Statue to be Erected to the Memory of the First American Who Taught
the English Language in Japan — His Mother Was Daughter
of Hereditary Chief of the Chinooks.
By C. II. K. ASQUITH.
Although there will he many hi torieal |
characters hon< re 1 hy the eiee.it n of!
statues to their n emory at the Alaska- \
Yukon-l’acifie Exposition which will he
held at Seattle in 1!K)!>, it is not like'y
t tat any will attract more attention a at
excite more intern, t than that which
will be dedicated to the t'.r-t American
to cross the Pat i tic ocean and tt ach the
language of the newer pet pics, Hat aid
McDonald.
The identity of the man who first
turned his hack to the rising sun and
totting his face we t card left his people
behind f. r ver is lost in the mi-ts that
hide the horizons of history. The man
who spanned the last gap and brought
tiie Saxo-Norman c \ dization to Japan,
lia '.aid Mi Donald, ihserves an imper
i-hable jlicc among the list of those
who arc the foretminers of empire. The
s atue in hi- Inn or will be the ti st rec
ognition of its kind given to this man
who did so much for the world.
The.hands upon th uisunds of years
ago the tide of humanity set out upon
iis westward How: Babylon, Assyria,
Egypt, Greece. Koine arose, llourislud
and fell; and on the r ins of the dark
ages arose modern Europe. Eor a long
time the western tide nod dashed in
vain against tlie barrier of the Atlantic.
The crusades that < rlginated in western
Eurojie and in Britain were mer ly
backwashes of this interrupted flow . But
finally (.'hri-b pin r Columbus navigated
the Great Enknown, and once again the
race of man trickl il westward. It took
three hundred years for the tide to roll
a loss A merit a to the l’nciiic shores, and
a few more years for it to spring acto.-s
Ilu* i acme i.n i complete me cm i *. n
has taken several thousand years, and
the lives of half a dozen mighty i\ ces and
empire?, but in the end men conquered
and the men of the faithest west trod
the Oriental shore *>f the l’at iiic where
was o *ce the cradle o: tlie rac •.
Kva Kmery Dye, whose book ‘‘Mc
Donald of Oregon” deals with the life of
this splend d pioneer, is the oiiginat »r
<.i the suggestion that a monument
should he erecttd at the Alaskn-Yukon
Pacihc fair to the memory «*t McDonald
The suggestion was welcomed, as it was
felt no place would he more appropriate
fora monument to McDonald than the
Cniv rs’.tv of Washington campus, on
which the expo>iti >n ; • to he held, s«. h.g
the re i-on for the exposition is, in addi
tion to the (xploitatioii of Alaska and
Yukon, the extending < t tin* world'.
knowledge « f the hi-tory, growth, r -
source-, commerce and t-endei eh - of all
the countries whose shores are washed
by the waters of the Pacific.
The blood of two i; c s of kings ran in
McDonald’s veins, mr bis grandfather s
father Tin- McDonald was a d* s • nlai.t
of the old Scotti-h kings, of the days
when Scotland looked to Ihlyrood ii -
j*tead of to Wes ' n-t« r. His n o h. r
was Haven the Dean ifu1, vh s i t . r
was he»editary chief of the ( h n » k -.
McDonald ? history roj.ds like pure
romance. A chibald Me* on M, his
father, was a llud-on's P»ay Company
factor when the operations of that com*
panv stretched from th« great inland
sea that gives it its name to the Califor
nia border and from tin* Aleutian
islands to tie woods of Vai The
it her him-* If w - a ; o a 1 j i n er
and led this small emp n> of wlite
men tip tl»* Ued Hiver to its source and
across the Canadian | rat ic* o the site*
of the present * itie* of 1 rim e AlUrt and
Dalmonton. lie finally reach*'*! tin* Pu
get Sound country, where l»i« sou was
)*»rn, at the load of the Columbia riter,
ami u here liar father • | elit me t *f hi
remaining life.
Tin* l*»y frequently .iv . pti ie 1 bis
father on hi* add pu n e (hr ugh
Oregon, Kritish C*dtit»dda and Vancouver
Island. lie lived a portion of his youth
; t Fort Colville, near the present eity of
Spnk: ne, and a portion of the time at
Langley House, another Hudson Hay
post, at the mouth of the Frazer river.
He visited M-apiaHy, where the first
wlite sit, lenient of tile Pacific roast was
founded, long before even one white
settler had slaked out a farm on the
sites of the present eities of Seattle, Port
land or Tacoma,
A cDon ild reetived his education at a
s houl established at Fort Vancouver,
the tits white si h ml on the Pacific
coast. Here he studied with his Indian
comp; n'e ns and li \ e 1 the | ioncer life < f
the wild. One of his early expt rlences
was the witnessing of a wreck of a Jap
anese v -sel on the Oregon coast. On
hoard were a number of Japaiuse chil
dren, and these were brought up with
the other children , f the settlement, and
McDonald played with them a great
deal and absorbed from them till they
had to teach, and from them he proba
bly got his Inst taste of curiosity about
the lands beyond the sea.
After Hi ishiug his education at Fort
Harry, now Winnipeg, McDonald visited
in Oi.taii •, where he was articled as a
hank elei k in the city of St Thomas.
That, however, was too-low for his wild
blood, ami in 18-lti he drifted to New
A ' 1 k and -hip} e l before tl.ir mast.
