Frederick Sparling: A True Story

EBK_Christopher_Olson- FINAL_BOOK_doxEBWDwayne Mervyn412024-06-15T00:17:00Z2024-06-15T00:18:00Z2024-06-15T00:23:00Z19165637374132Aspose311787743889216.0000803cd5c767c1c5c4f0435b0af5d08400fb86706dca120f4f4dbc66f56bf904d8

Frederick

Sparling

A True Story

Christopher Olson

Copyright © 2024.

Christopher Olson

All rights reserved.

This book is dedicated to my mother,

who supported my interests, wherever they may lead.

The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.

― Jules Verne

At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.

― Gore Vidal

The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

The Pacific Northwest

Chapter 2

The Panama Overland Route

Chapter 3

My Family’s Genealogy

Chapter 4

Detroit and the Beginning of the Civil War

Chapter 5

The Civil War, Nashville, and Washington City

Chapter 6

Yachting and The Puget Sound

Chapter 7

The United States Naval Academy

Chapter 8

The Northwest and the Grand Army of the Republic

Chapter 9

The Chinese Navy, the University Cadets, and the Seattle Riots

Chapter 10

Amelia, Anna, and Mary Sparling

Chapter 11

The Edison Years

Chapter 12

Marriage and New Businesses

Chapter 13

The Wide West Affair

Chapter 14

On the Rocks

Chapter 15

George Henry Thomas Sparling

Chapter 16

The Brazilian Navy

Chapter 17

Katherine Sparling

Chapter 18

The Belgian Army

Chapter 19

Frederick William Sparling & Mary Jane Mitchell

Chapter 20

Lighthouse Vessels and the Spanish-American War

Chapter 21

Helen Welsh Ironside and Mary Sparling

Chapter 22

The Last Port of Call

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Credits

Introduction

Abraham Lincoln was shot twenty-eight days before my father’s fortieth birthday. My father’s name is Frederick William Sparling. He married Mary Jane Mitchell in Detroit, Michigan, four years prior. After that came three daughters and then me. Though he was home for my delivery, he left our family very shortly after. It was the time of the Civil War, which would take my father away to the front. I was too young at the time to understand the meaning and implications of war or to even really miss him, but I later learned a lot from him, as he was a storyteller. I heard stories of bravery, honor, and a fair share of horror.

Mostly though, my childhood was an amazing time for imagination, adventure, and invention. The world was changing fast, and everything was possible. Before I was 16 years old, the United States had purchased the Alaska Territory from Russia, a telegraph cable crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and train rails finally connected the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. This was the time of passing for historical figures such as General Armstrong Custer and Doctor David Livingston and the amazing inventions of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. The stories of the day were by Jules Verne and Mark Twain, and later, H. G. Wells and Bram Stoker. For a young person, the world was really a wonder of imagination and accomplishments. This was the age of Billy the Kid, Jesse James, even Charles Darwin, and the empire builders George Westinghouse, John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and George Eastman. However, if you wanted a cold Coke or an aspirin, too bad; I was in my late twenties before we had those. I grew up with the birth of professional football, the start of hockey, and the invention of basketball – some of today’s most popular sports. I was quite fond of football in college and got into a fair amount of trouble tossing the ball in the dormitory hallways. By the turn of the century, America’s Washington Monument, France’s Eiffel Tower, and France’s gift to America, the Statue of Liberty, were completed. Finally, one cannot forget the development of the light bulb, the automobile, and films. It would be difficult, I think, to imagine modern life without these luxuries.

I often ponder, in an age where technology and science seem more like magic, how the generations always talk of how this or that new thing will simplify everyday life. Some do, but most do not. I always delight when items from the past are cherry-picked and reinvented. New inventions are often simply improvements upon a series of existing designs, but sometimes they are a transcending amalgamation of previous inventions and ideas into a totally new thing. It shows an appreciation of what was, an understanding that at the core of the item, there is a kernel of truth. Imagine a water wheel next to a barn on someone’s estate. The wheel sits in a stream, and the water makes the wheel slowly turn. Connect the wheel to a shaft inside the barn and then slide an oval or notched disk onto the shaft and secure it so it rotates with the shaft. Lay a heavy board over the disk, and it makes the board go up and down as the shaft rotates. This would be an automatic hammer. If the hammer were heavy enough, it could be used by a blacksmith to hammer metal. Gears and shafts could be combined to turn the horizontally turning shaft into a vertically turning shaft which itself could turn a round stone. This could be used to grind grain. Eventually, someone decided to replace the water with a steam boiler. The steam would turn the wheel instead. From there, it was merely a matter of time before someone wondered if they could put the boiler on a cart with wheels and use the shaft to turn the wheels, and the train would be invented.

