CURIOSITIES ON RUGGED BLAKELY ISLAND in 1961

BLAKELY ISLAND,
SAN JUAN ARCHIPELAGO,
WASHINGTON
detail from USCGS #6300
Click image to enlarge;
not up to date for navigation.

Blakely Island,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Original postcard published by the 
Pacific Aerial Survey
Ca. 1930 to 1940.
Click image to enlarge.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"Where homesteaders cleared fields amid the dense vegetation of Blakely Island in the San Juan Islands and loggers hewed timber for a sawmill on Thatcher Bay, strange things have come to pass.

        Floyd Johnson's aviation-and-yachting estates' development, consisting of 38 summer homes, some of startingly advanced design, rose on the north shore of the 4,700-acre island. Almost all of the remainder, by arrangement with a mill company on the mainland, has become a perpetual tree farm.
        Decaying log buildings left by the earlier residents are regarded as picturesque curiosities, to be visited by Jeep, the characteristic vehicle encountered on Blakely's rugged roads. Nearly every home has one.
        Johnson's airfield and improvements were commenced in 1956 and each winter he added more buildings. Some of the estate owners use their private planes.
        Except for the colony at the north end, Blakely has gone back to its natural state, with 2,500 deer roaming the woods, mink, muskrat, beaver, and land otters living near the two lakes; bald eagles, doves, goldfinches, woodpeckers, and swarms of other birds flitting among the trees.
        Johnson's enterprise controls all but a federal government lighthouse reservation and two other tracts. Seven permanent families live on Blakely, employed mostly in the development. Houses and boats are constructed in slack seasons. Children are taken across to Orcas Island by private boat to attend school. In rough weather, they are flown across.
        One of the earliest mentions of inhabitants on Blakely was in the 1870 census, which listed the sole occupant as Paul K. Hubbs Jr. and his then-wife, Sasha (he had several.) Hubbs, a leading figure in the San Juan 'Pig War,' had been granted 'the exclusive privilege to an island about five square miles' (the size was considerably under-rated) and grazed 400 sheep on it.
        Ten years later, when the next census was taken, Hubbs was temporarily without a wife; his occupation was given as fishing.
        By that time, there were other settlers. E.C. Gillette surveyed land for the Americans on San Juan before the 'Pig War', went to Blakely in 1874, and raised sheep on the southeast side. He was the first San Juan County surveyor and later became county school superintendent.
        H.W. Whitener moved to the northwest side of the island from Samish Island in the early 1870s. He was elected sheriff of San Juan County.
        William H. Viereck and a partner named Coffelt, of Orcas Island, started a sawmill on Thatcher Bay; in 1889, Theodore W. S. Spencer deputy customs collector at Roche Harbor, moved his family from Lopez to a homestead at Spencer Lake. He was attracted by the possibilities of water power, as the outlet was through a steep gulch. In 1892, he purchased the mill and box factory, which the family operated almost continuously until 1945.
        Ruins of the mill, wharf, boathouse, post office, commissary, and several dwellings of the mill community can be seen at the head of Thatcher Bay (1961.)
        Blakely has a log schoolhouse, constructed in the 1880s and used continuously until 1940. Johnson hopes to restore it.
         A teacher at the school, R.H. Straub, was the central figure in San Juan County's most celebrated criminal case, resulting in the only hanging in its history.
        Ray Spencer, now of Spencer Spit, Lopez Island, who spent the greater part of his life on Blakely, said Straub bought the Gillette place, which joined the homestead of Mrs. Pauline Burns, extending inland from the southwest side of the island. Mrs. Burns was the wife of a railroad man who was away most of the time.
        August 30, 1895, her brother, Leon Lanterman, and their half-brother, Ralph W. Blythe, went from Decauter to dig her potato crop. In the next field, Irving Parberry, a youth of 17 whose family was homesteading near Horseshoe Lake, was noisily at work singing and whistling, seeming determined to attract attention. As Straub had appeared, Lanterman, Blythe, and Mrs. Burns became suspicious.
