| The 1800s | Jerry Meeker | Patent Deeds | 1st B.P. residents | Oscar - The Musician | Scotsman on B.P. | Hyda Park Platted |
In the spring of 1792, Captain George Vancouver and his men, who were exploring in the name of King George III of England, became the first white men to view the twin points. On May 8, 1792, Vancouver sighted the huge mountain which he named Mount Rainier for Rear Admiral Peter Rainier, an old friend. The sighting had been made from Marrowstone Point near Port Townsend near the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
On May 20th Capt. Vancouver sent Peter Puget on the launch and Mr. Whidbey on the cutter, which were two of their long boats, on a mission to explore the southern part of the extensive arm of water he called Puget Sound. They rowed along the western side of Vashon Island toward the South Sound.
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Reenactment of 1992 in replica of surf boat used by boathouse crew of early 1900s. |
Reenactment of 1992 in replica of longboat used by Capt. Vancouver. |
On Saturday, May 26th, before Puget's return, Vancouver decided to do some exploring on his own. He took the "Discovery's" yawl and the "Chathums'" cutter, two small boats, down the east side of Vashon Island. About noon, he and his men made their way south across the water to the other side and stopped to eat on the eastern shore in a small cove which is located on the north edge of Browns Point. The cove is the place that today is called Caledonia Beach. In his journal he describes the meal and how he was greeted by a clamming party of about a dozen natives; possibly members of the Puyallup tribe. He reported that he drew a line in the sand to specify that the natives were to eat on one side and the white men on the other; he did not want them looking over his shoulder as he ate. However, two natives crossed over the line. Capt. Vancouver offered the men venison pie, but believing it was human meat the natives were horrified and would not eat it. Finally some of the group of natives were taken to the cutter at the water's edge and shown the haunch of the animal. Satisfied, they consented to join their visitors in eating the pie.
Looking toward Caledonia beach from the point.
After lunch Vancouver and his men rowed around the point into "an extensive, circular, compact bay," Commencement Bay. He had been hoping that this would be the easterly waterway that would lead him to the "Lake of the Woods" or Minnesota. King George had intended that Vancouver find a body of water that would link the west to the east. Instead he saw this view:
. . . The waters washed the base of Mount Rainier though its elevated summit was yet at a very considerable distance from the shore, with which it was connected by ridges of hills rising towards it with gradual ascent and much regularity. The forest trees, and the several shades of verdere that covered the hills, gradually decreased in point of beauty until they became visible, when the perpetual clothing of snow commenced . . . (Capt. George Vancouver, A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World (Picadilly, 1801), II, 134.)
The area was surveyed by both U.S. Naval ships and British Navy frigates and brigs during the period between 1841 and 1877. Charts have been found that show an 1840s expedition naming today's Browns Point as Point Harris; after a sailmaker's mate, Alvin Harris. It is not certain whether the point was named after a member of the 1846 British expedition or the 1877 U.S. expedition. Dash Point could be named for a man or a ship from either expedition. It is certain, however, that both points received their names between 1841 and 1877. Browns Point was known as Point Brown until about the 1920s. During the 19th century Dash Point was used as a geodetic survey point.
On December 12, 1887 a fixed white light lens lantern was placed on a white post on Point Brown. It was about twelve feet above sea level and 50 yards from the low water end of shore. This was two years before Washington became a state.
Perhaps
the most instramental person in the development of the Browns Point/Dash Point
area, and certainly the most well known by early residents, was Jerry Meeker.
He was born at Fern Hill in 1862 to the Puyallup native known as Sky-uch. Sky-uch
took the last name of Meeker from his employer, Ezra Meeker who is known for
coming to the west coast over the Oregon Trail by wagon and oxen. Jerry's father
worked for many years as a busboy and helper on the Meeker ranch. Jerry worked
in Meeker's hop fields as a boy. He took the name Jerry from one of his favorite
white friends. The three schools for natives Jerry attended were: St. George's
Indian School at Spring Valley, Forest Grove Indian School at Chenawa near Salem,
Oregon, and Cushman Indian school on the Puyallup Reservation. One of his early
endeavors was to organize and Indian band on the reservation. A total of $1,500
was raised for instruments and uniforms. He was the drum major of the band.
In 1883, the same year he organized the band, he married Eliza O'Dell and settled on a farm on the reservation. Much later, after Eliza's death in 1925, he married Lilliam Arquette. Jerry's life from the 1800s until his death was very much involved with the growth and development of Dash Point and Browns Point. He was one of the few literate natives on the reservation in the late 1800s. This made him an indispensable asset to the white buisinessmen and government, and to the tribal chief and his people.
In 1854 the Medicine Creek treaty had been signed by Issac I. Stevens, Govenor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs of Washington Territory and the chiefs and delegates of the Nisqually, Puyallup, Steilacoom, and other tribes of the lower Puget Sound region. It was ratified by Congress and President Franklin Pierce in April of 1856. In June of that same year, the Puyallups and Stevens renegotiated the size and location of the reservation which was again surveyed and declared the new reservation. Due to the treaty, the President issued an Executive Order in January 1857 creating specific Indian Reservations, including the Puyallup Indian Reservation.
The Browns Point and Dash Point areas were a part of the Puyallup reservation. There were many disputes between the Government and the natives from 1857 to the end of the century and later over the surveys of boundaries and tidelands. Upon urging by the Puyallup tribe, a survey of the reservation was made in 1872 assigning plots of land to individual tribal members. After they had proven that they were occupying and cultivating their assigned allotments, 167 patent deeds were signed by President Grover Cleveland and issued to the individual Puyallup natives in March 1886. Each native was given approximately 160 acres of land. Forty acres were farm land on which the native and his family lived and made their living. The remaining 120 acres were usually hilly, tide, or swamp land. The Government intended that the 120 acres would be likened to investment property and would insure substantial financial stability for the family that owned it.
