Recent (Historic?) Pumice

The recent pumice can be found on top of the pyroclastic flow of Old Maid age in the White River valley; thus, the pumice probably is less than 200 years old. The pumice may have been erupted during the middle of the 19th century.

A minor eruption of Mount Hood in September 1859 was witnessed by W.F.Courtney (letter to Everett, Washington, Record, May 1902, quoted in Harris, 1976, p.147), who reported the following:

"We were camped on Tie Ridge about thirty-five miles from 
Mt. Hood.  It was about 1:30 o'clock in the morning *** when
suddenly the heavens lit up and from the dark there shot up 
a column of fire.  With a flash that illuminated the whole
mountainside with a pinkish glare, the flame danced from the
crater *** For two hours, as we watched, the mountain continued
to blaze at irregular intervals, and when morning came Mt. Hood
presented a peculiar sight.  His sides, where the day before
there was snow, were blackened as if cinders and ashes had
been thrown out."

An event that was probably was another minor eruption of Mount Hood was witnessed in 1865 by John Dever, a soldier stationed at Fort Vancouver, Washington, 80 kilometers west-northwest of the volcano. He reported (letter to Portland Oregonian, September 26, 1865) that he saw between 5 and 7 a.m. on September 21,

"*** the top of Mount Hood enveloped in smoke and fire *** 
real jets of flame shot upwards seemingly a distance of fifteen
or twenty feet above the mountain's height, accompanied by
discharges of what appear to be fragments of rock, which I
could perceive fell immediately after with a rumbling noise not
unlike distant thunder."

Although the recent pumice that is scattered on the slopes of Mount Hood could have erupted in either 1859 or 1865, it also could be the product of more than one eruption.