Emmett Hunt's Diary entry for Wednesday, April 30, 1884

Calm & quite pleasant.  Started out to collect Poll Tax & got as far as Rains in B. Cove

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Frederick Eugene Austin (1/10/1912-12/30/1994)

Today whenever the name of Austin is mentioned as one of our pioneers, the man that immediately comes up is Charles Osgood Austin and his connection to the lumber industry, and of course, Austin Estuary at the mouth of monkey Creek.

But there was another Austin family who arrived on the Gig Harbor peninsula around 1902 and settled in Gig Harbor and that was Frederick Eugene Austin (9/10/1861-11/27/1940).  He and his first wife, Mary Rose Sackett Austin (7/12/1866-10/7/1908) moved west because Mary Rose had relatives, George and Ida Sackett  who were living in Tacoma and the St. Peters living in Gig Harbor.  These two families had been writing home to Scio, New York enthusiastically about life in Washington.  He found some land about 10 1/2 miles south of the bay and bought out the interest of thief a man who had filed title but made no improvements.  Its about, as I understand the intersection of Stinson Avenue and SR16; SR 16 cutting the property in half.

I happened to run across two different articles about Fred in the Harbor History Museum Research Room and became curious.  I also found the name “Austin” on the Gig Harbor Peninsula Historical Society’s list of recommended street names.

The first article was a Peninsula Gateway piece by Andy James regarding a book signing at Mostly Books by Fred, the son, when he was 82 years old entitled “Bringing old days back’.  I don’t want to spoil the book review by Andy James, but it is very detailed and very good.

The story of the family is delightfully recounted in a charming memoir written by one of Frederick Eugene Austin’s sons entitled “Tales from the Woodshed”  published in 1992 by Red Apple Publishing and published by Gorham Printing in Rochester, WA.  The book reads as though you and Fred were sitting together and talking about the old days.

Fred spent his working life as a logger until age 68.  Then he, and with his sons assistance, he opened a Christmas tree farm.  Two of those sons are also named Frederick Eugene just to confuse you when researching the name.  So there are four Frederick Eugene Austins total in the articles, though there may be more now. His age though had caught up with him and even running the tree farm known as Artondale Sincere Tree Farm on a full-time basis became too much work after 10 years.  So his daughter, Mary Young Zawlocki, encouraged him to keep busy by writing down all his memories of the family, its life, and Gig Harbor as it evolved over his lifetime.

I discovered when trying to find copies of “Tales from the Woodshed” it is very difficult, and when you do they are expensive some copies up to $500.  Surprising I believe for a self-published book written by an unknown author.  However, No Dearth of Books has a copy.  One of the reasons the book is so difficult to find is that its initial run was only 100 copies published.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could come up with a way to have a few more copies published?

It was the second article was also in the Peninsula Gateway entitled “A Pioneer’s Plaza” that really grabbed my attention and confused me to no end.  The Pioneer Plaza referred to is the Kimball Plaza just off Pioneer Way.  

The property referred to was, before it became Kimball Plaza, Albert Simerson’s rye field  As the article when talking about the property says “Then it was a field of rye and Frederick Eugene (Dad) helped his son Albert Simerson harvest the grain with an immense grain cradle, according to Austin’s son, Fred Austin of Gig Harbor.  

Following the death of his first wife, Mary Rose Sackett Austin, in 1908 from cancer Fred Austin’s father returned to New York with his daughter Rhoda went back to New York.  He sold his 2 lots  located near Stinson Avenue and Wollochet where an Assembly of God Church was located for one thousand dollars in gold and once back in New York  and winter over, he headed for the farming country.  While attending a town picnic he met and fell in love with Marie Huxel Austin.  By fall, they married and pulled up stakes tp return to the west although Marie would much rather stay in New York where her family, friends, and life had been up to that time.  Marie, her two sons, John (+/- 1903) and Albert (1894) and Frederick (Dad) came to Gig Harbor, but when they arrived it was no longer the boom time it had been when he left in early 1909.  Europe was gearing up for war, and it affected the United States as well with the panic of 1910-11 following the enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Once back, Dad worked as a common laborer for others, and bartering and trading for food.  But he also located 20 acres of ‘wild land’ that he was able to buy no money down and $10 a month.  This property was “about 2 miles south of the first place.  Address: 6001 Wollochet Drive NW.  I was born on the north half of the property and guess what?  The south end, now in 1989, sports a new and much larger Assembly of God Church.  Just a little oddity I thought interesting, that the only two pieces of property Dad owned in the West would have Assembly of God churches on them.  Neither church was built during Dad’s time.”  (Tales from the Woodshed)

