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

Although the Washington Territorial/State Library was formed in 1853, making it the first library and indeed cultural institution in Washington to be supported by public funds, the distinction of becoming the very first community library belongs to Steilacoom.

In our Rare Vault, WSL has two copies of the Constitution, by-laws, and rules and orders of the Steilacoom Library Association, Washington Territory : organized in March, 1858, which was published in 1860. One of the copies has a news clipping attached to the back cover, dated 7 Feb. 1926, apparently from the Tacoma Daily Ledger:

 Steilacoom Library Has Rare Old Books

Movement Under Way to Prepare Fitting Home for Many Valuable Volumes of Historical Interest; First Library Organization Formed in 1857-58

Books, rare old volumes, representing the first library in the state of Washington, are contained in the Steilacoom library. It is but recently the men and women of Steilacoom have begun an active movement to restore the library and secure a home for the institution that will fit with the historical interest centering about this early library.

An article on the founding of the library was recently prepared by Mrs. William A. O’Donnell of Steilacoom and read by her sister, Mrs. Neil Henly, before the annual meeting of the library association January 12. It said, in part:

“During the fall and winter months of 1857-58 a group of citizens, trying to kill time in a corner grocery, in the then flourishing town of Steilacoom conceived the idea of trying to improve their spare time by organizing a library association and at the same time have a place to meet for social intercourse.”

“A call was sent out and the first meeting was held in the grocery store of Philip Keach, on the corner of main and Commercial streets. Meetings were held from time to time. Then a committee was sent to the State Legislature in January 1858, headed by Secretary W.H. Wood of the library.”

 “The result of this was that the first library of the state was formed and known as the Steilacoom Library association. This was agreeable to the act of the Legislature passed February 3, 1858. The object of the association, it was agreed, would be the diffusion of useful knowledge and sound morality. A reading room was to be established, procuring public lectures and debates.”

“Among the signers of the first record very few are alive, but the names familiar now are E.R. Rogers, John Sarltar, E.A. Light, Ezra and John Meeker, Stephen and Paul Judson and Charles Prosch.”

“Money was collected and E.A. Light went to San Francisco to buy books. Some of the first 600 volumes are in the present library.”

“The first home of the library was in the brick store of McCaw & Rogers, with Mr. Rogers as librarian. The years passed and members scattered, until the association was almost forgotten. In 1892 a few interested citizens took the matter up and a reorganization was effected. A.L. Bell was elected librarian. As many of the books as possible were rebound, but this was not much of a success. In 1900 W.L. Bair had the books moved from the old brick store to his drug store and then to the Iron Springs hotel safe, as he realized the old books would become valuable.”

 “In 1914 the Women’s Commercial club solicited books from each member, until a number of new books were secured. This club disbanded and a few remaining members took over the books and formed a library association under the old constitution and bylaws of the Steilacoom library. When the Iron Springs hotel was sold the library was again without a home.”

“Then the new and old library consolidated and since that time those interested have been working hard to keep a roof over the books by social gatherings and other means and hope to secure a permanent home for the oldest library in the state.”

 “At present Mrs. T.A. St. Clair is president of the association; Mrs. F.H. Chelius, vice president; Mrs. William J. Bradley, secretary, and Mrs. E.D. Annis, treasurer.”

 Like the Washington State Library, Steilacoom’s library has had an eventful and perilous history, but has survived and continues to serve citizens to this day.

Other pre-November 1889 territorial library efforts:

1860, January: Seattle Library Association formed, according to Thomas Prosch, followed by several reorganizations for the next couple decades. Actual books were not acquired until 1866. In 1881 the collection was donated to the University of Washington.

1860, November: Lyceum and Library Association, Olympia. A series of lectures failed to excite the interest of the public in funding a new library.

1862: University of Washington. The UW Library did not have a book budget until 1880, existing purely on donated material up to that point. In 1867 the University was missing so many books that an edict limiting circulation to students and teachers was issued.