The ship reached Japan, which was
then a < b sed land in which no foreigner
was a'lowed to set foot. MeDi natd, re
membering the stories of his shipw reeked
schoolmates, begged the captain to fait
him ashore, where lie would make it
appear as if lie were a castaway, which
t apt. Lawrence it. Kd wards reluctantly
did. Tlic Japanese believing McDonald
to I e the only one of a ship’s crew left
alive, while they impiisonel him, did
not illtreat him. lie was kept bu.-y in
prison teaching the Fnglish language to
•lapanese student-, and several hours a
day v;:s spent in this manner for many
Mr I >' maid's pupils were thus the-tirst
Japanese t » sp< ak Knglish, and when,
••'"Uk* years after, Commodore Perry ar
r.wdand opem d Japan to the world,
the pupils <f McDonald eondueted the
negotiaii »ns ai d translated the offers
at d the speeches of the Americans to
the .1; pin* s» government. Without this
assistance the w< rk Perry was able to
accomplish would probably have gone
fo • naught.
The years of McDonald's prime would
furnish material for a hundred stories,
to- he spent two score of years in foreign
and little-known countries, only return
ii g home in his « M age to die at Port
Colville, near Spokane, where *o large a
p"!t o i t t hi- !>*»\ ho >d was spent.
W 1 lilt* it is yet more than two years to
the 'peniiigoi tlie Ala.-ka-Ynkon-Pacilic
I xj o-Pion, theiv ai> already many pro
p-sals for horn-ring tho-e \ r »miiicnt in
tli • hist"! \ of that | o: tion of the world
with w hi h the e\p«-iti»»M h t«> more
< pe; in 11 \ deal lie «iti/ens of Scuttle
l a» ♦* at th * pit sent time an organisation
engaged in the detail work «*f erecting a
* due to William II. Seward, the father
of Alaska, l’he New N ork Societv of
S ittlf has a plan t«* er»et a statue t*»
John Jacob A-t« r, the founth r of Astoria,
th# first t rat ling post on the American
si o; *• (.f the Put i tic Doth tlitse statues
will have prominent place** on th**
g'o in Is of the exiHtsition. The M* lM»
aid statue, a stately work in honor «»f the
i r-’ A meric i ii t-» | tenet rate the Orient
•nut teach the < hi'dreii the language of
the >axo-V riuan world, will p**ohahh
stand in front of the palate devoted tit
Japan**-*** displays.
It IS estimate*I hy the I'niteti States
g«*v» rniiient that every miner working
tin*I* r ground afford* employ rneiit f*»r
eight it e i ub*\e ground.
j^O 00000050000 0 75 505 15 0 0 0 0 0 SO1
| S. E. HEETER,
j Freighter and Packer
£ Good Equipments and
Jo Service Unexcelled
Measuring the Sun’s Heat.
Tiie instrument in the observatory ot
Mount Whitney, bv wliicli the variations
of the sun's heat are measured, might lie
ealled an electrical thermometer. It is
an apparatus so large as to occupy a
building of considerable size; yet the
essential part of its mechanism, which
makes the record, is a fine thread of
platinum, connected electrically with a
balance of yiarvelous delicacy. The
beam of the balance is a filament of
spun glass five inches long and k ss in
diameter than a hair, in the middle of
which is a concave mirror as big as a
large pinhead. This mirror (which j
weighs o'j milligrams—about as much as j
the bind leg of a fly) is fastened upon a
square piece cut from a dragon tie's 1
wing, and the whole affair is suspended
from a fiber of spun quartz crystal two
feet long and one five-thousandth of an
inch thick.
Outside of the buildings is a queer
looking machine provided with a large
circular mirror, whisk is controlled bv
clockwork in such a way as to face the
sun at all hours and to throw a beam
info the mouth of a great tube that en
ters the observatory. A single ray of
the sunshine thus conveyed is permitted
to fall upon the platinum thread, through
which a current of electricity constantly
passes. It is well known that the elec
trical resistance of platinum varies with
its temperatures; atal so, bv measuring
the resistance of the thread", the heat of
the sun's ray thrown upon it is deter
mined. So accurate is the determina
tion. in fact, that a variation of one
millionth of a degree Fahrenheit can be
distinguished.
Changes in the temperature of the
platinum thread cause the wonderful
little balance to sway, while another ray
of light, allowed to fall upon its tiny
concave mirror, is reflected upon a meas
uring scale. Thus, as the dot of reflected
light runs along the scale, one may ob
>erve with the eye the variations in the
amount of heat conveyed bv the sun
beam. which conics through the tube
( "III outside the building. When de
sired. however, the measuring scale is
replaced by a slowly traveling photo
graphic film, which makes a permanent
record.— F.xchange.
The present term of the district court
i t i Hiljnlirii in time for .finite * iminisoii
t ulepurt from Knirhanks June l‘>.
■jmnnnrimr
JULIUS RAHWISTORF,
GENERAL
MERCHANDISE
FULL LINE
£ Tin, Granite and Crockeryware
Semi your friem!* tin* Valley News.
Northern Commercial Co.
OUTFITTING A SPECIALTY
ORANCES, POTATOES AND ONIONS
NOBBY SPRING SUITS
Northern Commercial Co.
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