Ten Puyallup natives were patent deeded property on Browns Point and Dash Point. The names and locations can be viewed on the map below.
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In
1901 the first lighthouse and a house for the lighthouse keeper were built.
The lighthouse was a wood frame structure on wood pilings off shore. At low
tide one could walk to the lighthouse, but at high tide it was necessary to
take a row boat. The first white residents of Browns Point were the lighthouse
keeper, Oscar Brown, and his petite wife Annie. They
arrived by government boat in October or 1903. Their household furnishings were
unloaded at high tide. Oscar's cherished piano sat covered outdoors for several
days until men came from Tacoma to help move it into the house. The Brown's
horse and cow were unloaded with a sling and then they swam ashore.
The rowboat used by Oscar and his crew of two or three men no longer exists, but a replica of the rowboat was reconstructed by boat builder Mark Vlahovich in 1994. It is housed in the original boathouse located next door to the lighthouse keeper's house and can be viewed when you visit the park.
For
the next 30 years Oscar Brown tended the light and the battery operated the
bell. Every evening at the exact time of sundown Brown would light the lamp
in the attic. Each morning at sunrise he put it out. When the bell rang all
night long due to fog, he had to rewind the mechanism every three quarters of
an hour. When the bell would not function properly during a fog, he and Annie
manned the lighthouse; he with a sledge hammer and she with a timer. She monitored
the timed intervals as he struck the bell.
Over the many years after 1903, children who lived on Browns Point were particularly impressed with the military ceremonies that were part of the lighthouse tenders (Manzanita & Columbine) visits to deliver supplies. This occured at least once a year and always proved to be fascinating with Oscar Brown seen in his full military form and regalia. As the tenders anchored, he stood at attention as the officers and sailors boarded long boats and approached the lighthouse. As they landed on shore all oars were shipped (went straight up). After supplies were unloaded, the men returned to the tender with the same formal military procedure as in the approach.
Oscar
was also a musician. He was the music teacher for many of the area's children.
Many of his former students remember him as looking like the great fisherman
of the sea with a profile like the Indian on the "buffalo head" nickel.
He had large, gnarled hands which amazingly did not deter him from being an
accomplished pianist. He also loved attending concerts in Tacoma. Before there
were any roads on Browns Point, Oscar and Annie were known to take an evening's
last launch across the bay to Tacoma. They would attend a concert and return
on foot via the tideflats and climb the big hill to Northeast Tacoma for their
late return home.
He apparently was a very engaging and interesting personality, especially loved by children. Young people were known to come by small launch from Tacoma (they could rent row boats from the Foss Launch Co.) to crab and fish, and also to see Oscar Brown who delighted in showing them the lighthouse. His mother, whom everyone called Mother Brown, was an avid flower gardener who made the grounds around the lighthouse keeper's house a floral showplace.
Another
prominent white man on the scene was Captain Mathew McDowell, a Scotsman who
was born in the mid 1800's in Northern Ireland. He began sailing at the age
of 15 with the Black Ball Sailing Fleet between Liverpool and New York. He migrated
to Oregon and began steamboating on the Columbia River in 1888. He became an
engineer on the tugboat "Laurel" out of Gig Harbor in 1894 and finally
in 1898 began the McDowell Transportation Company which eventually owned seven
steamers. Most of them were between 85 - 95 feet long and were intended for
short distance hops. They were all built at the Crawford & Reid Shipyard
in Old Tacoma.
McDowell carried passengers and hauled freight. The fleet was originally based in Tacoma near the smelter. He often slept on one of his boats, especially if he was to be its captain the following morning. One horribly stormy night a large ship ran ashore, narrowly missing the boat on which he was sleeping. It was at that time he decided to move his fleet and his family. In 1905 he purchased 80 acres on Browns Point from the original native owners and heirs.
McDowell built a house and a beautiful dock in the cove not very
far from the lighthouse. He called his new home Caledonia. His daily runs serviced
areas such as Dumas Bay, Lakota, Adelaide, Redondo, Des Moines, Zenith, Maury,
Portage, Chautaugua, Vashon, Tacoma and Seattle. As the permanent population
and the summer vacationers increased, his buisiness thrived. His clientele increased
even more when he built a dance hall next to his dock. His D-fleet brought fun
loving dancers from across the bay. Albert, Robert, and John McDowell, his sons,
were a vital part of the company assuming jobs of engineers and eventually captains.
His daughter Mary worked as a purser. She later married Aurthur Thompson who
became a prominent Puget Sound pilot. Anticipating a decline in passenger business
due to the beginning of the ferry services, McDowell began selling his fleet
in 1918 while steamers were still in demand. He retired completly from steamer
service in August 1919.
Between 1901 and 1907 Jerry Meeker and his business partners George Taylor, J.M. Campbell, Fremont Campbell, and Frank Ross acquired and platted most of the property west of today's Eastside Drive which they called Hyada Park. Jerry chose native names for the streets including La-Hal-Da, his native name. In 1906 he built his home on Browns Point which is presently the home of Ramona Hawthorne, his granddaughter. Next to it he built Browns Point Dock in 1907, for $5,500. By 1941 is was beyond safe usage and was torn down by the W.P.A.
As the two points developed their communities grew closer and closer together. To learn the history of this development, click on the links below.
All Contents Copyrighted Property of Points Northeast Historical Society © 2002
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