Morton M. McCarver

Morton Matthew McCarver was born on January 14, 1807, to Joseph and Betsy McCarver (née Morton) in Lexington, Kentucky. His father died during Morton's youth, and the younger McCarver left home at the age of 14. In 1832, he fought with the Illinois militia in the Black Hawk War. He had established a ferry across the Mississippi River in 1833, but his settlement was twice burned out as a trespasser on land then owned by Native Americans. Once the Black Hawk Purchase was complete in June 1833 he rebuilt his cabin in what was then the Iowa Territory. While in Iowa he served as commissary general of Iowa, earning him the nickname of general. In 1843, he joined the Great Migration and traveled the Oregon Trail west to the Oregon Country, arriving at the Willamette Valley in November of that year. ==In the West==

Once in Oregon, McCarver settled along the Columbia River in what is now Portland, Oregon. In 1845, he was again elected to the Provisional Legislature of Oregon from Tuality District and was selected as the speaker of the then renamed House of Representatives, the first to hold that position. McCarver left Oregon for the California Gold Rush in August 1848, but left his family in Oregon City to hold the land claim. He was also elected to serve at the Constitutional Convention of 1849 that was held in Monterey, as one of eight people representing the Sacramento district. Also in 1849, along with some others, he purchased three passenger ships, including the Ocean Bird. McCarver also participated in a gold rush in Idaho in 1862, setting up a company in what became Idaho City. On April 1, 1868, McCarver arrived at Commencement Bay, a likely railroad terminus on Puget Sound due to its proximity to Snoqualmie Pass, and then purchased the land of Job Carr. He continued buying up available land along Commencement Bay in anticipation of the railroad. Anthony Carr, Job's son, had already filed a plat for "Tacoma" on November 30, 1869. McCarver chose to call his neighboring plat "Tacoma City" when he filed his plat map on December 3, 1869. ==Death and legacy==

Morton Matthew McCarver died on April 17, 1875, at the age of 68. In 1926, a school in the McCarver Neighborhood, Tacoma, Washington was named for him. In 2023, community members raised concerns about McCarver's history of proposing and supporting laws to exclude Black and mixed-race Americans from living in the Oregon and California territories. In August 2023, the Tacoma Public Schools district renamed McCarver Elementary to Edna Travis Elementary School. ==References==