1864: Walla Walla Library Association began organization in 1864 and incorporated in 1865. Eventually Walla Walla’s library shifted from a subscriber-based foundation and in 1878 actually built and opened what was possibly the first free public library in Washington with a full-time librarian. The experiment came to an end in 1888 due to costs.

1865: Holy Angels College Library, Vancouver. This collection of over 300 volumes was supplied by the Vancouver Catholic Library Association during the College’s quarter century or so existence.

1869, August: Tacoma Lodge of the Good Templars (Olympia). Capt. D.B. Finch, who skippered a mail steamer, donated a building to Olympia for the express purpose of establishing a free public library. By 1878, due to lack of funds, the library had to charge a subscription fee, but that failed to keep the institution alive. The collection was given to the Washington State Library in the 1890s. For a couple years in the 1870s the Territorial Library was housed in the same building.

1873: The Tacoma Reading Room. This short-lived venture began in a tent, which also served as a church on Sundays.

1875: Mrs. Maynard’s Reading Room, Seattle. Catherine Maynard, Doc’s widow, established a free reading room in her downtown Seattle home. In 1876 the collection was moved to the YMCA. Trivia: Mrs. Maynard may have been the person responsible for introducing the dandelion to the Puget Sound area.

1876: Dayton began as a free public library, but was forced to move to a subscription-based model after a year.

1878: The Vancouver Library Association worked in cooperation with the local Odd Fellows to create a free public reading room. In 1891 the collection was given to the newly formed Vancouver Public Library.

1880: The Spokane Library was free to the public and started out with 41 volumes. After a few fits and starts it eventually morphed into Spokane Public Library.

1882: Whitman College makes the first purchases of books for a library.

1882: The city of Colfax worked in cooperation with the Colfax Academy to form a subscription library.

1886: The Mercantile Library of Tacoma began as a reading room in the home of Mrs. Grace R. Moore. Within a few years it was moved downtown and became Tacoma Public Library.

1887: Mr. Bonney’s Book Collection, owned by W.W. Bonney in Ellensburg, was opened to the public. The Ladies Municipal Improvement Society took control of it for several years before the library was presented to the city.

1887, September: Gonzaga University opens and even employs a librarian in the first year.

1888, June: The Ladies Library Association in Seattle started a process of creating a new library, which finally happened after Seattle’s great 1889 fire.

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

Sea serpent stories are developing into a subgenre in this column. Although the creature described here resembles the “DungeNessie” serpent sighted in 1892 in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, this particular sighting took place very near to the 1899 episode of The Sea Serpent That Got Away.

 This article was found in the Dec. 7, 1855 issue of the Puget Sound Courier, published out of Steilacoom. The serpent was seen off of Devil’s Head, on the tip of the Key Peninsula. Then it took off and vanished between McNeil and Anderson islands. It is interesting that all of the geographic names mentioned in this article have remained essentially unchanged since 1855:

 THE SEA SERPENT.

 Mr. Editor:

 “I hasten to communicate to you the important and interesting fact that the world-renowned sea serpent, has at last condescended to pay a visit to the waters of our beautiful inland sea; and from the great delight he was evidently enjoying, that it is but fair to presume he will visit us annually.”

 “For the gratification of the hundreds of thousands of anxious people in the world who have seen in the papers so many unsatisfactory accounts of his mighty snakeship, I will endeavor to give a correct and truthful description of him, praying all who may read it, to give the relation their full, firm, and entire belief. Early in the morning of yesterday, December 2nd, a party of us left Johnson’s Point, so called, where we had camped the night before, on our way from Olympia to pass ‘down the Sound.’ We had just fairly got started, some two hundred yards, perhaps, from the shore, when I, who was steering the boat, noticed a sudden and unusual commotion in the water in the direction of the Devil’s head– a high Bluff bank so called, and directly in our track. Pretty soon the flurry was over and the waters subsided into a calm. For a moment I supposed that there was a shoal of ‘Killers’– gamboling, which, being a common occurrence, I took no further notice of.”

