver, Oregon pioneer and townsite locator. In his sixty-one years of life McCarver had assisted in founding two townsBurlington, Iowa, and Linnton, Ore., and when he heard of the plans of the Northern Pacific Railroad, he decided to have a hand in the founding of the city, which he felt sure to be built at the point at which the line touched salt water. DeLin's description of the country lying along the shores of Commencement Bay so impressed McCarver that in April, 1868, he set out on horseback from Monticello to the Sound. From the maps in the Olympia land office he obtained a good understanding of the "lay of the land" around the bay and a short time. later he reached Job Carr's cabin at "Chebaulip." Back in Iowa, in 1864-65, Job Carr was conducting a nursery when he heard that Congress had granted a charter for the building of the Northern Pacific from the lakes to the Sound. Carr sold his nursery and set out to seek the pot of gold he felt sure would be found at the western terminus. Crossing the plains. to California he turned northward and settled on 168 acres of land on the shore of Commencement Bay at a place which the Indians called Chebaulip. This was early in 1865 and Carr was still at work on his cabin, the first built in Old Tacoma, when his son, Anthony, arrived. The younger man had just been discharged from the army at Fort Steilacoom and came in time to rive the shakes. for the cabin. He took a claim near that of his father and the next summer they were joined by Howard, another son and brother. Howard took a claim, went back to Indiana and soon returned with his sister, Marietta. |