"Thus let me live unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie."
HISTORICAL NOTES.
I.
VANCOUVER.
The remarkable progress of the Pacific port cities of Seattle and Tacoma make Washington an especially bright, new star on the national flag. Surrounded as these cities are with some of the grandest and most poetic scenery in the United States, with gigantic forests and rich farm-lands, with mountains of ores, with coal-mines, iron-mines, copper-mines, and mines of the more precious treasures; washed as they are by the water of noble harbors, and smiled upon by skies of almost continuous April weather—there must be a great future before the cities of Puget Sound.
The State of Washington is one of the youngest in the Union, and yet she is not too young to celebrate soon the one-hundredth anniversary of several interesting events.
It was on the 15th of December, 1790, that Captain George Vancouver received his commission as commander of his Majesty's sloop of war the Discovery. Three of his officers were Peter Puget, Joseph Baker, and Joseph Whidby, whose names now live in Puget Sound—Mount Baker, and Whidby Island.
The great island of British Columbia, and its energetic port city, received the name of Vancouver himself, and Vancouver named most of the places on Puget Sound in honor of his personal friends. He must have had a heart formed for friendship, thus to have immortalized those whom he esteemed and loved. It is the discovery and the naming of mountains, islands, and ports of the Puget Sound that suggest poetic and patriotic celebrations.