October 1, 2005 was a rainy autumn day in Mount Vernon, but the sun came out long enough for local historian Dick Fallis to dedicate the one and only statue you’ll encounter along the length of Main Street: that of a Mount Vernon settler named Jasper Gates.

It was a triumphant moment for Fallis, who had persevered for more than a year to raise money to honor the first pioneer to homestead what is now downtown Mount Vernon. The statue, by sculptor Tracy Powell, was based on a photograph of Gates and his grandson John Knox, and is situated on the site of Gates’ first cabin from his 1870s claim.

A Pioneer Story

The story of Jasper Gates begins, as many pioneer stories do, far east of the Rocky Mountains. Gates was born in Missouri on April 9, 1840. He was the 10th of 15 children of Abel Gates of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Jasper’s father had been a lieutenant in a rifle company that saw action in New Orleans during the War of 1812. After the war he settled in Missouri and took up farming.

After completing his education (most likely grade school), Jasper Gates took over half interest in his father Abel’s farm. He married Clarinda Kimble on October 6, 1860, and two years later enlisted in the 27th Missouri Infantry during the Civil War. His unit was in many major battles and he took part in General Sherman’s infamous “March to the Sea,” during which he was severely wounded at Resaca, Georgia — a battlefield injury that disabled him for some time.

Following the Civil War, Gates returned to Missouri but was persuaded in 1869 by his brother-in-law, David E. Kimble, to journey to the Washington Territory along with two other families — where they became the first group of settlers to stake homesteads on Whidbey Island. After scouting sites for potential farm acreage on the east bank of the Skagit River, in the part of Whatcom County that would become Skagit County in 1883, Gates became the first settler (according to available records) to file a homestead on the original town site of Mount Vernon. He had to travel all the way to Olympia to file his initial claim in 1869-70 because Whatcom County did not have a land office at the time. Not to mention the absence of reliable WIFI.

The First Claim in Mount Vernon

In retrospect, you can’t help but wonder what it was that Jasper Gates saw in the stretch of riverside that he laid claim to. The first settlers to the Mount Vernon area began arriving in the 1860s to find the main mode of transportation, the Skagit River, blocked by massive logjams so old that trees up to 90 feet tall grew from them. This probably explains why most of the original Whidey pioneer families chose to build and farm south and west of the future town.

The first logjam was half a mile long and 14 feet deep, and to its north was an even larger jam a mile and a half long. The upper jam formed in a bottleneck west of Jasper’s homestead — located between the two bows –and the jams made the town land inaccessible until the lower one was cut through partially in 1876-77. By the summer of 1879 the upper Skagit was open for navigation, thanks to the herculean efforts of some dedicated loggers.

In addition to Jasper Gates, the earliest settlers on record were David E. Kimble and Joseph F. Dwelley, who settled between 1869 and 1870. Enough other settlers arrived the following year to justify building a school, which was started on the Kimble ranch in 1872. Harrison Clothier, who came out from Corinth, New York to teach at the school, and Edward G. English, who had been a pupil of his in Wisconsin, formed a partnership in March 1877 with plans to open a trading post. For $100 they purchased 10 acres of land from Jasper Gates that encompassed four blocks on the waterfront, prepared a town plat, and named the community Mount Vernon, after George Washington’s home in Virginia. Personally, I would have preferred naming the town after Thomas Jefferson’s home, but Monticello probably has too Mediterranean a ring for the Pacific Northwest.

Life and Times

There’s little record of the events in Gates’ life over the next seven years — although the fact that he and Clarinda had 11 children would lead us to believe he was a busy man. The first improvement to the land he laid claim to in Mount Vernon was a shack he built to fulfill the requirements for his homestead patent. This structure stood where the National Bank of Commerce was later built at the northeast corner of First and Gates streets — the spot where the statue to his memory and a fantastic city mural are now situated.

(A footnote on the life of Clarinda Gates: at one time she owned the only sewing machine in the area, which she put to use in making a flag that was flown atop a 200-foot tall cedar on July 4, 1877 — barely a century after the United States had declared itself an independent nation. A lot had happened in those 100 years.)\

With an expanding family, Gates built a more substantial home. Its original site was said to have been on the banks of the Skagit River, but at that time the shore was some 40-50 feet further west than it was when the home was pictured in a 1906 book of historic Skagit County buildings. But after the clearing of the Skagit River’s upper log jam, the current began eating into the eastern shore, making it probable that the home’s original site is now mid-river.

On the whole, not a lot is known of the details of Jasper Gate’s life. Thanks to the above mentioned 1906 book, we know that he was a key organizer and stockholder of a group that set up the first incorporated business in town, the Skagit Sawmill and Manufacturing Co., on April 16, 1887. The list of his fellow organizers, it should be noted, reads like a Who’s Who of early Mount Vernon business owners.

Of Fire and Fortune

In 1890, Gates was responsible for one of four new brick buildings erected in downtown Mount Vernon. A year later, on July 13, 1891, a fire destroyed 15 business buildings and two homes in what the 1906 book described as the town’s “oldest business section.” A month later, Great Northern began laying railroad track over Kincaid street, which was described as the main thoroughfare at that time.

Although we don’t know how Gates’ home was affected by the fire, the catastrophe may have played in the decision that same year to relocate his farm to a plot of land near his brother-in-law, David Kimble, although he seems to have maintained a home in Mount Vernon for some years after. In a recently discovered Skagit News article from June 10, 1884, it was reported that Gates had sold all his town lots by that time. The exact location of Gates’ later property is unclear. In her book, Skagit Settlers, his daughter Martha says that he bought a farm near Skagit City, and that he had a big orchard there. The biography notes that the farm was two miles southwest of Mount Vernon:

“He moved on his present property in 1891. Mr. and Mrs. Gates have seen frontier life in all of its phases, and have undergone many hardships which will never be recorded. . . . Reaping fair returns from his business undertakings, Mr. Gates now owns fifty-three acres of improved land, worth one hundred and fifty dollars, together with one hundred and fifteen acres of improved land, worth one hundred and fifty dollars, together with one hundred and fifteen acres of timber land in Missouri.”

In Skagit Settlers, there is a recollection by a life-long friend of the Gates Family of “stopping at the Jasper Gates’ place after buying what supplies we needed. They lived in town. . . . Father and Jasper Gates had certain political deals to discuss so we passed there briefly. I think that diked district was then known as ‘Missouri Town’.”

It’s not clear in this reference whether the family friend meant “town” as in Mount Vernon or as in Skagit City. Skagit City peaked in population and faded quickly as Mount Vernon developed after the mid-1880s. By 1906 there was only one store left, which was owned by the old pioneer, D.E. Gage. So, would she have called that a “town” or did she mean that Jasper Gates was still living in Mount Vernon at the turn of the century?

Legacy

We do know that on June 6, 1891, a reunion and picnic was held near Skagit City to mark the formation of The Skagit County Pioneer Association, a predecessor to today’s Skagit County Historical Society. The Skagit Valley was growing, with Sedro-Woolley and the towns upriver beginning to form, and Burlington just a railroad crossing in the woods. The pioneers in attendance must surely have felt that a new era was dawning — one that they had ushered in. Jasper and Clarinda were among the distinguished signatories to the association. Clarinda would pass away in 1909. Jasper would follow her in 1923, a Skagit Valley pioneer whose name might very well have been forgotten were it not for a sculpted likeness based on a faded and endearingly whimsical photograph.

(Credit: The bulk of this story was taken from an article by Noel V. Bourasaw in the Skagit River Journal. For a deeper dive into this history, you can read the article online at stumpranchonline.com)