Chin Gee Hee courtesy name Chàngtíng (暢庭), Cheun Gee Yee, was a Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 merchant, labor contractor, and railway entrepreneur, who made his fortune in Seattle, Washington before returning to his native village in Taishan

Taishan

Taishan is a coastal county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. The city is part of the Greater Taishan Region....

, Guangdong

Guangdong

Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...

 province, which sources variously refer to as "Look Tun", "Langmei village, Doushan town", or "Long-mei" "of Luk-choon" ], where he continued his successes.

Life

The son of a maker of soy sauce

Soy sauce

Soy sauce is a condiment produced by fermenting soybeans with Aspergillus oryzae or Aspergillus sojae molds, along with water and salt...

 crocks, Chin came to the attention of an old man—Willard Jue gives his name as Hung-bok 宏伯 (pinyin: Hongbo)—through his calm after some other boys smashed crocks that he was carrying to market. The man brought him along on his passage to America, where Chin worked in a placer mine

Placer mining

Placer mining is the mining of alluvial deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment....

 before making his way to Port Gamble, Washington

Port Gamble, Washington

Port Gamble is an unincorporated community on the northwestern shore of the Kitsap Peninsula in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. It is also a small, similarly named bay, along which the community lies, near the entrance to Hood Canal. The unincorporated communities of Port Gamble and...

, where he worked in a lumber mill.

While still in North Kitsap

Kitsap County, Washington

Kitsap County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington, named after Chief Kitsap of the Suquamish tribe. As of 2011 state estimate, its population was 253,900. Its county seat is at Port Orchard, and its largest city is Bremerton....

, he learned a reasonable amount of English, and made friends with several Suquamish

Suquamish

The Suquamish are a Lushootseed-speaking Native American Tribe, located in present-day Washington in the United States.The Suquamish are a southern Coast Salish people; they spoke a dialect of Lushootseed, which belongs to the Salishan language family. Like many Northwest Coast natives, the...

, including the family of Chief Seattle

Chief Seattle

Chief Seattle , was a Dkhw’Duw’Absh chief, also known as Sealth, Seathle, Seathl, or See-ahth. A prominent figure among his people, he pursued a path of accommodation to white settlers, forming a personal relationship with David Swinson "Doc" Maynard. Seattle, Washington was named after him...

. He also met and befriended Henry Yesler

Henry Yesler

Henry L. Yesler was an entrepreneur considered to be Seattle, Washington's first economic father and first millionaire. He arrived in Seattle in 1852 and built a steam-powered sawmill, which provided numerous jobs for those early settlers and Duwamish tribe members...

, owner of a mill in the young city of Seattle, who convinced him to move there.

In 1873, he arrived in Seattle, a settlement that was about 20 years old at the time. After meeting Chin Chun Hock

Chin Chun Hock

Chin Chun Hock was the first Chinese man to settle in Seattle, Washington State, United States. He arrived in 1860 and was employed as a domestic worker. By 1868, Chin Hock had founded a general merchandising store, The Wa Chong Co., at the foot of Mill Street. He owned the Eastern Hotel which...

 , who was from the same village in Taishan, he became a junior partner in the Wa Chong company , the city's leading Chinese enterprise of the time. The Wa Chong company imported or manufactured goods including sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

, tea

Tea

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

, rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

, cigar

Cigar

A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, and the Eastern...

s, opium

Opium

Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...

 (legal at the time), and fireworks

Fireworks

Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...

.

At the time there were few Chinese women in America. While still in North Kitsap, Chin imported a wife from China; their son Chin Lem , later known as Tew Dong , born 1875 in Seattle, was the first known Chinese child born in Washington Territory

Washington Territory

The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 8, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington....

 (later Washington State).

At the Wa Chong company, he acquired labor contracts from coal mines, railroads, farming, and the Puget Sound

Puget Sound

Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

 mosquito fleet

Mosquito Fleet

The term Mosquito Fleet has had nine main meanings in U.S. naval and maritime history:#It is the term used to describe the United States Navy's fleet of small gunboats, leading up to and during the War of 1812, most were part of the New Orleans Squadron....

