William Fraser Tolmie experiences an earthquake at…
June 1833 CE
His journal entry records the first written eyewitness account of an earthquake in the Puget Sound region.
At the age of twenty, having spent three years attending medical classes at the University of Glasgow, Tolmie had qualified as a Licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, after which he joined the Hudson's Bay Company and soon sailed for the Pacific Northwest.
In the spring of 1833 he arrived at Fort Vancouver, and soon after arriving he was sent to the proposed site for Fort Nisqually.
The route was via canoe up the Cowlitz River then overland by horse.
Tolmie's journal provides the first detailed account of this route, today essentially that of Interstate 5.