 “Looking again in the same direction, however I saw intervals of some ten feet apparently four round, dark looking spots, somewhat resembling Buoys, upon the water. This awakened some curiosity in my mind, and I gazed upon the phenomenon intensely; but when I saw as I did a moment after, an object of startling appearance rise gradually from the water to a height of fifteen feet, seeming to connect with the dark spots on the surface. My amazement was complete, and I immediately directed the attention of those who were with me in the boat, Messrs Ramsay, Turnbull, Clough and Shanutt, to the singular looking object and asked them their opinion of it.”

 “They immediately ceased rowing and looked in the direction indicated by me anxiously and earnestly for someminutes, when the truth as to its real nature seemed to break upon our minds simultaneously, and we all exclaimed at once ‘its the Sea serpent its the Sea Serpent!’ Ah, then it would have done you good and made the ‘cockles of your heart beat with joy’ to see how four white ash oars were made to bend and spring under the vigorous strokes of as many athletic young, men creating a miniature water fall under the bow of our sweet little craft. ‘Give way strong my lads, Give way strong’ was the cheering word frequently given; and they did ‘give way’ strong, for, in fifteen minutes we had accomplished a distance that ordinarily takes forty five, and had reached the spot as near as we could judge, where we had seen his royal Snakeship. We then lay upon our oars and looked about us in all directions for a nearer and better view of the distinguished stranger– not long was we doomed to look in vain, for within five minutes from the time we ceased pulling, the monster again rose to the surface on our Starboard Bow and within thirty yds. of us.”

  “If we were surprised before, when seeing him from a distance we now were perfectly amazed, and so badly frightened withal, that there was not one in the party, who did not send up an involuntary and sincere prayer to Heaven for a safe delivery from the neighborhood of so hideous and dangerous looking a Customer. Curiosity however, was stronger within our breasts than fear and consequently we took no measures to get an offing but determined, on the contrary, to hold out where we were, and if possible get a good view of the animal from head to tail and thereby determine his length, size, color, and general appearance, that we might contrast him, as a whole, with the descriptions we had from time to time seen in the journals of the day, for the last twenty years.”

 “Our laudable curiosity was destined to be completely gratified, for the monster, after coming to the surface, straitened himself out at full length, gradually raised his flattened serpent looking head some fifteen feet in the air, and opened his mouth, which was sufficiently large to take in a yearling heifer, took a cool look all around, and at last fixed his small piercing eyes, full upon us, in a manner that seemed to say, who and what are you, that you dare approach so near, or disturb the element which owns me, and me alone, as its monarch.”

 “For the space of ten minutes we were thrilled on the marrow in our bones by the indescribable and strangely fascinating look, and I verily believe that if our soul’s salvation had depended upon this action, so trivial as that as a single sweep with our oars, that we could not have given it– for we were so utterly amazed at the huge proportions of this monster of the ‘Deep’ and so nearly petrified with fear at finding ourselves in such close proximity to him, as to be completely incapable of the least effort,– not for a thousand worlds would I again experience the agonizing sensatives that my mind was tortured by in those ten minutes, or be again so entirely at the mercy of this hideous and frightful looking Serpent.”

 “I am aware that there thousands of incredulous persons in the world who utterly disbelieve the tales that are told of this mighty Ocean Snake, and will dare even to deny the truth of this relation, and accuse the writer of having a distempered imagination or disposition to practice upon the credulity of the silly, and the inexperience of the young. To such I would say, that my imagination is neither distempered nor ardent and that I have no disposition whatever to impose a falsehood upon the simple and credulous. The length of this monster was about 90 feet, and his average size nearly that of our firs. His color was a dirty green, and his whole body, apparently, covered with scales.”

 “At the expiration of ten minutes he turned his head in a northerly direction, and the last we saw of him he was making a ‘strait wake’ through ‘Balches passage’ at the rate of 20 miles an hour.”

 “Yours Respectfully, Robt. Littlejohn.”

 The Puget Sound Courier is one of many historic newspapers that has been digitized by the Washington State Library and is available online.