[Pg 1]

FORT DECATUR. JANUARY 26, 1856

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BLAZING THE WAY

OR

TRUE STORIES, SONGS AND SKETCHES
OF PUGET SOUND AND OTHER
PIONEERS

BY
EMILY INEZ DENNY

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR AND
FROM AUTHENTIC PHOTOGRAPHS

SEATTLE:
RAINIER PRINTING COMPANY, Inc.
1909

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Copyright 1899
By
EMILY INEZ DENNY

Published 1909

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To My Dear Father and Mother,
Faithful Friends and Counselors,
Whose pioneer life I shared,
This book is affectionately dedicated
By THE AUTHOR

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[Pg 7]

PREFACE

BLAZING THE WAY.

In the early days when a hunter, explorer
or settler essayed to tread the mysterious depths
of the unknown forest of Puget Sound, he took
care to “blaze the way.” At brief intervals he
stopped to cut with his sharp woodman’s ax a
generous chip from the rough bark of fir, hemlock
or cedar tree, leaving the yellow inner bark
or wood exposed, thereby providing a perfect
guide by which he retraced his steps to the canoe
or cabin. As the initial stroke it may well be
emblematical of the beginnings of things in the
great Northwest.

I do not feel moved to apologize for this
book; I have gathered the fragments within my
reach; such or similar works are needed to set
forth the life, character and movement of the
early days on Puget Sound. The importance
of the service of the Pioneers is as yet dimly
perceived; what the Pilgrim Fathers were to
New England, the Pioneers were to the Pacific
Coast, to the “nations yet to be,” who, following
in their footsteps, shall people the wilds
with teeming cities, a “human sea,” bearing on
its bosom argosies of priceless worth.

[Pg 8]It does contain some items and incidents
not generally known or heretofore published. I
hope others may be provoked to record their
pioneer experiences.

I have had exceptional opportunities in
listening to the thrice-told tales of parents and
friends who had crossed the plains, as well as
personal recollections of experiences and observation
during a residence of over fifty years
in the Northwest, acknowledging also the good
fortune of having been one of the first white
children born on Puget Sound.

Every old pioneer has a store of memories
of adventures and narrow escapes, hardships
bravely endured, fresh pleasures enjoyed, rude
but genial merrymakings, of all the fascinating
incidents that made up the wonder-life of long
ago.

Chronology is only a row of hooks to hang
the garments of the past upon, else they may
fall together in a confused heap.

Not having a full line of such supports on
which to hang the weaving of my thoughts—I
simply overturn my Indian basket of chips
picked up after “Blazing the Way,” they being
merely bits of beginnings in the Northwest.

E. I. DENNY.

Note—The poem referred to on page 144 will appear in another
work.—Author.

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INDEX

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SYNOPSIS OF INCIDENTS.

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[Pg 15]

ILLUSTRATIONS

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BLAZING THE WAY

PART I.—THE GREAT MARCH

CHAPTER I
CROSSING THE PLAINS.

The noble army of courageous, enduring,
persistent, progressive pioneers who from time
to time were found threading their way across
the illimitable wilderness, forty or fifty years
ago, in detached companies, often unknown and
unknowing each other, have proved conclusively
that an age of marvelous heroism is but recently
past.

“CHIPS PICKED UP AFTER BLAZING THE WAY”

The knowledge, foresight, faith and force
exhibited by many of these daring men and
[Pg 18]women proclaimed them endowed with the
genius of conquerors.

The merely physical aspect of the undertaking
is overpowering. To transport themselves
and their effects in slow and toilsome
ways, through hundreds of miles of weary
wilderness, uninhabited except by foes, over
beetling mountain ranges, across swift and dangerous
rivers, through waterless deserts, in the
shadow of continual dread, required a fortitude
and staying power seldom equaled in the history
of human effort.

But above and beyond all this, they carried
the profound convictions of Christian men and
women, of patriots and martyrs. They battled
with the forces of Nature and implacable
enemies; they found, too, that their moral battles
must be openly fought year after year, often in
the face of riotous disregard of the laws of God
and man. Arrived at their journey’s end, they
planted the youngest scions of the Tree of Liberty;
they founded churches and schools, carefully
keeping the traditions of civilization, yet
in many things finding greater and truer freedom
than they had left behind.

The noblest of epics, masterpieces of painting,
stupendous operas or the grandest spectacular
drama could but meagerly or feebly express
the characters, experiences and environment of
those who crossed the plains for the Pacific slope
in the midst of the nineteenth century.

[Pg 19]

It is my intention to speak more especially
of one little company who were destined to take
a prominent part in the laying of foundations in
the State of Washington.