As today’s generations see the beginning of the end of the incandescent light bulb, I become nostalgic because I was part of its beginning. It is a simple thing today, but I cannot begin to tell you how much it changed the way the entire world lived and worked. Simple things, but today’s common things are yesterday’s marvels. Can you imagine living today with only candles or an oil lamp? Today’s marvel seems to be LED lighting or whatever is next. The need for light is not new, but every generation seeks a way to improve how we make it. Every day is full of forgotten simple things. I still get nostalgic each May, recalling the newspapers of my youth announcing that the first shipment of strawberries had arrived in town. Today, fruits and vegetables come from everywhere, all year long. They make them bigger, can bring a bushel to your door, and can deliver it by tomorrow. Many people today use words unknown in my generation, such as organic, locally-sourced, or sustainable, to describe their food. For the most part, all my food was this; only I did not know it. It is a simple thing that has been given a name and is being reborn. We also had electric street cars in my day. It might sound unbelievable to many, but we had electric cars too. Just a few years after my death, one car in three was electric! What was old is now new. History repeats! This is but my attempt at some random point-to-point navigation to demonstrate the importance of the past, how it shapes the future, and to note that its lessons reside within our elders, our true treasures, often overlooked until it is too late.

With all this in mind, let us begin the story of my life and that of my family. Their lives involved challenges many people today would find mostly familiar and others difficult, but which shaped me and the world that everyone lives in today. I want to note that the story of my family, though rich with stories and events, is not particularly unique. It is simply one American story among many. As I begin writing on this Mother’s Day, I also want to point out the contributions and strengths of the women in my life: my mother, sisters, and wife. I make this point as many of the stories I plan to share are either about myself or my father, and so I will endeavor to balance out our stories with theirs. With a century behind us since my own death, I have a great luxury in that I can present stories in a greater context than when they were fresh. I hope the story of my life and that of my family may enrich your understanding of the world in which I lived and that you live now. My life is practically a lesson in 19th century American and world history. I may introduce events that some readers know well while reminding others that so much is taken for granted today. Regardless of who you are, understanding the past is often the surest way to understand the future.

As with my own life, this story may prove little more than a cautionary tale to some or perhaps to encourage others to follow their hearts. My father’s story is much more consistent, of hard work and supporting your fellow man. There are so many panels in a quilt that makes a family that it is difficult to capture them all equally. And so, let us begin the story of my family with the story of my father, Frederick William Sparling.

By the way, my name is Frederick Herbert Sparling, but you can call me Fred, and this is the story of my father and our adventures.

Chapter 1

The Pacific Northwest

On the twenty-fourth of February, 1873, my father was assigned a government contract as Acting Assistant Surgeon at Fort Cape Disappointment. He was forty-seven at the time, and the rest of the family was living in Washington City. The District of Columbia had been created in 1801 but continued to be referred to as simply Washington City, and so it was with my family. Although now, a regular Army officer, positions like this were essentially appointed employment. His pay was $125 per month, and food and shelter were included. Oregon Territory was originally a giant area encompassing today’s Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. When the two territories were separated into the Washington and Oregon Territories, a line extending along Oregon’s current northern boundary cut across Idaho, putting north Idaho and part of Montana into Washington Territory with southern Idaho and part of Wyoming in Oregon Territory. This was the period, in the mid-1850s, of the great Indian Wars. When Oregon gained statehood in 1859, southern Idaho and part of Wyoming land shifted back to Washington Territory, making the upper Territory elbow shaped. As of 1870, the entire Washington Territory had a population of just under 24 thousand, and most of those people were in the eastern half of the wilderness, to the east of the Cascade Mountain range. In this wild west of the northwest, there were 6 main towns that constituted nearly two-thirds of the population, in ranked order: Walla Walla, Vancouver, Olympia, Seattle, Steilacoom, and Port Townsend. This shows the significance of Walla Walla at the time, as all of the other cities are west of the Cascade Range. Except for Walla Walla and Seattle, these towns represented centers of federal administration, and so their growth was directly or indirectly infused with money and power. In the east, Walla Walla claimed title to the largest city at about 53 hundred citizens, over one-fifth of the Territorial population. Although its future growth would slow, its prominence would ultimately bring the railroad to it as the lines moved west, eventually connecting with Seattle on Puget Sound. The next largest city was Vancouver (not to be confused with Vancouver, British Columbia). The Territorial Army headquarters were located in Vancouver, and this is where my father reported for assignment as well as submitted his monthly reports. After that, the next two cities were nearly tied in size, and both were located on Puget Sound, Olympia, and Seattle, each with nearly 22 hundred citizens. Olympia was the Territorial capital, as modest as it was. The Capital building was a plain wooden building looking more like a schoolhouse or church than the center of administration. These four cities represented more than half of the territorial population, all of them small by today’s standards.

