The Great 'New England' Fraud
A Seattle man wages war on a Boston magazine for swapping 'Rainier' for 'Tacoma' at the behest of railroad interests.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Thomas R. Shearafe wrote a scathing letter to the New England Magazine Corporation in Boston, protesting their unauthorized alteration of an article about Seattle. Shearafe noted that an article purported to be written by John W. Pratt had been manipulated to change mentions of 'Mount Rainier' to 'Tacoma.' Shearafe accused the magazine of 'crimes' including forgery and a breach of common honesty, suggesting the changes were made to aid the advertising schemes of a railroad corporation involved in townsite speculation. He asserted that the magazine was attempting to rewrite Washington history to suit the interests of directors' rings and concluded by recommending that the editors devote themselves prayerfully to the study of local history.
“We, here in your sister state, would be as well justified in undertaking to force upon the good people of Boston town a relinquishment of its long standing name and a return to the old Indian name of the peninsula—Mushauwomuk.”
This letter perfectly captures the 1890s 'Mountain War,' a fierce civic rivalry between Seattle and Tacoma over the name of the volcano. It serves as a stark reminder that even in the Victorian era, branding, regional identity, and corporate influence over publishing were just as contentious as modern debates over city renaming or corporate-sponsored 'placemaking.'
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