Magnolian Marta Brace has developed a history jones about the early days of Seattle, but she has a focus most people don't have. Her husband John Brace's great-great-grandfather was the manager and later part owner of a lumber mill at the south end of Lake Union in the late 1800s, Marta told the News.
John Stewart Brace rubbed elbows with some of the city's founders, including David Denny, who hired Brace in 1888 to supervise the Western Mill he owned. It was the largest lumber mill in the area, and Brace came from a long line of lumbermen, Marta said.
Brace's timing was spot on, too, because Seattle's business district burnt to the ground later that year. The Western Mill provided lumber that helped rebuild the devastated city.
But Denny was wiped out by the financial panic of 1893 and - as Marta discovered in her research - ended up leasing the mill two years later to Brace and another mill employee, Frank Hergert.
In 1889, the two men bought the business and renamed it the Brace and Hergert Mill Company. It was wiped out by a fire in 1909, but the two men rebuilt the mill on newly filled-in land at the south end of the lake. The company would eventually be sold in 1921 to the Stimson Timber Company.
Brace had died in 1918, but his sons, Nick and Ben, teamed up with John Jorgensen and formed the Brace Lumber Company, which operated from 1921 to 1988.
It chanced that one of the endless schemes to fix "the Mercer Mess" prompted the city in 1971 to use eminent domain to buy the property for $350,000. But the Brace clan leased the property from the city, and the family continued to operate the business until it shut down in 1988, according to Marta.
Adding a sense of closure, the last existing building of the lumber company was finally torn down on July 25 this year, she said. "When the shed came down, it kind of gave me a beginning and an end."
Marta has traced other links to her family's past. Both Brace and Hergert built palatial homes: Brace at 170 Prospect St. in Queen Anne and Hergert at 1041 Summit on Capitol Hill. Each stands to this day.
Brace, Marta found, also was involved with the creation of one of Seattle's landmarks: the Lake Washington Ship Canal. Brace was the president of the Lake Washington Canal Association, and the canal was dedicated the year before he died, Marta wrote in a summary of the family history.
Marta said she did her research at public libraries and on the Internet at sites such as HistoryLink.org. She estimates she's been working on the history project for close to 20 years, having started on it following the death of her husband's grandmother, who had been doing all the genealogical research for the family. "Somebody had to do it, and I love it," Marta said.
Asked if she had been consumed by the history project, Marta said, "Absolutely. Oh my God. It took on a life of its own." But it seems like she could finally use a break.
"I'm kind of hoping it will wrap up in a little bit here," Marta smiled.
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