Figure 1: Relative Locations of Forts and Cities

Seattle was home to the Territorial University, which had been built in 1863 but would not have its first graduate until thirteen years later. Even so, as of 1875, the university resembled a handful of two-story white homes clustered together. After that, there was Steilacoom and Port Townsend. Steilacoom, a little further north on Puget Sound than Olympia, was essentially an Army post proximal to today’s Lakewood district in South Tacoma. In 1872, though, it included the Territorial Penitentiary as well as a mental health facility. The prison, then home to a dozen inmates, would be relocated to an island on the Sound; however, the mental health facility, just opened the prior year, would remain until the present day, growing extensively. At this time, the hospital, if you could call the make-shift facility that had 31 patients, operating essentially as a managed-care facility under contract. In fairness, the facility was also noted as providing the best comforts and services that money could buy. Even so, it would be only a few years later that public stories of poor treatment of relatives would come to light, and the Territorial authorities would assume direct control of the hospital, which operates to this day as Western State Hospital. Finally, Port Townsend, the most northwestern major town in the Territory, was home to the Columbia District’s Customs House. Located almost across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from the British town of Victoria, Port Townsend was pretty remote. It was situated adjacent to Fort Townsend on a peninsula head where ships coming from Victoria or the open sea for Puget Sound would be required to stop for inspection and assessment of taxes or duties. For ships traveling the Pacific Coast, between Victoria and San Francisco, this was as close as a passenger could get to Seattle, there being no regular ferry service from Port Townsend to the inland sound at the time. The fort there served to protect the town as well as defend this corner of the United States. The only post in the Territory more remote was on San Juan Island, situated between the two countries and about thirty miles away from Port Townsend. This was the Washington Territory of the early 1870s, mostly Army posts and a framework of federal and territorial government.

Figure 2: Fort Cape Disappointment, c1873

As I noted, my father’s assigned post was Fort Cape Disappointment, soon to be renamed to Fort Canby, on the very most southwest tip of Washington Territory, being defined by the Columbia River. The military post at the Cape had been established just ten years earlier and was complimented by Fort Stevens on the south side of the river’s mouth. Leaving the family behind, he traveled alone to his new assignment. His friend and new son-in-law, Augustus, stayed behind with our family in Washington City. It would be almost a year before we would leave to join our father.

Fort Cape Disappointment was the northern defense at the mouth of the Columbia River, a monster river that today still empties nearly two million gallons of water every second into the Pacific Ocean. The bar of the river is so dangerous that the mouth is the southern end of what is called the Graveyard of the Pacific, extending up through Vancouver Island, where thousands of ships have been lost during recorded history. The graveyard extends across the whole of the Pacific Northwest coast, where rocks and gales, and storms can torture the ships passing between Astoria and Victoria. A survey of the Pacific Coast in 1850 recommended the construction of a lighthouse at Cape Disappointment, as well as several buoys, but the lighthouse was not in service until late 1856. After that, a fort was developed to provide defense of the mouth, and another would soon be built on the south side of the river, on what is now the Oregon coast of the Columbia. The recommended crossing of the bar for all ships was to wait for the ebb or flood tides, preferably the flood tide, and this remains the rule even to the present day for smaller craft trying to cross the bar. This was the final hurdle for anyone sailing from California to the cities on the Columbia. Astoria sat just inside the mouth, on the south shore, with Portland another ninety miles upstream.