        Straub was a Canadian, about 45, who had been in San Juan County on and off since 1872. About three years earlier, it was suspected that he was stripping the small freight steamship, J.C. BRITAIN after it was stranded at Bell Rock. Suspicious neighbors followed him to Blakely Island, where he pulled a rifle from his boat and threatened them.
         Hard feelings arose from this incident and both Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Burns were school board members who opposed retaining Straub as teacher.
         Mrs. Burns feared Straub's intentions as he appeared near the potato field. Lanterman walked over to the fence on the pretext of talking with Parberry about land clearing. The boy's replies were abusive and Blythe, hearing the shouting, went to investigate. Parberry had both an ax and a rifle and Blythe arrived in time to see the youth strike Lanterman with the former weapon.
         At that instant, Straub came out of hiding, leaped on a log, cursed Lanterman, and fired at him. He turned on Blythe, but the latter dropped and the bullet passed over him. Blythe raced to the Burns house for a weapon and Straub, still firing, went after Mrs. Burns. A bullet entered her shoulder and another whizzed past her ear.
        By the time Blythe found a weapon, the two assailants had disappeared, but not until Straub shot twice more at Lanterman, killing him.
        Mrs. Burns ran a mile through the timber to the Spencer home and gave the alarm. She was taken by the Spencers in a small boat to her parent's home and Blythe was picked up on the way.
        Straub fled to Whatcom County and Parberry to another part of the San Juans. Both were tracked down, Sheriff Newton Jones serving a warrant on Straub 2 October.
        Lanterman was buried on Lopez, 1 September.
        Parberry, when captured, insisted that Straub had forced him at the point of a revolver to participate in the attack.
        At a preliminary hearing in Friday Harbor, several residents of Decatur and Lopez Islands openly threatened to lynch Straub if they could get their hands on him.
        The case went to trial in October. Lacking a fitting room in the San Juan County courthouse, the authorities arranged for the use of the ground floor of Friday Harbor's Odd Fellows Hall. The judge was seated on the stage and the main floor was roped off to separate the jury from witnesses and spectators. There was no room to which the jurors could retire in intermissions.
        Straub had been locked in the jail in Whatcom until the day of the trial. He moved for a change of venue, contending he would not receive fair treatment in San Juan County because of strong prejudice had been created by Mr. Dillon's funeral sermon.
         Change of venue was denied,, and the trial proceeded. Parberry turned state's evidence and the charge against him was dismissed.
         Edward Ambler, one of the state's witnesses, created a diversion by eavesdropping under the stage beneath the witness chair. The attorney for the defense routed him out.
         The jury was hung for seven hours because two members opposed capital punishment and could not agree with the rest as to the degree of murder. At length, on 26 October, the prisoner was found guilty in the first degree and sentenced to execution on 13 November.
         Straub appealed, so back he went to the Whatcom jail. A long wait was in store for him, during which he 'got religion.'
        It was more than a year, 8 December 1896, before the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the District Court. The hanging was set for 26 March 1897. Straub gained another respite, until 22 April; his sister made a last-minute personal appeal to Governor Rogers to save Straub from the gallows, which Sheriff Jones had erected inside a 12 x 15-foot enclosure at one end of the jail. Islanders were ashamed of what was about to happen, and the judge offered a 15-foot-high fence built around the gallows.
        About 20 persons were admitted to the hanging. The sheriff delayed the fatal hour Straub asked if there was anything he wished to say, spoke in calm tones for ten minutes. He declared that if nothing but the truth had been told, he would not have been condemned. He thanked Salvation Army friends for converting him while he was in jail and said since then he had felt better than in all his life.
        Sheriff Newton Jones carried out his unpleasant task and, it is said, was so upset by the execution, that he shortly afterward had a nervous breakdown.
        No one lives today on either the Burns or the Lanterman property. The buildings and fences have disappeared on the former land. The Lanterman house on Decatur was burned a few years ago.

