P. B. Van Trump

Who was P. B. Van Trump?

Philemon Beecher Van Trump, also known as P. B. Van Trump, was an American pioneering mountaineer and writer who lived in the state of Washington. He is best known for the first ascent of Mount Rainier in 1870.

Van Trump was born in Lancaster, Ohio on December 18, 1838. He was educated at Kenyon College and the New York University. In 1867 he moved to Washington Territory as the private secretary to Marshall F. Moore, the seventh governor of the territory. Moore was Van Trump's brother-in-law.

Van Trump first saw Mount Rainier in August, 1867, and later remembered, "That first true vision of the mountain, revealing so much of its glorious beauty and grandeur, its mighty and sublime form filling up nearly all of the field of direct vision, swelling up from the plain and out of the green forest till its lofty triple summit towered immeasurably above the picturesque foothills, the westering sun flooding with golden light and softening tints its lofty summit, rugged sides and far-sweeping flanks -- all this impressed me so indescribably, enthused me so thoroughly, that I then and there vowed, almost with fervency, that I would some day stand upon its glorious summit, if that feat were possible to human effort and endurance."