Early Tumwater: Reverend J.F. DeVore stronger than he looked

This is a story from pioneer days, more specifically the 1850s. This first bit is from the City of Tumwater, Washington's website (title link):

...A funny story is told about Reverend J. F. DeVore, who was a Methodist minister. At that time, there was no Methodist church in the South Puget Sound and Sunday services were held in settlers’ homes. Reverend DeVore was determined to build a real church in Olympia. He went to all the businessmen in Olympia and New Market and asked them to donate money for the new building. He figured that wealthy Captain Crosby, who owned the sawmill in New Market, would be able to give a large amount. Captain Crosby was a shrewd businessman, and didn’t want to part with any of his goods. However, he made a deal with the preacher, telling him that he could have as much lumber as he could take away from the mill by himself in one day.

This was no easy task. The mill was about 200 yards from the waterfront, and the boards were huge and heavy. Captain Crosby figured that the young preacher wouldn’t be strong enough to carry very many.

The next morning Reverend DeVore arrived bright and early. He rolled up his sleeves and got right to work, lugging the heavy boards on his shoulder. He worked so steadily that Captain Crosby began to worry. How much lumber would he have to give the young preacher? He tried to get Reverend DeVore to stop for lunch, thinking it would slow him down, but the preacher only stopped long enough for a few sips of water and a few bites from his lunch pail. At the end of the day, Reverend DeVore had carried away enough lumber to build the entire church! The Olympia preacher won the respect of the New Market settlers, even Captain Crosby...

Then there's this, from the Historical Sketches on the First United Methodist Church of Olympia website (down the http://www.fumcoly.org/History/History.HTM page, under the title "Able-Bodied Pastor"):

DeVore said he would accept help from anyone in the form of money, labor and materials; and he was adept at soliciting all three. He asked a contribution from a farmer near Grand Mound who had a large crew of men harvesting grain. The farmer, doubting a minister's ability at manual labor, offered to give a day's wages for every man in his crew if DeVore could cut a swath around the entire field. The clergyman took the cradle, led the way through the harvest, and collected the money.

Next he approached Capt. Crosby, for lumber from his mill at Tumwater Falls, which then marked the southern tip of Budd's Inlet. Crosby, a Roman Catholic like his descendant Bing, promised he would contribute all the lumber DeVore could "get down to Olympia in only day without help of man or beast."

The enterprising pastor chose a day with an afternoon ebbtide, when the tide flats were dry in the morning hours. He arrived early with his long list of needed lumber, and began his one-man effort to carry and drag it to the tide flat. There he lashed it together into a raft. By afternoon Crosby was aghast as he watched the minister float away toward Olympia with all the lumber he needed for the new church. Only the sills remained to be cut from trees on the church site.

The construction of that first building must have been solid, for the structure survived four separate moves around downtown Olympia, finally ending its days as a rooming house, destroyed by fire.

There are a few other good Rev. DeVore stories on the same church history page, among them the very good reasons he was two years late showing up in Olympia.