He was admitted as a member into the Tabernacle Baptist Church, and became acquainted there with a co-member, Capt. Amos O. Benjamin, an old resident of Seattle. Captain Benjamin was a man of varied adventure and business. He has been a soldier, a rancher, a shipmaster, a diver, a junk dealer, a wrecker, a dealer in furniture. Some time after Doctor de Soto and he formed their acquaintanceship, Benjamin was dealing in junk and became the owner of the dismantled hull of the steamship Idaho, which he bought from Cahn & Cohn for $250. Both of them inventive and benevolent, they conceived the idea of turning the hull into a hospital, in which to treat emergency cases along the water front of the city. They sought Judge Greene for such aid as he might be able to give them. He approved their plan and the Seattle Benevolent Society was organized April 1, 1899, to work the matter into operation. The society consisted of Roger S. Greene, Frank D. Black, Amos O. Benjamin, Alexander Beers, Alexander de Soto, James W. Cowan and George G. Bright. Judge Greene was president, Mr. Black vice president and Mr. Bright secretary. Captain Benjamin presented the Idaho to the society.

A suitable site was provided by the city in the water at the foot of Jackson Street, where a gridiron was built and the hull set upon it and put in serviceable repair. Doctor de Soto resigned from the board of trustees, in order to become lessee of the hospital and James Johnson, appointed in his place, became secretary. The hull was speedily built upon and fitted up as a hospital, under lease to the doctor, at the monthly rent of $20, which was to be rebated monthly so long as the management of the leased property should be satisfactory to the society.

The society has never changed its officers, nor its organization. Its property became widely known all over the city and up and down the Pacific Coast as the "Wayside Mission Hospital." Under Doctor de Soto's care it served a very useful purpose, receiving and treating the city emergency patients, for about four years. Doctor de Soto kept aboard the hospital a loyal henchman of his, an athlete and ex-prizefighter, whom he imported from the Atlantic seaboard, and whose duty was that of a sergeant-at-arms and special policeman, to keep unruly patients within bounds, protect property and prevent unauthorized intrusion. In July, 1904, Doctor de Soto's management became unsatisfactory, his lease was revoked and the leasehold turned over to Mrs. Fanny W. Connor and Mrs. Marion Baxter. They operated the premises until the hull became leaky and the Oregon Improvement Company, whose dock lay just to the north of the hospital, required for its own business new railway trackage on the south, and persuaded the city to remove the hospital ship. The hospital moved to the old "Sarah B. Yesler" at the northwest corner of Second Avenue North and Republican Street, where it was operated for several years, by the same name, under the management of Mrs. Baxter, caring for the city emergency cases until the City Hospital at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Yesler Way went into commission.

The injection of the Villard interests into transportation affairs on the Sound caused great uncertainty. Tacoma, backed by the men whom Villard had ousted from control of Northern Pacific affairs, trembled in her boots. In the late '70s Seattle had fought hard to retain her position as the largest city on the Sound. The Northern Pacific had used many means to cripple her and advance

the interests of the rival city. Seattle was not given a place on Northern Pacific maps and steamboat service, in railroad control, was so arranged that Seattle passengers over the Tacoma-Kalama line were forced to remain all night in Tacoma.

Intense bitterness, perhaps the most intense any two American cities have known, developed; and when Villard's election to the Northern Pacific presidency was announced, Seattle rejoiced. It was an elation not unmixed with foreboding Seattle hoped Villard would do something to give her railroad connection with the outside world; but she, like Tacoma, feared the successachieving Bavarian would be won over to his first love on the Pacific-Portland -and leave both rivals on a branch line.

Throwing all his ability into the work of completing the main line Villard induced his backers to advance large sums of money for construction work. Great preparations were made for driving the last spike. Special trains were sent from both ends of the line. Traveling on the one from Ainsworth (Pasco) were many persons prominent in Pacific Coast affairs, among them being J. W. Nesmith and John Bidwell. Nesmith had crossed the plains to Oregon in 1843, in the first wagon train over the old immigrant trail, while Bidwell had gone to California one year earlier in the first wagon train overland to that state. On the train from St. Paul came Villard, ex-President Billings and other railroad notables, General Grant, Hon. Henry M. Teller, Hon. William M. Evarts, British Minister Lionel Sackville-West, Sir James Hannen, German Minister von Eisendecker, Doctor Kneiss, of the Berlin University, and other notable Germans. The governors of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, Montana, Oregon and Washington were present.