. He also placed Chinese house-boys and cooks. His partnership with Chin Ching-hock was somewhat uneasy: Chin Ching-hock was more interested in imports and exports than in the labor contracting that became Chin Gee Hee's specialty.

Chin Gee Hee was a central figure in the efforts at political and diplomatic defense against the anti-Chinese riots of November 1885. During the crisis, he represented the community and exchanged telegrams with Chinese consul general Ow-yang Ming in San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. He kept careful records of damages to Chinese businesses, and, partly as a result, Seattle's Chinese community fared far better than that of neighboring Tacoma

Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...

, ultimately remaining in the city and collecting $700,000 in damages through a favorable ruling by judge Thomas Burke

Thomas Burke (judge)

Thomas Burke was an American lawyer, railroad builder, and judge who made his career in Seattle, Washington. He served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Washington Territory from 1888 to 1889. He was the main representative of railroad magnate James J. Hill in Seattle...

.

In 1888, he set up independently as a labor contractor, with his Quong Tuck Company (also known as Quong Tuck Lung Company or also Quon Tuck Company) supplying construction workers to railways (the Great Northern Railway, the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad and Transportation Company

Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad

The Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad was the first railroad in Seattle, Washington...

) and to Seattle's regrading

Regrading

Regrading is the process of raising and/or lowering the levels of land; such a project can also be referred to as a regrade. Regrading may be done on a small scale or on quite a large scale...

 projects. He provided work crews (and was involved entrepreneurially) in rail lines along what are now Alaskan Way (along the Seattle waterfront) and a cable car

Cable car

A cable car is any of a variety of transportation systems relying on cables to pull vehicles along or lower them at a steady rate, or a vehicle on these systems.-Aerial lift:Aerial lifts where the vehicle is suspended in the air from a cable:...

 perpendicular to the waterfront along Yesler Way as far as 14th Avenue.
He also provided Chinese masons

Masonry

Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...

 to help build the Burke Building (a full city block at Second Avenue and Marion Street, torn down in 1971 to build what is now Seattle's Henry M. Jackson Federal Building

Henry M. Jackson Federal Building

The Henry M. Jackson Federal Building is a 37-story United States Federal Government skyscraper in downtown Seattle, Washington. Located on the block bounded by Marion and Madison Streets and First and Second Avenues, the building was completed in 1974 and won the Honor Award of the American...

; one arch of the Burke Building remains as a memorial).
His own building at Second and Washington, the Canton Building (also known as the Chin Gee Hee Building, now the Kon Yick Building), 208-210 S. Washington Street, was among the first brick buildings raised after the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889. It was shared with the Bow Tai Wo Company. (As of 2007, the building is still standing, though much altered; in particular, a 1928 re-routing of Second Avenue S. removed a corner of the building.)

He passed his Seattle business on to his son, Chin Lem, and son-in-law Woo Quon-bing and returned in 1904 or 1905 to China, where he was the entrepreneur behind South China's first railway and founded a seaport, while continuing also to have business associations with Seattle. He returned frequently to the U.S. and, in particular, to Seattle, where he retained close ties, and which he last visited in 1922.

His railway was known as the Sun Ning Railway Company

Sun Ning Railway Company

The Sun Ning Railway Company 新寧鐵路 was a standard gauge railway in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province founded in 1906 by Chin Gee Hee 陳宜禧 and Yu Shek 余灼...

 (also "Sunning" or "Xinning"; ). He raised $2.75 million, mainly from overseas Chinese

Overseas Chinese

Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....

; Chin's partner Yu Zhuo raised further funds in China and from overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

. The Sun Ning was the Pearl River Delta

Pearl River Delta

The Pearl River Delta , Zhujiang Delta or Zhusanjiao in Guangdong province, People's Republic of China is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea...

's first major railway. Its benefits to Guangdong's economy were cut short when it was seized by local warlord

Warlord

A warlord is a person with power who has both military and civil control over a subnational area due to armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority. The term can also mean one who espouses the ideal that war is necessary, and has the means and authority to engage in war...

s in 1926; it was finally destroyed during the Second Sino-Japanese War

Second Sino-Japanese War

The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...

in 1938.

External links

• David Takami, Chinese Americans HistoryLink.org Essay 2060, February 17, 1999, includes two photos of Chin.