Words by historian Lucile McDonald for The Seattle Times published,
13 August 1961.

JOHN GRAHAM JR and HIS YEARS with YACHT MARUFFA

 

S. V. MARUFFA,

Skipper John Graham Jr 
and crew, homeport of 
Seattle, WA.
Possibly in 1947, the year of the  
International Swiftsure Race.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photograph by 
Ray Krantz, Seattle, WA. 
Thank you Heather Graham.

"MARUFFA, from her debut in 1947, stamped her personality on Swiftsure. During the middle fifties, however, she really came into her own. MARUFFA stole the show, one way or another, no matter who, or what the challenge. And her list of laurels grew. 

Humphrey Golby comments:

'Certainly one of the outstanding yachts that helped Swiftsure become a recognized international sailing event was John Graham's MARUFFA. She first came to Swiftsure in 1947, and even in this, her maiden race, she was first boat home. For the next 16 years, she was the public's choice; the photographer's joy; and the true queen of the fleet. Her unparalleled Swiftsure record speaks for itself.

She was the first boat home in at least six if not seven of her starts. However, since the City of Victoria Trophy was presented to PIYA in 1956, MARUFFA has won it four times. It took John Graham 10 years, from 1947 to 1957, to win the Swiftsure Trophy so many times, MARUFFA boiled through the race with every rag of sail she could carry, driving for the finish line in all-out last-ditch effort to save her time on the fleet. Sometimes, she only lost by a minute or two, and once, only by seconds.

Many times a winner in AA Class, only once in her career did she fail to finish, and that was the race of the great calm in 1958 when 23 yachts finally gave up and powered home.

MARUFFA was built in 1936 in the Pendleton Yard in Wiscasset, Maine. She was designed by Phil Phodes and meticulously built to the special order of Henry Babson. Commissioned and sailed on the Great Lakes for three years, she made quite a name for herself in Mackinac and other major events. During the war years, 1943-1946, MARUFFA was put into storage, and at the war's end, was sold to John Graham. John recalls that the former owner had two paid hands, and kept them steadily at work on the boat for three years. When Graham saw her, she was gleaming like a concert grand. One look closed the sale. MARUFFA went to Annapolis for a short time before her proud new owner rounded up a crew to sail her to Seattle. 

In his design, Phil Rhodes, had produced a handsome wholesome boat, beautifully balanced, capable of holding her own on every point of sail. MARUFFA was at her best in light to medium winds, but even when it blew hard, she could snug down and keep pace. Her real strength was the ability to run, even in the lightest airs. So many times, I have observed MARUFFA quietly sail away from the fleet on the downwind leg. This great offwind speed once planted her third across the line into Hawaii, a performance that enabled her to beat all but two of the A Class boats, boat for boat, even though she was racing in B Class. In any consideration of MARUFFA's marvelous Swiftsure years, we have to remember that throughout all those years, she was sailed by John Graham and a crack crew.

John Graham was a sailing competitor, even as a young boy, coming to Victoria in 1919 to sail on the Seattle team against Royal Victoria dinghies. The Seattle-ites used Winslow Kittens, which were much faster than the local boats. John had the best sailing teachers that anyone could ask for. He was a member of Ted Geary's SIR TOM crew, the famous R boat that dominated the Pacific Coast for so many years. Ted Geary was an acknowledged master of the art of sailing. He picked John to skipper the boat when he could not be on board. From R boats to Star boats, John sailed and won. He was a fierce competitor, an intuitive tactician, and he never quit. When Ray Cooke built CIRCE and raced her in the 1934 Swiftsure, John Graham was aboard as sailing master. He sailed on CIRCE in all her early Swiftsures. Here again, he had, in Ray Cooke, the best teacher in the business. After WW II, John bought MARUFFA, starting her Swiftsure saga in 1947. 

Swiftsure records are filled with the exploits of this great yacht. Let me relate two incidents showing how hard the skipper and crew worked for their laurels. At first light, the escort tug picked up MARUFFA close in under the land off Neah Bay. She had rounded the Lightship about midnight and had led the pack on the homeward run. The entrance to the Straits was glassy calm. Boats out in the stream were rolling listlessly without steerageway. John had worked MARUFFA right inshore where the first morning thermals created the slightest breeze. As the tug followed her, we saw a classic example of how a fantastic skipper can keep even a big boat moving under almost impossible conditions. The wind was shifting back and forth, from the merest offshore zephyr to a few faint puffs from the southwest as the westerly sought to become established. In each of these shifts, from slightly ahead of abeam to dead astern, John had the crew alternate with a light drifter for the offshore puffs, returning to the spinnaker when the westerly caught up. What was happening was simple. When the westerly drove MARUFFA ahead, she promptly sailed out of the following wind. As quickly as she nosed out of the westerly, she slid forward into the offshore breeze, faint as it might be. For each of these alternating conditions, John had his crew down spinnaker as soon as the westerly quit, and hoist a gossamer drifter to take advantage of the offshore puffs. As we watched, MARUFFA sent through this drill 12 or 15 times. The marvel of it was that John Graham kept MARUFFA moving while others sat and waited for the morning westerly. When the wind did finally make up, MARUFFA had gained at least an additional mile on her listless rivals.