Previous to 1850, glowing accounts of the
fertility, mildness, beauty and general desirability
of Oregon Territory, which then included
Washington, reached the former friends and acquaintances
of Farley Pierce, Liberty Wallace,
the Rudolphs and others who wrote letters concerning
this favored land. Added to the impression
made thereby, the perusal of Fremont’s
travels, the desire for a change of climate from
the rigorous one of Illinois, the possession of a
pioneering spirit and the resolution was taken,
“To the far Pacific Coast we will go;” acting
upon it, they took their places in the great movement
having for its watchword, “Westward
Ho!”

John Denny, a Kentuckian by birth, a pioneer
of Indiana and Illinois, whose record as a
soldier of 1812, a legislator in company and fraternal
relations with Lincoln, Baker, Gates and[Pg 20]
Trumbull, distinguished him for the most admirable
qualities, was the leading spirit; his
wife, Sarah Latimer Denny, a Tennessean,
thrifty, wise, faithful and far-seeing, who had
for many widowed years previous to her marriage
to John Denny, wrought out success in
making a home and educating her three children
in Illinois, was a fit leader of pioneer women.

These, with their grown-up sons and daughters,
children and grandchildren, began the great
journey across the plains, starting from Cherry
Grove, Knox County, Illinois, on April 10th,
1851. Four “prairie schooners,” as the canvas-covered
wagons were called, three of them drawn
by four-horse teams, one with a single span, a
few saddle horses and two faithful watchdogs,
whose value is well known to those who have
traveled the wilds, made up the train.

The names of these brave-hearted ones,
ready to dare and endure all, are as follows:

John Denny, Sarah Latimer Denny and their
little daughter, Loretta; A. A. Denny, Mary A.
Denny and their two children, Catherine and
Lenora; C. D. Boren, Mrs. Boren and their
daughter, Gertrude; the only unmarried woman,
Miss Louisa Boren, sister of Mrs. A. A. Denny
and C. D. Boren; C. Crawford and family; four
unmarried sons of John Denny, D. T. Denny,
James, Samuel and Wiley Denny.

The wrench of parting with friends made
a deep and lasting wound; no doubt every old[Pg 21]
pioneer of the Pacific Coast can recall the
anguish of that parting, whose scars the healing
years have never effaced.

The route followed by our pioneers was the
old emigrant road along the north side of the
Platte River, down the Columbia and up the
Willamette to Portland, Oregon Territory,
which they afterwards left for their ultimate
destination, Puget Sound, where they found
Nature so bountiful, a climate so moderate and
their surroundings so ennobling that I have
often heard them say they had no wish to return
to dwell in the country from whence they came.

Past the last sign of civilization, the Mormon
town of Kanesville, a mile or two east of
the Missouri River, the prairie schooners were
fairly out at sea. The great Missouri was
crossed at Council Bluffs by ferryboat on the
5th of May. The site of the now populous city
of Omaha was an untrodden waste. From thence
they followed the beaten track of the many who
had preceded them to California and Oregon.

Hundreds of wagons had ground their way
over the long road before them, and beside this
road stretched the narrower beaten track of the
ox-drivers.

On the Platte, shortly after crossing the
Missouri, a violent thunderstorm with sheets of
rain fell upon them at night, blowing down their
tents and saturating their belongings, thereby
causing much discomfort and inconvenience. Of[Pg 22]
necessity the following day was spent in drying
out the whole equipment.

It served as a robust initiation in roughing
it; up to that time they had carefully dressed in
white night robes and lay down in neatly made
beds, but many a night after this storm were
glad to rest in the easiest way possible, when
worn by travel and too utterly weary of the long
day’s heat and dust, with grinding and bumping
of wheels, to think of the niceties of dainty living.

For a time spring smiled on all the land;
along the Platte the prairies stretched away on
either hand, delightfully green and fresh, on the
horizon lay fleecy white clouds, islands of vapor
in the ethereal azure sea above; but summer came
on apace and the landscape became brown and
parched.

The second day west of the Missouri our
train fell in with a long line of eighteen wagons
drawn by horses, and fraternizing with the occupants,
joined in one company. This new company
elected John Denny as Captain. It did not
prove a harmonious combination, however; discord
arose, and nowhere does it seem to arise so
easily as in camp. There was disagreement
about standing guard; fault was found with the
Captain and another was elected, but with no
better results. Our pioneers found it convenient
and far pleasanter to paddle their own canoes,[Pg 23]
or rather prairie schooners, and so left the contentious
ones behind.

Long days of travel followed over the monotonous
expanse of prairie, each with scarcely
varying incidents, toils and dangers. The stir
of starting in the morning, the morning forward
movement, the halt for the noonday meal, cooked
over a fire of buffalo chips, and the long, weary
afternoon of heat and dust whose passing
brought the welcome night, marked the journey
through the treeless region.

At one of the noonings, the hopes of the
party in a gastronomic line were woefully disappointed.
A pailful of choice home-dried
peaches, cooked with much care, had been set on
a wagon tongue to cool and some unlucky movement
precipitated the whole luscious, juicy mass
into the sand below. It was an occurrence to
make the visage lengthen, so far, far distant were
the like of them from the hungry travelers.