So let’s jump from 1912 when Fred was born to 1924 when he was 12 and got his first job picking loganberries.  Then the following year he saved up enough to buy his first 5 foot saw and started cutting wood.  But 1930, Fred graduated in a class of 25; he was in the senior class play, a four-letter man in baseball and 2-letter in football.

Following graduation, in the midst of the Great Depression, work was hard to come by so Fred earned money through a variety of different jobs.  Things like picking hops in Eastern Washington, helping plant crops and apple trees as well as picking the apples, and working in an apiary on the Yakima Indian Reservation.  Oh yes, he even trapped skunks for money so he could get a marriage license.  

And, on May 28, 1934, he and Marie Bridget McDonough were married.  In the fall of 1935 the C.M.C. Timber Company started logging the last stand of old timber on the Gig Harbor Peninsula.  It covered 10,240 acres and Fred got a job with them falling (as he puts it in his book “not felling, HA!)

Fred’s last job was logging eighty acres of timber that he had gotten.  It took him 3 years, but when he finished he hung up his saw.

Fred’s book is 142 pages and divided into 5 parts with titles such as:  Merging Paths; Chat with Family; Happenings during My Section of Time; Bits & Pieces and And Now the Tales.  So, as you see, I’ve barely touched the surface.

Let’s end with Fred’s Senior Class Poem, which appeared in Perclawam (Gig Harbor Union High School Annual)

Oh, Union High School,

We’ll soon be leaving you,

For we have other places to go

And other things to do

Four years you have been our home,

Four happy years were they, 

But now the time has come for us

To leave you and be on our way.

We’ll be homesick each and every one

But we will forget that after awhile,

And we’ll think of our high school days

With many a happy smile.

We have all looked forward to the time

When we would bid you good-bye,

But now that the time is here

We leave you with a sigh.

As dear to our heart as other places grow,

I know we each and all

Will be wishing we could return to you

When school begins next fall.

Others will take our places

And our duties will perform,

Until they, like us, will be turned out

To face the withering storm.

Of all the things you gave us

The greatest were wisdom and happiness,

And now we have more to thank you for

Than we ever can express.

But even the best of friends must part

And the time for us is here,

But as we leave you, Old High School,

In every eye there shines a tear.

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Emmett Hunt's Diary entry for Wednesday, April 23, 1884

Tearful showery & wet.  Stayed in most of the time but got some more wood aboard the boat.

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

All Fools Day aka April Fools Day

Is there anyone out there who has not played an April Fools joke on someone, or hasn’t had such a joke played on them?  The pranks, jokes and games associated with the day start at an early age and go on long after that.  But why write about that on a history blog?  Because, for lack of a better reason, the history of the day.  Why do we celebrate a day devoted to an international day of pranks?

What follows is what I have discovered via the internet, that wondrous bit of technology that brings forth answers on most anything you ask for, and within minutes (or should I say seconds?).  

Theory no. 1:  The Council of Trent in 1563 made the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.  France made the change in 1564.  Once again, not everyone caught up with the times and continued to celebrate the wrong day for the start of the new year.  The gullible, those who had not yet received news of the date change, often had paper fish stuck on their backs.  These fish were called “poisson d’avail” or “April Fish” and symbolizes a young, easily caught fish and someone who is gullible.  In France, patisseries, chocolateries and bakeries make all sorts of fish shaped treats to enjoy on this day.  

Theory no. 2:  In 1582, Pope Gregory III (you know, the man the Gregorian calendar is named after) decided that new year should start on January 1st now March 31.  The change was published throughout the Church, but many people remained unaware of the change and continued to celebrate New Years Day on April 1st.  According to Ginger Smoak, a medieval historian at the University of Utah in a Huffington Post article, those people were made fun of and called fools.  Hence, April Fools.