The second incident unfolded right at the finishing line. The late afternoon westerly was unusually fresh in 1955 as MARUFFA charged through Race Passage with a substantial lead. Skipper Graham had his biggest spinnaker up, and MARUFFA made a glorious picture as she surged forward at breakneck speed. Just off Work Point, and less than 1,000 yards from the finish, a sudden gust off the land hit MARUFFA, sending her reeling, but she did not broach. In seconds, she seemed to recover, when suddenly her mast snapped at the upper spreader. The great spinnaker sagged in confusion on the foredeck, while the main hung like a broken wing. Thousands of spectators had gathered to watch her finish. An audible gasp went up as tragedy struck. The committee had timed her nearest rivals through the Race when there was a chance that MARUFFA would save her time and win it all. Now these precious minutes ticked away as MARUFFA's hopes for the Swiftsure Trophy slipped from her grasp, once more. Even then, MARUFFA didn't quite. John swung her round with the mizzen, and sailed her BACKWARDS across the line! The City of Victoria Trophy for first boat to finish was hers again. And what a finish it was.'

MARUFFA left the Pacific Northwest to engage in research projects sailing out of Woods Hole Marine Biological Station. For her day and time, MARUFFA  was an outstanding yacht, ahead of her time in design, faultlessly built, and meticulously maintained. She is a living legend. This chapter cannot end without listing MARUFFA's principal dimensions. She was 67.5' x exclusive of the bowsprit. Waterline L 49.7' x 15' B x  8' 6" D. 

The MARUFFA story has a sad postscript. On Sunday 4 March 1979, she went aground and became a total loss while on a research mission in South New Zealand waters. The tragedy occurred while en route from Dunedin to Stewart Island with a young American crew guiding her. Skipper Steven Sewell decided to turn back when he met rough seas off the southland coast. During the turning manoeuvre, the main backstay parted. After making temporary repairs he set his course for Tuatuku Bay Lighthouse. However, MAURFFA's great speed carried her in too close before the order to alter course could be carried out. In the confusion, those vital seconds proved fatal. MARUFFA drove hard aground. Within minutes she began to break up in the heavy seas, a sad end to a heritage yacht that still had meant useful years of service.

In the process of abandoning ship, one of the young crewmen caught his leg between the topside and the rocks, severing it below the knee in one of the powerful serges. A female crew member lost her thumb, but thankfully no lives were lost."

Source: SWIFTSURE, the First Fifty Years.

Humphrey Golby and Shirley Hewitt. Edited by Ed Gould. Published by Lightship Press Limited, Victoria, B.C., Canada. 1980. 

CAPTAIN GRAY HAS CHRISTMAS ON MEARES ISLAND–– 1791

 

"Christmas on Vancouver Island'
 
Painting by Seattle artist,
Parker McAllister
(1903-1970.)
An original painting
14" x 17.25" archived at 
The Seattle Library
Seattle Room Digital Collections 
The Seattle Public Library
Northwest Collection.

"This dramatized representation of a trading expedition lead by Robert Gray celebrating Christmas at Fort Defiance on Meares Island, British Columbia, while wintering over in Clayoquot Sound in 1791.

Sailors and Natives stand in the foreground in a clearing. Behind them, sailors decorate a docked ship's prow with evergreen boughs.

Parker McAllister, born in 1903 in Massachusetts, was a Seattle Times artist from 1924 to 1965. McAllister started his career as an illustrator at 14 for a Spokane publication; he joined the art staff at the Seattle Times in 1920. During McAllister's career, he created illustrations depicting 'local color' events and situations now routinely handled by photographers. As the technology improved, he expanded his repertoire – he illustrated articles, drew covers for special sections and The Weekly Seattle Sunday Times Magazine. Those amounted to ca. 1,000 paintings.

In 1956, an exhibition of his watercolor and oil paintings of Pacific Northwest scenes and historical incidents- including some paintings from the 'Discovery of the Pacific Northwest' series were exhibited at the Washington State Historical Society Museum in Tacoma. He was also a member of the Puget Sound Group of Men Painters. Mr. McAllister retired from the Seattle Times in 1965; he passed away in Arizona in 1970.

