From the Desks of the Central Library Staff

Longtime Olympia political fixture, C.B. Mann was born Nov. 2, 1844 in Crawford County, Pennsylvania. Mann attended Willamette University in Salem, Oregon and graduated from Portland Business College before arriving in Olympia in March 1870.

He was assigned to the position of Territorial Librarian and served from Aug. 1 to Nov. 6, 1870. C.B. initially held the occupation of school teacher in Oregon and was chosen school district principal in Olympia at the same time he was Librarian.

A Republican, Mann held a variety of public offices: City Treasurer, County Treasurer, County Commissioner, and Olympia Mayor (1894-1895).

A bottle from C. B. Mann’s apothecary.

Later in life he was active in gathering historical and biographical data on the pioneers of Thurston County. In a sad coincidence, although in different states Mann and his only son, Claude, died almost simultaneously on October 19, 1929.

Mann was also the topic of an earlier blogpost here, “Digging Up History“.

[The Territorial Librarian profiles were compiled by Sean Lanksbury, Mary Schaff, Kim Smeenk, and Steve Willis]

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library:

A few decades ago, back when my family still had a farm out in northwestern Thurston County, my father noticed a small glass object that had surfaced after he plowed the field. The farm had once been home to an inn called “The Hicklin Halfway House” on the stage road between Olympia and Montesano in Territory days. We were used to plowing up small pieces of china and glass. But this was different.

Except for some chips on the opening, this small glass bottle is intact, about 3 inches high, and has the raised label: C.B. Mann, Apothecary, Olympia, W.T.

As it turns out, Champion Bramwell Mann ran a drugstore on the southeast corner of 4th and Washington in Olympia, site of the present Security Building. He was a prominent figure in the local history of the city, even serving as Mayor from 1894-1895. And, believe it or not, he had a short stint as the Territorial Librarian in 1870.

And so did his father, Sylvester Hill Mann. You can read about them and the other colorful characters who kept the flame alive in Washington’s oldest public institution on WSL’s biographical page: The Territorial Librarians.