A stone mason originally from England, Morgan James Carkeek (1847-1931) arrived in Seattle in 1870 and began building a construction and real estate empire. Mr. Carkeek and his wife, Emily (Gaskill) Carkeek (1852-1926), donated the land for Seattle's Carkeek Park. Deeply interested in conservation and the study of Seattle-area history, in 1911 the Carkeeks founded the Seattle Historical Society, which later, with the help of their daughter, Guendolen (Carkeek) Plestcheeff (1892-1994) established the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI).

This handwritten account of Seattle's "Anti-Chinese Riots" describes Mr. Carkeek's experiences on February 7, 1886, when a mob began to forcibly expel most of the city's Chinese population. Home Guards protected Chinese residents and President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) ordered United States troops to Seattle to help the Guards. Though most of Seattle rebounded quickly from the crisis, it took the city's Chinese community 20 years to return to its pre-riot population.

Caption information source: "M. J. Carkeek, Early Builder of City, Passes," The Seattle Daily Times, April 6, 1931, p. 3.
Caption information source: "Mobs forcibly expel most of Seattle's Chinese residents beginning on February 7, 1886," by Phil Dougherty, HistoryLink.org Essay 2745.