This painting is reported to have appeared on the front cover of the Times Magazine on 25 December 1956 with an article by Lucile McDonald and also later appeared in the book based on the series, Search for the Northwest Passage by Lucile McDonald. McAllister and McDonald also collaborated similarly to produce Washington's Yesterday's."

TWO HALVES OF ONE SHIP –– COOS BAY OREGON

ALASKA CEDAR 
(ex-JOHN J. MANSON)
Lost when she struck the north jetty at 
Coos Bay, Oregon while outbound for 
Crescent City, CA. 
Photo date 4 December 1962
Original photo by Chuck Von Wald,
Portland, OR.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"1951: The ALASKA CEDAR (ex-JOHN J. MASON) was brought from the east coast for the Puget Sound-Valdez trade, for the Alaska Ship Lines. Her engines and house were aft and she had a traveling crane that operated the full length of the forward deck.

1962: When the ALASKA CEDAR struck the jetty, 20-foot seas were sweeping the stranded vessel and soon broke her back. The ship and much of her 2,000,000 feet of lumber cargo were lost.

At the time of the wreck, the vessel was owned by J.J. Tennant of Portland with Capt. N.F. Hall."

Source: H.W. McCurdy's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest. Edited by Gordon Newell. Superior Publishing. 

24 crew of the lumber freighter 
ALASKA CEDAR
came ashore by breeches buoy, 
set up by the Coast Guard. 
2 Dec. 1962.
By 6:00 p.m. the rescue operations 
were complete, seven were hospitalized, 
no lives were lost.
Click image to enlarge.
UPI Telephoto from the archives 
of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

YACHTING PHOTOGRAPHY OF ASAHEL CURTIS by Scott Rohrer

 

Asahel Curtis
Photo courtesy of the 
WA. State Historical Society 
and Wooden Boat Magazine.

"Probably no photographer did more than Asahel Curtis (1874-1941) to capture both the natural splendor and the emergent twentieth–century civilization of the Pacific Northwest. The Curtis Collection at the Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma features significant images of almost every cultural and natural aspect of the place and its people––one of which was yachting.

Curtis was 13 when his family moved to Puget Sound but his father died within a few days of their arrival. The family was living in Port Orchard, Washington, when his older brother, Edward, moved to Seattle to join a commercial photographic business. When Edward dispatched Asahel to cover the Alaska Gold Rush of 1897, the younger brother had been working in the studio for two years.

Arriving at Skagway in early fall, Curtis headed up the trail to Lake Bennett and what he hoped would be a 500-mile sleigh ride in a crude drift boat down the Yukon River to the goldfields at Dawson. Starting too late, he spent the winter snowed-in at Summit Lake on White Pass. In the spring of 1898, low on provisions, he backtracked to Skagway, joined another party, and headed up again, this time via the rougher Chilkoot Pass. White Pass (also called Dead Horse Pass) was too steep for pack trains or dogsleds. It just devoured men. Curtis captured the hard realities of both places on 8" x 10" glass plates.

Edward Sheriff Curtis would later gain wide renown for his lavish series, the North American Indian. But in 1898, a heated dispute arose between the brothers after several of Asahel's Alaska images were published under Edward's name only. The brothers parted ways and never spoke again.

Asahel Curtis would continue his photography, slavishly recording an era of astonishing changes spanning the next four decades. From the agricultural boom of eastern Washington to the first ascent of many peaks in the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges, he moved easily throughout the Pacific Northwest on a multitude of projects. His detailed 1910 documentation of a Makah whale hunt off Neah Bay, for example, still defines this controversial practice.

He often encouraged other talented young photographers, sharing his studio with them. Imogen Cunningham, for example, often worked there. Curtis's early studio products included lantern slides, postcards, and "cabinet" prints, many hand-colored and framed in the popular "piecrust" style of the time.

An avid hiker and climber, Curtis became one of the area's earliest conservationists. He was one of the founders of the Mountaineers, a visionary group formed in 1906–and still very active today–to explore Northwest wilderness areas and collect the history of those places during a critical period.

Curtis's prolific commercial work often took him out of Seattle to places of farming, fishing, logging, and manufacturing. His photos of native canoes, square riggers, riverboats, steamers, locomotives, and early automobiles followed 20th-century transportation as each mode was eclipsed by the next. His work appeared in periodicals ranging from Seattle newspapers to National Geographic. 

