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Mount Adams, the long-dormant volcano in Southwest Washington, recently experienced some unusual seismic activity, and the USGS is stepping up their monitoring, which seemed like the perfect excuse to look into the origins of the mountain鈥檚 name.

First, though, an existential question: is it wrong to get excited about a nearby dormant volcano showing signs of seismic activity?

Probably. However, in the Pacific Northwest, many amateur volcanologists cut their teeth on Mount Baker鈥檚 big scare back in 1975 and then, of course, became immersed in all things 鈥淗arry Truman,鈥� 鈥減yroclastic,鈥� and 鈥渄ome-building鈥� when Mount Saint Helens exploded back to life in 1980. Still, because volcanoes are a fact of life here on the Pacific Rim, we watch in awe and wonder, and we also try to never lose sight of the 57 who died at Mount Saint Helens on May 18, 1980.

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This new information about Mount Adams comes from a which was issued Thursday afternoon by this arm of the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

USGS officials say six small quakes were recorded at Mount Adams in September, ranging in magnitude from 0.9 to 2.0. The quakes are small, but the quantity is unusual. The statement from the USGS says that quakes like this usually happen only about once every 2-3 years.

There鈥檚 not much in the way of recent history about Mount Adams as an active volcano, and USGS scientists say Mount Adams has been dormant for at least 3,800 years. There is currently just a single seismic reporting station at Mount Adams, but the USGS is moving fast to deploy additional resources in partnership with the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network to get a complete picture of what might be happening.

Officials emphasize that there鈥檚 no need to panic. 鈥淐urrently,鈥� the USGS statement says, 鈥渢here is no indication that the level of earthquake activity is cause for concern.鈥�

Any longtime Pacific Northwest resident can鈥檛 help but wonder if this is a distant early warning of something significant and serious, and if we might yet experience another chapter of volcanic history in real-time. The news also provides some serious motivation to get a better understanding of where Mount Adams fits into more recent history.

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Though Mount Adams, at 12,307 feet, is the second-tallest peak in Washington after Mount Rainier, it is probably the second most obscure, after Glacier Peak.

Mount Adams is on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and is located mostly in Yakima County, with a western portion of the slope and glaciers in adjacent Skamania County. The nearest town of note is White Salmon.

Mount Adams is easy to miss when looking from the west, because it鈥檚 situated on almost the exact same line of latitude as Mount Saint Helens. One of the nicest views of Mount Adams often comes as a surprise for drivers headed south from Mount Hood down toward the community of Hood River, Oregon.

The peak, of course, wasn鈥檛 always known as Mount Adams.

Accurate understanding of Indigenous names for mountains is often difficult to come by, and it鈥檚 hard to know which, if any, printed sources to trust. The names and origin stories are often just a bit too tidy, and often read like a form of 20^th century Euro-centric style mythology of convenience.

That being said, there is some agreement among a few of white guys who have written about it that the Yakima name for Mount Adams was Pahto. They might be right.

Anyone who鈥檚 been paying attention to All Over The Map over the years should know by now that Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy named Mount St. Helens, Mount Baker and Mount Rainier when he explored this area in 1792 (a member of his crew, Lieutenant William Broughton named Mount Hood).聽 Neither Vancouver nor Broughton named Mount Adams because they didn鈥檛 see it. Because of that similar latitude, from many parts of the coast, Mount Adams hides behind Mount St. Helens.

It鈥檚 believed that the first non-Indigenous people to see Mount Adams were American explorers Lewis and Clark 聽in April 1806. They saw it, but they didn鈥檛 name it. Though they died describe it in their journal as a 鈥渉igh humped mountain.鈥�

As for the origins of the name 鈥淎dams鈥� for the now possibly reawakening volcano, that story is bit complicated.

In the 1830s, an idiosyncratic booster of the Oregon Country named Hall J. Kelly wanted to rename all the Cascade peaks after American presidents, and call the whole thing the Presidents Range.

Under the Kelly scheme, for example, Mount St. Helens would have become Mount Washington; Mount Rainier would have become Mount Harrison; and 鈥� this is the complicated part 鈥� Mount Hood would have become Mount Adams.

When he was proposing his scheme, Hall J. Kelly actually did not know that the current Mount Adams existed, so he never proposed a different name for it. Many scholars point to a Kelly follower (with a presidential-inspired moniker of his own) known as Thomas Jefferson Farnham for successfully naming Mount Adams 鈥� the one that the USGS is sending more seismic monitoring equipment to 鈥撯�淢ount Adams鈥� around 1843, and for somehow getting the name to stick.

As if Hall J. Kelly鈥檚 scheme didn鈥檛 create enough confusion already around the origins of the name of Mount Adams, there remains some debate amongst the scholarly sources as to which President Adams the peak was intended to be named for: President John Adams or his son, President John Quincy Adams.

No matter what it鈥檚 called or who it鈥檚 truly named for, only the future will reveal if Mount Adams will dramatically emerge from obscurity in the months and years 鈥� or perhaps centuries, or maybe millennia 鈥� ahead.

You can hear Feliks every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle鈥檚 Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O鈥橞rien, read more from him鈥�here, and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast聽here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks鈥�here.