Russell Peak, from Avalanche Camp, 2,500 feet below. Named for Prof. Israel C. Russell, geologist.
And, studying the light and the majesty of Tacoma, there passed from it and entered into my being a thought and image of solemn beauty, which I could thenceforth evoke whenever in the world I must have peace or die. For such emotion years of pilgrimage were worthily spent. ("The Canoe and the Saddle," published posthumously in 1862).
Looking up Winthrop Glacier from Avalanche Camp.
In the controversy over the Mountain's name, some persons have been misled into imaging Winthrop a fabricator of pseudo-Indian nomenclature. But his work bears scrutiny. He wrote before there was any dispute as to the name, or any rivalry between towns to confound partisanship with scholarship. He was in the Territory while Captain George B. McClellan, was surveying the Cascades to find a pass for a railroad. He was in close touch with McClellan's party, and doubtless knew well its able ethnologist, George Gibbs, the Harvard man whose works on the Indian languages of the Northwest are the foundation of all later books in that field. Although he first learned it from the Indians, in all likelihood he discussed the name "Tacoma" with Gibbs, who was already collecting material for his writings, published in the report of the Survey and in the "Contributions" of the Smithsonian Institution. Among these are the vocabularies of a score of Indian dialects, which must be mentioned here because they are conclusive as to the form, meaning and application of the name.