Sixty miles west of Helena, in the Deer Lodge Valley, the ends of the line were brought within 1,000 feet of each other. Here the work ceased until after the speech-making and salute-firing of the celebration had come to a close, when 300 men quickly laid the rails and spiked them to the ties.

Assistant General Passenger Agent H. C. Davis, the man who, years before, had driven the first spike for the Northern Pacific, then advanced to the place in the line where the last spike was to be driven. He carried the same golden spike used on the former occasion. Davis, amid the cheering of the three or four thousand spectators, drove the spike which united St. Paul with the Columbia River by a band of steel. The bands played, cannon fired their salutes, and the first train from the East ran over the newly laid track on its way to Ainsworth, where connection was made with the Oregon Railroad & Navigation tracks for Portland.

Just before Villard boarded the west bound train for the purpose of accompanying the Northern Pacific's guests to the coast, he was handed the following telegram:

"Portland, September 8, 1883.

"Henry Villard, President, Northern Pacific Junction, Montana :—We have just driven the last spike on the 40-mile Portland and Kalama extension of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and you now have all rail from St. Paul to Tacoma on Puget Sound. "J. B. MONTGOMERY."

Montgomery was the contractor who had built the greater part of the KalamaTacoma line and alleged that he, as the agent of Jay Cooke & Company, went from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in 1869, and in the latter city sold $800,000 worth of the first $5,600,000 of Northern Pacific bonds. For more than thirteen years he had worked for the road which at one time owed him several hundred thousands of dollars.

Many of those attending the spike-driving came on to the coast, where they were given a warm welcome by Portland, Tacoma, Seattle and Victoria. Seattle's celebration in honor of Villard's visit was much more demonstrative than Tacoma's. Villard, to the Tacoma Land Company, was somewhat of an uncertain and dangerous element. Seattle was decorated as it never had been decorated before. The exercises were conducted at the old University, the feature of the event being an address by Miss Nellie Powell, daughter of President Powell of the University, to which the famous Carl Schurz replied: "On our march from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we have received many welcomes, waving bunting, the boom of cannon, grand illumination and many welcome addresses, but if I were Mr. Villard, I would feel proud of none of them as I would of the address of this young lady."

Shortly after President Villard returned East the Tacoma News. obtained an advance copy of a report which he made to the directors on September 20th, and in which he said the coal shipments from the Carbonado and South Prairie fields had reached a yearly total of close to one hundred thousand tons. Grading was in progress from Pasco westward towards the Cascades. Track laying on the extension into Seattle was expected to be completed before winter; Tacoma and Seattle each showed increased populations and a new ferry boat had arrived for use in crossing the Columbia River at Kalama.

The ferry boat Tacoma was built in New York and brought, in sections, around the Horn on board the ship Tillie E. Starbuck. The Starbuck was the first full-rigged iron ship built in America and arrived in the Columbia about the time the Northern Pacific's main line was completed. The Tacoma was put together and on May 17, 1884, was launched into the waters of the Willamette. The Starbuck's manifest showed that the Tacoma was shipped in 57,159 separate pieces. Her dimensions were: length, 338 feet; depth, II feet 7 inches; beam, 42 feet. On her deck were three tracks, running full length of the boat and providing 1,017 feet of track capable of holding a passenger train of ten coaches and two engines or twenty-one freight cars. She was put into service in September, 1884, and twenty years later still had five of her original crew, they being Capt. George A. Gore; Pilot Capt. William Simpson; Pilot John Larson; Chief Engineer Charles E. Gore and Pontoon Man Joseph Lawrence. During the first twenty years the Tacoma traveled a distance estimated at 350,400 miles in making the trips from Kalama across the Columbia River, a distance of about two miles.

