Volcanoes and History
Cascade Range Volcanoes - "Volcanoes and History"

Henry Warre

September 1845, eruption of Mount St. Helens
(Journal written in 1845, published in 1976)

Excerpt from:
Warre, H.J. (Major-Fregeau, M., editor), 1976, Overland to Oregon in 1845 -- Impressions of a journey across North America: Public Archives of Canada (Ottawa), 149p.

Mount St. Helens, Washington

   [ca.September 13, 1845]     ... Between Vancouver and the mouth of the Cowelitz River there is not much to attract the Eye or worthy of notice. The Views are certainly very pretty and the distance is always broken by the presence of one of the several snowy Mountains standing high above the surrounding Mountains ... Mount Hood & Mt. St. Helens being the nearest & therefore the most conspicuous ...

The Morning was lovely and as we were descending one of the long reaches in the River my attention was attracted to Mount St. Helens standing as it were, at the head of the bend! ... Suddenly a long black Column of Smoke & Ashes shot up into the Air, and hung as a Canopy over the dazzling Cap contrasting strongly with the Clear blue Sky behind it; this was an incipient Eruption, and my curiosity was excited the more from being the first Volcano I have ever seen in action ... ...




Excerpt found in Yamaguchi, D.K., Pringle, P.T., and Lawrence, D.B., 1995, Field Sketches of Late-1840s Eruptions of Mount St. Helens, Washington: IN: Washington Geology, vol.23, no.2, June 1995, p.3-8.


Yamaguchi, et.al., wrote: "On two occasions in September 1845, British spy Henry Warre saw and sketched watercolors of eruption columns forming over the north flank of Mount St. Helens, Washington. ... Figure 2    [in Washington Geology, June 1995]    is the first of two similar sketches Warre made from Mount Coffin. The Public Archives of Canada have assigned a date of September 13, 1845, to the second, more finished sketch, based on Warre's journal entries. ... Within a few days of his original sketches, Warre made a third sketch from Cowlitz Farm a trading post along the Cowlitz River. While Warre made no journal entries for this sketch, it was probably done between September 17 and September 20, 1845, based on his earlier and later notes."


 

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