Early Territorial History
The First Sawmill on Puget Sound

An Old Settler of 1846 Gives Home Interesting Reminiscences.
By Antonio B. Rabbeson.

The Washington Standard
Olympia, April, 28 1886.

In your issue of April 27th, I find an article headed " First Saw Mill in the Territory," in which the old man referred to makes a slight mistake as to dates. Being the party who cut the first lumber and a part owner of the first saw mill on Puget Sound, I claim the right to correct the statements of the old man. The following is a correct history of the first efforts to establish the lumber business on Puget Sound:

In the Spring of 1848 a company was formed at Tumwater, Thurston county, consisting of M. T. Simmons, George Bush, Jesse Ferguson, Mr. Carnafix, John Kindred, Col. B. F. Shaw, E. Sylvester, and A B. Rabbeson, styled the Puget Sound Lumber company.

They purchased from the Hudson's Bay company a set of mill irons, then at Vancouver, which the latter company had shipped from England, with the intention of erecting a mill at some point upon the Columbia River, but they, believing it to be to their advantage, sold the equipment to us for the sum of $300, to be paid for in lumber delivered at Fort Nisqually landing, at the rate of $16 per thousand.

The mill was built in the fall and winter of 1848, at the lower falls at Tumwater, it was an old-fashioned up-and-down saw, run by a flutter wheel, and cut from 1,200 to 1,500 feet per day of twelve hours. The mill was sold to Captain Clarence Crosby in the fall of 1849. The second mill was built upon McAllister's creek, Nisqually bottom, in 1852. That year Nelson Barnes, Ira Ward and Smith Hayes built a saw mill at the upper falls in Tumwater, and if I remember right, H. L. Yesler built his first mill at Seattle in the fall of 1852 or the following Spring, then followed the Segwallitchew mill, built by Thompson & Balch.

I would say in this connection that I remember very vividly the trouble I had, to get room to move, on account of the Indians who flocked to the mill by hundreds, to behold the wonders performed by the Boston man, who could by a word apparently make the saw move up and down, the log advance or recede at will. I remember the second log that was sawed. When I went to put it upon the carriage, I requested the Indians either to get out of the way or to roll it upon the carriage themselves, and as they desired to make themselves useful, ten of them attempted it, but failed.

When I picked up the cant-dog and turned the log without help they were astonished at my remarkable strength, and when I proposed to pick one of them up and throw him from the mill to the other side of the river, he declined the experiment, having no doubt that I could do it, (they now know better the power of the cant-dog). The first grist or flouring mill was built at Upper Tumwater falls in 1847 by Simmons & Kindred. The stones used were cut out of a granite rock found upon the beach of Budd's inlet.