Captain Gore was born in Detroit, Mich., in 1848, and at the age of fourteen began his marine experience as cabin boy on the Great Lakes. Three years later he was mate on a large vessel plying between Chicago and Buffalo. Leaving the lakes in 1871 to come to San Francisco, for a short time he was employed on the Sacramento River and then came to the Willamette, his first service there being on the Vancouver. Captain Gore served on almost every

boat running on the Columbia River during the '70s and early '80s, one of the most famous of these being the Ohio, the steamer whose Pitman rods were of gas pipe and the wheel entirely of wood. It is said that this boat had the habit of frequently dropping out a segment of her wooden wheel, at which time the captain would order the mate to lower a boat and go after the escaping portion of the vessel. He entered the service of the Northern Pacific in 1884, becoming master of the Tacoma, and during the long period of service made an enviable reputation, probably without a parallel in point of time and efficiency of service in the Northwest.

Capt. William Simpson served the Oregon Steam Navigation Company for fourteen years, during which time he was pilot, mate and master of boats operated on the upper river. He came to the Columbia in the early '70s, and for several years was pilot of the steamer Spokane, Captain Gore, master, and when Gore went to the transfer boat in 1884 Simpson went along as pilot. For twenty years, 365 days to the year and twelve hours to the day. Simpson was on duty without a single vacation from his post in the steamer's pilot house.

Pilot John Larson, a native of Norway, after years of experience as a deep sea sailor, landed in Portland in 1880 and entered the service of Willamette River steamboats. Four years later he went to the transfer boat Tacoma as pontoon man, advancing to the berth of mate and then to that of pilot.

Joseph Lawrence was born in Austria, came to America when quite young and after following the sea for a number of years, settled down as pontoon man on the Oregon side of the river and for twenty years he had assisted the transfer boat in making its landings.

CHAPTER XXIX

VIRGIL BOGUE SENT TO FIND A PASS-DISCOVERY OF STAMPEDE DESCRIBED BY CLARENCE K. CLARK-NORTHERN PACIFIC LAND GRANT BECOMES POLITICAL ISSUE— THE "ORPHAN RAILROAD"-BEN NETT DRIVES GREAT BORE BENEATH STAMPEDE PASS-SWITCH-BACK COMPLETED AND TACOMANS CELEBRATE-H. M. S. CAROLINE TAKES PART IN ELABORATE EXERCISES.

Early in 1881 plans were made for continuing the Northern Pacific eastward from Wilkeson over the Cascade Mountains-various passes were examined and in March President Villard sent Virgil Bogue into the mountains at the head of a corps of engineers. One of the members of this party was Clarence K. Clark, a native of Pierce County, who recently gave the following facts regarding the discovery of Stampede Pass:

"What is now called Stampede Pass was discovered by Mr. Virgil G. Bogue, assistant engineer for the Northern Pacific Railway, in March, 1881. He gave it the name of Pass No. 1. He also discovered and named Pass No. 2 and 3 while on the same exploration trip. He also examined the next pass to the north which was called Cedar River Pass, because the drainage led to Cedar River. Within one-third of a mile of the summit of Pass No. 1, where the pack-trail crossed, was a small lake, known as Stampede Lake.

"It was so named because, while the gang of trail cutters were camped at the lake they rebelled against their foreman and all but one man quit, and left the service. The one man who remained was Johnny Bradley-a Pierce County boy-who fastened to a tree a small piece of board on which he marked with a pencil 'Stampede Camp.' Bradley's name for the camp passed to the lake and later to the pass. It was my privilege to be rodman in the first engineering party to set a stake at the summit of Stampede Pass. A. O. Eckleson was assistant engineer in charge of the party, Thomas L. Nixon, transitman; Charles H. Ballard, levelman; and William H. Carleton, topographer.

"Two years later it was my privilege to be again assigned to work at Pass No. 1, which had been named Stampede Pass. In April, 1883, J. O. Barlow's locating party was ordered from the vicinity of Ellensburg to the summit to make the final tunnel location, which was accomplished early in May. Barlow's assistants were: S. P. Panton, transitman; 'Buge' Knowlton, topographer; and myself, levelman.

"The first to cross the Cascade Mountains and explore the Green River country. was Tilton Sheets, a Northern Pacific Company's assistant engineer. This was late in the fall of 1880.

"In November, 1880, to Captain Kingsbury, an assistant engineer, was assigned the task of taking an engineering party to the Green River summit. He was

Vol. 1-18