He saved Tacoma from haters and shame. Then he lay in an unmarked grave for 107 years

Tacoma was wearing a black eye in in the late 1880s.

In a racist fury, city leaders had forcibly expelled 200 Chinese people — laborers and their families — from Tacoma.

Then a mob set fire to Chinese businesses and homes.

Two years later, in 1887, city leaders needed to restore Tacoma’s tarnished reputation

Redemption came in the form of a man: Ira Town.

Newly arrived from Minnesota, he respected the law and the Constitution. He was elected mayor in 1887, a blow against a city governed by mob rule.

After a distinguished career, Town died in 1910 and was buried in Tacoma Cemetery.

Not that you would have known it. For 107 years, he lay in an unmarked grave.

On Sunday, that all changed when his descendants and a former Tacoma mayor gave Town a marker for his long lost grave.

IRA TOWN(E)

Town was born April 2, 1848, in Franklin, New York, a member of the Towne family, who were descendants of the Puritan settlers of Salem, Massachusetts.

Three of Town’s great aunts were persecuted as witches in Salem.

During the Civil War, the family moved to Albert Lea, Minnesota, just north of Iowa. Somewhere along the way, Town’s father dispensed with the “e” in the family name.

Ira Town received his law degree in 1875 at Iowa State University.

In 1879, he married a widow, Frances Ann Hill Steele. Their daughter, Mary Elizabeth, was born in 1881.

When Albert Lea was incorporated as a city, Town became the city magistrate. In the early 1880s, he was judge of the probate court of Freeborn County.

In 1884, Town moved his family to Tacoma. John Sprague was mayor at the time.

For more than a century Sprague’s towering tombstone stood a few feet from Town’s unmarked grave.

THE TACOMA METHOD

Anti-Chinese sentiment along the West Coast was rampant in the 1880s, former Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma said Sunday.

“But what made Tacoma unique, sadly unique, was the efforts to expel the Chinese were led by the mayor (Jacob Weisbach), who appointed himself police chief,” Baarsma said.

On Nov. 3, 1885, the Chinese were rounded up and marched to an area near today’s McChord Field and put on trains to Portland.

“They had to buy their own tickets,” Baarsma said.

The events, brutal and racist, came to be known as “the Tacoma Method.”

“It was, at that point, that our fine city was known as a city governed by hoodlums and hooligans and lawbreakers,” Baarsma said. “We were branded nationwide as a result of that.”

Meanwhile, Town had opened a law office in Tacoma.

In 1887, the city’s more reasonable citizens knew Tacoma’s leadership needed a reset, Baarsma said.

“The establishment and civic leaders — both Republican and Democrat — felt it was imperative that someone who believed in the rule of law, someone who could bring back some measure of civility, be recruited and run for mayor,” he said.

That person was Ira Town.

“He’s one of the good guys,” Baarsma said.

Town defeated incumbent Mayor Jacob Mann in 1887.

Town’s time in office was short — mayors generally served only one year in that era — but he was in office when the railroad reached Tacoma via the Cascades.

He raised money to create the University of Puget Sound as well as the future Tacoma General Hospital.

He also was active in Republican Party politics.

UNMARKED GRAVE

Frances, Town’s first wife, died in 1890. He died in 1910 and his second wife, Mary, died in 1927.

The three were buried in the same plot, near shady trees and other Tacoma luminaries.

But none was given a grave marker.

In 2016, Town’s great-grandson, Rob McClain, 65, was visiting Tacoma with his wife, Mary. The retired couple live in Las Vegas.

Mary McClain had been researching her husband’s family. She’s the one who discovered he was related to so-called Salem witches.

But her husband knew little about Ira Town. His grandmother, Mary Elizabeth, died when Rob was a teenager.

“I never really quizzed her about her family,” he said. “So I had no idea that Ira had been a mayor. It came as a shock.”

Mary discovered Town was buried at Tacoma Cemetery. But when the couple arrived at the graveyard they couldn’t find his plot.

“We just kept walking in circles,” Rob said. That attracted the attention of the cemetery’s resident caretaker, Chris Engh.

Engh checked records and confirmed Town and his wives were in an unmarked grave. Engh referred them to the Tacoma Historical Society. Baarsma is president of the group.

“When we mentioned that Ira had no gravestone, it concerned him,” Rob said of Baarsma.

RIGHTING A WRONG

A dozen former mayors are buried at Tacoma Cemetery, Baarsma said. He was determined to get Town a headstone.

The South Tacoma Neighborhood Council gave a $1,000 grant, the Town family provided $1,000 and the historical society chipped in $250.

“We make a little history and righted a wrong,” Baarsma said.

On Sunday, a green velvet cloth covered Town’s new granite memorial as Baarsma and family members spoke. Finally, Engh removed the cloth, revealing the marker for Town and his two wives.

The small group of relatives and history buffs moved in for a closer look.

“It’s overwhelming to see it,” Rob said. “It feels really good.”

The marker has the requisite names and dates.

Baarsma had an extra line added to the marker, below Town’s name.

“He Believed in The Rule Of Law,” it reads.

This story was originally published October 8, 2017 at 8:49 PM with the headline "He saved Tacoma from haters and shame. Then he lay in an unmarked grave for 107 years."