In 1907, public interest in yacht racing exploded in Seattle, sparked by the dramatic Canadian-American match for the Alexandra Cup. Seattleites crowded the shoreline to witness some very close finishes. Large sums were wagered on the outcome. News and commercial photographers alike covered the races and found numerous markets for their photos. Vancouver, B.C., hosted a return match in 1908, but racing stopped abruptly in 1909 when the third challenge for the cup ended in a scandal that led to a bitter rift between the two cities. 

While visiting Seattle in 1912, while en route to meetings in San Francisco, Sir Thomas Lipton heard about the dispute while spending considerable time being entertained by local yachtsmen and their families. Ever a supporter of the sport, Lipton offered a challenge cup for a race involving yachts in the R class of the new Universal Rule. The baronet's generous intervention would revive racing–and friendships–between these two cities. 

The yachtsmen of both cities enthusiastically embraced the new format. The Alexandra Cup was put away and never awarded again. When the clubs met again in July of 1914, The Royal Vancouver Yacht Club took their new R–boat TURENGA south to face one of three Seattle boats, all purpose-built to defend the Lipton Cup. Together, they formed the first fleet of R–boats on the Pacific Coast.

Several Northwest marine photographers compiled larger catalogs of pleasure boating images than Asahel Curtis did–Webster & Stevens, Will E. Hudson, and Kenneth Ollar, come to mind. But Curtis was unique in capturing the feel of summer boating on Puget Sound with an artist's keen eye. At the same time, he covered the 1914 Lipton Cup races for Pacific Motor Boat magazine with a newspaperman's sense of history in the making." 

ORTONA
A fine yawl (above) was owned by 
Seattle architect John Graham.
She was built by the Johnson Brothers and
Norman C. Blanchard in 1912. 
She spent most of her life in S. California. 
Curtis has captured her in a typical Puget Sound 
setting: reaching short-handed down 
Admiralty Inlet with Foulweather Bluff just
visible off of her lee bow. 
ORTONA was designed by L.E. "Ted" Geary 
and was 48' x 36' x 12.6' and carried 
1,400 sq. ft. of sail.
Photo by Asahel Curtis

GWENDOLYN II

off Alki Point, Seattle. 
Lloyd Johnson designed "Big Gwen"
and built her with his brother, Dean, 
at Georgetown in 1907. She became the
first Seattle boat to race to Hawaii when
she sailed the 1908 Transpac Yacht Race
from San Pedro to Honolulu.
She was second to finish, second overall. 
A year later, her sails show the effects
of the race and the stormy home.
A large brass bell that was presented 
to the Johnson brothers before they left
for CA, hangs in the lounge of the 
Seattle Yacht Club, engraved with the 
words, "Go in and win."
GWENDOLYN II was 48'6" x 37' x 13' 9"
with 2,000 sq. ft of sail area.
Photo by Asahel Curtis

The victorious crew of the SIR TOM,

poised for Curtis as he came 
alongside at the moorage.
Geary is on the foredeck, alongside
sailor extraordinaire, Fritz Hellenthal. 
On the boom is Norman J. Blanchard, 
co-builder of the boat. 
Aft in his pinafore and sailor hat is 
John Dreher, sailing writer for the 
Seattle Times. Missing is the fifth man,
Dean Johnson.
Photo by Asahel Curtis
 

Asahel Curtis worked in his studio until his death, in 1941. Sixty thousand of his images are held in trust by the Washington State Historical Society.

Thank you writer Scott Rohrer. and Wooden Boat magazine. 

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

In August 1906, Asahel Curtis needed to explore above sea level; with his "Mazamas" mountaineering group he reached the summit of Mt. Baker over a route that others had pronounced impossible. He and six other climbers deposited their names in the iron box and left it a new resting place 400 feet further up from its previous position at 1 p.m., 9 August 1906, and were back to their main camp by 11 p.m. 

The names of the climbers: F.H. Kiser, leader, of Portland; Asahel Curtis, of Seattle; C.M. Williams, of Seattle; L.S.Hildebrand, of Bellingham; C. E. Forsythe, of Castle Rock; and Martin Wahnlich, guide, of Bellingham.

At the head of the glacier that feeds Wells Creek, the party claims to have found a large vent in the mountain from which occasionally boiling water is gushed forth with a hissing sound. 

The San Juan Islander. 1906.