Theory no. 3:  Not every country adopted the Gregorian calendar at the same time; for example England did not adopt in until 1752 but had already established the tradition of celebrating April Fools Day.  According to Wikipedia, in the United Kingdom and those countries whose traditions are derived from the UK, all joking ceases at midday.  Anyone playing April Fools jokes after 12:00 pm is the “April fool” themselves. 

Theory no. 4:  The Romans celebrated a festival named Hilaria on March 25 rejoicing in the resurrection of Attis (in Phrygian religion, vegetation god).  The Hindu calendar celebrates Holi  (king Prahad), and the Jewish calendar has Purim (the salvation of the Jews from the wicked Haman).

  

Theory No. 5:  Joseph Boskin, History Professor at Boston University, said the practice began during the reign of Constantine.  Supposedly a group of court jesters told Constantine they could do a better job running the empire.  Constantine, amused, allowed Krugel, a jester, to be king for a day.  Kugel passed an edict calling for absurdity on that day, and it became an annual event.  

Boskin’s explanation was picked up and printed in an Associated Press article in1983.  It was only later that Associated Press realized they had been made an April Fool themselves.  Boskin himself had made up the story as nothing more than an April Fools joke.

Theory no. 6:  April 1st is just a time when normally winter ends and spring begins and people feel the need for fun and lighthearted celebration, at least for one day.

Note:

International Business Times

France Travel Guide

Wikipedia

infoplease
© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Emmett Hunt's Diary entry for Wednesday, April 16, 1884

Cloudy and cool with S. breeze.  Steamed up and ran to Seattle for inspection in 4 hrs. & 45 min.  Get around with some business in PM and in we go to the "Alhambra" for diversion.

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Jenny Berry Pierce Fuller (1870-1948)

Jennie Berry Pierce Fuller was one of the leaders  Gig Harbor decided to honor with a named street; this street is located in the Finholm District of downtown Gig Harbor.  It is one street below Harbor Ridge Middle School (formerly Goodman Middle School). 

One of the many ways cities and counties honor their citizens is to name streets and/or roads after those citizens.  Gig Harbor has such a program and it is spelled out in the City’s Municipal code.  The Gig Harbor Peninsula Historical Society plays a major partnership role in this program.  The criteria is stated as:

Chapter 12.12

ADDRESSING AND GRID SYSTEM

Sections:

12.12.010    Official map.

12.12.020    Definitions.

12.12.030    Way-of-travel designation.

12.12.040    Numerical designation of buildings and real property.

12.12.050    Denoting ways-of-travel.

12.12.060    Powers and duties of department.

12.12.070    Display of designations.

12.12.080    Filing fee.

12.12.090    Violation – Penalty.

K. All proposed names for new or existing ways-of-travel and private roads must be reviewed and approved by the Gig Harbor city council; however, private driveways are exempted. All proposed names within the “historical name area” as designated by the official map shall come from a list submitted by the Gig Harbor Historical Society or from other lists as approved by the Gig Harbor city council. All proposed names outside the “historical name area” as designated on the official map shall conform to the current Pierce County addressing grid numbering system. Ways‑of‑travel which extend beyond the historical name district may be designated by the historical name if approved by the Gig Harbor city council.

Below you will find a brief glimpse into Jennie’s life.

Jennie was born in 1870 to Scottish parents, Thomas and Christina Berry in Lexington, Lafayette County, Missouri.  We don’t know too much of her early life but in 1905 she married George S. Pierce (1857-1913) on January 25th.  There is a little confusion as to when they arrived in Pierce County, but in the 1910 census, they are shown as living on Fox Island.  I was unable to find the 1900 census.

But what l did find and was able to confirm is still most interesting.  