Lewis and Clark’s expedition wintered over near the Astoria area in 1805, and only five years later, John Jacob Astor dispatched another expedition to the area, this time to set up a suitable base for harvesting furs. The expedition established Fort Astoria in 1811. Immediately after, the War of 1812 broke out between the United States and Great Britain, and Mr. Astor thought it best to sell ownership to a British fur business as the British claimed all the undeveloped lands in the northwest, and it was expected they would enforce their claim. Fort Astoria became Fort George under British control, and with the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, it was returned and renamed Fort Astoria again. The subsequent Treaty of 1818 resolved additional issues, allowing both nations to jointly occupy the Territorial lands. Finally, in 1846 another treaty was signed that finally defined the British-American border as the 49th parallel, leaving the Washington and Oregon Territories completely to the United States with a total immigrant population of only six thousand at that time. Throughout, Fort Astoria grew into simply Astoria, and by 1847 it represented about four percent of the region’s population with a mere two-hundred fifty citizens. Twelve years later, Oregon became a state, and eleven years after that, in 1870, Astoria had six-hundred thirty-nine residents. By the early 20th century, it had become Oregon’s second-largest city, with a population of about nine thousand. The town celebrated its two-hundredth anniversary in 2011 with a modest population of about ten thousand, the oldest American-founded city on the West Coast.

Figure 3: Wood Etching of Astoria, c1868

Fort Cape Disappointment was my father’s new home, and Astoria was the closest town connected to the rest of the world. He had traveled to California by train, as the Transcontinental Railroad had opened for business in 1869, and then by boat from California to Astoria. He reported for duty on the seventh of March 1873, less than two weeks after the assignment! The second fastest route was by boat to Panama, where he would have taken another boat to San Francisco and then a final boat to Astoria – this trip taking no less than twenty-three days in even the best of scenarios. Even so, he was no slouch, as it took a week from Omaha to San Francisco by train and a few days more from there to Astoria by boat. There can be no doubt that he was anxious to begin his life again in a far less entrenched environment. He remained assigned to the fort for the remainder of 1873 as he made plans for the family’s crossing over Panama. My older siblings and Augustus did what they could to bring in income back to Washington City while my father saved up money for our passage and familiarized himself with the northwest in general.

Well, most of his money was saved for our crossing. Upon arriving, he enjoyed his freedom by discovering a new hobby that would become a passion of his – sailing. It probably did not start out as a hobby, as having a boat at the time provided freedom of movement in an area defined by water boundaries. Given my father’s personality, it was a necessity. In mid-July, a year before our family traveled to the West Coast, local Astoria gossip was about his new thirty-foot boat he was having built at Cape Disappointment. The Astorian harbor had been full of boat pleasure sailing the week prior, with beautiful weather, and there had even been a boat race between the Mary H. and the Ione. Amid continued interest, his boat finally launched the first week of August 1873. He promptly visited Astoria a few days later. August was a fare month, as it often is in the Pacific Northwest, and excursions, destination trips as they were called, were popular group activities. On Friday, the twenty-second of August, one such large group departed Astoria on the Vauna, headed to the Cape where the grounds, fortifications, and guns were of interest and where Major Frank G. Smith, Mr. Munson, and my father greeted and entertained them. Then, in early October, he sailed again to Astoria, this time alone. He stayed over at the Occident Hotel, which he had frequented previously, and then returned to the Cape. He did this twice. The weather was blustery, and the locals promptly pronounced him adept at sailing. He named his new boat Katie, my third sister’s name! Clearly, he was enjoying his new life but missing his family. It would be another eight months before plans were in place for our family’s travel. In the meantime, he had a boat and the beautiful Pacific Northwest to enjoy.

This is probably a good point to discuss the state of pleasure yachting on the West Coast. Races had taken place on the Atlantic for, relatively speaking, a long time by the early 1870s. Even so, the big race everyone thinks of today, that of the America’s Cup, was only born in 1851 when the New York Yacht Club’s boat America was awarded the cup, which was then named after her. Upon arriving in Washington City, my father was introduced to sporting discussions regarding yachting and racing, and the races in Europe in 1870 were a popular subject, discussing how fast the Sappho was and how she won all her races abroad. In 1871, the Sappho successfully defended the America’s Cup for the yacht club. And so, yachting on the