Of the ten-acre campus, seven acres were cleared of the tall fir and cedar trees at an expense of two hundred and seventy-five dollars per acre, the remaining three were worse, at three hundred and sixteen dollars per acre. The method of removing these forest giants was unique and imposing. The workers partially grubbed perhaps twenty trees standing near each other, then dispatched a sailor aloft in their airy tops to hitch them together with a cable and descend to terra firma. A king among the trees was chosen whose downfall should destroy his companions, and relentlessly uprooting it, the tree-fallers suddenly and breathlessly withdrew to witness a grand sight, the whole group of unnumbered centuries' growth go crashing down at once. They would scarcely have been human had they uttered no shout of triumph at such a spectacle. To see but one great, towering fir tree go grandly to the earth with rush of boughs and thunderous sound is a thrilling, pathetic and awe-inspiring sight. About the center of the tract was left a tall cedar tree to which was added a topmast. The tree, shorn of its limbs and peeled clean of bark, was used for a flagstaff. The old account books, growing yearly more curious and valuable, show that the majority of the old pioneers joined heartily in the undertaking and did valiant work in building the old University. They dug, hewed, cleared land, hauled materials, exchanged commodities, busily toiled from morn to night, traveled hither and yon, in short did everything that brains, muscle and energy could accomplish in the face of what now would be deemed well nigh insurmountable obstacles. The president of the board of commissioners, the Rev. D. Bagley, has said that in looking back upon it he was simply foolhardy. "Why, we had not a dollar to begin with," said he; nevertheless pluck and determination accomplished wonders; many of the people took the lands at one dollar and a half an acre, in payment for work and materials. Clarence B. Bagley, son of Rev. D. Bagley, is authority for the following statement, made in 1896: "Forty-eight persons were employed on the work and nearly all the lumber for the building was secured from the mills at Port Blakeley and Port Madison, while the white pine of the finishing siding, doors, sash, etc., came from a mill at Seabeck, on Hood Canal. I have been looking over the books my father kept at that time and find the names of many persons whom all old-timers will remember. I found the entry relating to receiving 10,000 brick from Capt. H. H. Roeder, the price being $15.50 per thousand, while lime was $3 per barrel and cement $4.50 per barrel. Another entry shows that seven gross of ordinary wood screws cost in that early day $9.78. Capt. Roeder is now a resident of Whatcom County. The wages then were not very high, the ordinary workman receiving $2 and $2.25 per day and the carpenters and masons $4 per day.