In 1904 at Sylvan Glen a dock and store were built by Charles Johnson 50 yards south of the Fox Island Congregational Church.  A year later, Mr. Johnson sold the store to George and Jennie.  Caroline Perish told the story in her book “Fox Island, Pioneer Life on the Southern Puget Sound”    on page 131 was that Johnson “. . . sold the store to Mr. and Mrs. Pierce, also from St. Louis, Missouri.  The Pierces had come west to visit their newly settled friends, the Wines, and decided to move to the island as well. ‘We see no signs of their regretting the move, wrote Lucy Herrick (Lucy Herrick, History of the Sylvan Historical Society), for the year ending February 22, 1906, FIHM..  George Pierce also purchased the delivery boat *Fernacre* used by the earlier store owner, Mr. Johnson to deliver groceries. . . .”  The Pierces added a small warehouse and they delivered groceries to families all around Sylvan Bay and Hales Passage.  Their delivery service was so popular that they had to add a second boat “Fernacre II”.  The post office housed in the Bixby home and in the Macklin community were then consolidated into the new store at Sylvan Glen and Jennie became the postmistress.  

We run into a bit of confusion as to the length of time the Pierces owned and operated to store.  Don Edgers in his book “Fox Island” (Images of America) published in 2008 (page 16) he writes “. . . The Pierces profitably ran the business for another 13 years.  When they sold the business, they moved to Fox Point at the eastern end of Fox Island.”  But, George S. Pierce died on January 10, 1913.  

And, in Jennie B. (Pierce) Fuller’s obituary it states “She and her first husband operated a grocery store at Sylvan, Fox Island and later operated a telephone company at Burton on Vashon Island.  Once again because the incomplete supporting background on this part of the biographical information I have contact the Vashon-Maury Historical Society to see if they have any information or can verify when and for how long the Pierces were involved with their telephone company.  

What I did discover about the telephone service on Vashon Island was:

• 1891 - Vashon Island’s telephone service was one mile long and was similar to the tin-can telephone service you might have used as a child if you grew up before the 1950s
• 1904 - Farmers Mutual Telephone Company installed the first telephone on the island; in June that year the service was connected to Seattle; and in July, service was connected to Tacoma
• 1908 - 80 of the 125 subscribers signed a petition to quit service until the cable to the mainline was established as promised.
• 1911 - Telephone service was extended to the North end of the island (Vashon Heights)

In 1915, following George’s death, Jennie moved to Gig Harbor and assisting in installing a telephone system on the Peninsula.  She was employed as the manager.  (In 1925 Leander Finholm purchased the telephone company with his son, Hugo.)  Then, in 1919, she married Cassius D. Fuller (1854-1923) and they installed a water system for North Gig Harbor (not to be confused with the shopping center now called North Gig Harbor).  

Jennie was an active member of St. John’s Episcopal Church and donated land on a hill above the harbor for the proposed new church to be built in Gig Harbor in 1948.  Right Reverend Stephen Bayne broke ground for the construction of a log cabin church on the property that same year.  The logs had been donated by a Presbyterian, John Galbraith.  The church was completed in 1951; in 1953, Reverend H. Frederick McLauchlan became the first full-time vicar at St. John’s.  Prior to that, St. Johns was served by part-time pastors.

St. John Episcopal Church Groundbreaking, 3/14/1948

St. John's Episcopal Church, a log cabin church, 11/12/1955 

Jennie was president for two years of the Gig Harbor Improvement Club, and about that time, donated the land for a club house which, after constructed was later turned over to the Fortnightly Club of which she was also a member.  Jennie was a charter member of the Amateur Garden Club and the Tacoma Manuscript Museum, as well as allowing the Fortnightly Club to maintain their library in her home.   

Jenny’s obituary goes on to explain that although Jenny was a private person she was very active in community efforts and exerted ‘substantial force’ for the good of the community.  

  Note:  Lucy Herrick, History of the Sylvan Historical Society, for the year ending February 22, 1906, FIHM.

  Note:  Fox Island, Pioneer Life on the Southern Puget Sound, Caroline Perish

  Note:Van Olinda’s History of Vachon-Maury Island by Roland Carey, AB Co.

  Note:  Images of America, Fox Island, Don Edgers

  

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Emmett Hunt's Diary entry for Wednesday, April 9, 1884

Nice & calm till night when rain begins to fall copiously.  Tinkered away the day helping to get ready for fun tonight.

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.