Fuel was scarce a large part of the way until
west of Fort Laramie, the pitch pine in the Black
Hills made such fires as delight the hearts of
campers. In a stretch of two hundred miles but
one tree was seen, a lone elm by the river Platte,
which was finally cut down and the limbs used
for firewood. When near this tree, the train
camped over Sunday, and our party first saw
buffaloes, a band of perhaps twenty. D. T.
Denny and C. D. Boren of the party went hunting
in the hills three miles from the camp but[Pg 24]
other hunters had been among them and scattered
the band, killing only one or two; however
they generously divided the meat with the
new arrivals. Our two good hunters determined
to get one if possible and tried stalking a shaggy-maned
beast that was separated from the herd,
a half mile from their horses left picketed on
the grassy plain. Shots were fired at him without
effect and he ran away unhurt, fortunately
for himself as well as his pursuers. One of the
hunters, D. T. Denny, said it might have been a
very serious matter for them to have been
charged by a wounded buffalo out on the treeless
prairie where a man had nothing to dodge
behind but his own shadow.

On the prairie before they reached Fort
Laramie a blinding hailstorm pelted the travelers.

D. T. Denny, who was driving a four-horse
team in the teeth of the storm, relates that the
poor animals were quite restive, no doubt suffering
much from their shelterless condition. They
had been well provided for as to food; their
drivers carried corn which lasted for two hundred
miles. The rich grass of five hundred miles
of prairie afforded luxurious living beyond this,
and everywhere along the streams where camp
was made there was an abundance of fresh herbage
to be found.

Many lonely graves were seen, graves of
pioneers, with hopes as high, mayhap, as any,[Pg 25]
but who pitched their silent tents in the wilderness
to await the Judgment Day.

A deep solemnity fell upon the living as the
train wound along, where on the side of a mountain
was a lone grave heaped up with stones to
protect it from the ravages of wolves. Tall pines
stood around it and grass and flowers adorned
it with nature’s broidery. Several joined in singing
an old song beginning

Echoed only by the rustling of the boughs of
scattered pines, moving gently in the wind.

As they approached the upheaved mountainous
country, lively interest, a keen delight in
the novelty of their surroundings, and surprise
at unexpected features were aroused in the minds
of the travelers.

A thoughtful one has said that the weird
beauty of the Wind River Mountains impressed
her deeply, their image has never left her memory
and if she were an artist she could faithfully
represent them on canvas.

A surprise to the former prairie dwellers
was the vast extent of the mountains, their imaginations
having projected the sort of mountain
range that is quite rare, a single unbroken ridge[Pg 26]
traversed by climbing up one side and going down
the other! But they found this process must be
repeated an indefinite number of times and over
such roughness as their imaginations had never
even suggested.

What grinding, heaving and bumping over
huge boulders! What shouting and urging of
animals, what weary hours of tortured endurance
dragged along! One of them remembers,
too, perhaps vaguely, the suffering induced by an
attack of the mysterious mountain fever.

The desert also imposed its tax of misery.
Only at night could the desert be safely crossed.
Starting at four o’clock in the afternoon they
traveled all the following night over an arid,
desolate region, the Green River desert, thirty
miles, a strange journey in the dimness of a
summer night with only the star-lamps overhead.
In sight of the river, the animals made a rush
for the water and ran in to drink, taking the
wagons with them.

Often the names of the streams crossed were
indicative of their character, suggestive of adventure
or descriptive of their surroundings.
Thus “Sweetwater” speaks eloquently of the refreshing
draughts that slaked the thirst in contrast
with the alkaline waters that were bitter;
Burnt River flowed past the blackened remains
of an ancient forest and Bear River may have
been named for the ponderous game secured by
a lucky hunter.

[Pg 27]By July of 1851 the train reached Old Fort
Hall, composed of a stockade and log houses,
situated on the Snake River, whose flood set toward
the long-sought Pacific shore.

While camped about a mile from the fort the
Superintendent wrote for them directions for
camping places where wood and water could be
obtained, extending over the whole distance from
Fort Hall to the Dalles of the Columbia River.
He told James Denny, brother of D. T. Denny,
that if they met Indians they must on no account
stop at their call, saying that the Indians of that
vicinity were renegade Shoshones and horse
thieves.

On the morning of the fifth of July an old
Indian visited the camp, but no significance was
attached to the incident, and all were soon moving
quietly along in sight of the Snake River;
the road lay on the south side of the river, which
is there about two hundred yards wide. An encampment
of Indians was observed, on the north
side of the river, as they wound along by the
American Falls, but no premonition of danger
was felt, on the contrary, they were absorbed in
the contemplation of the falls and basin below.
Dark objects were seen to be moving on the surface
of the wide pool and all supposed them to
be ducks disporting themselves after the manner
of harmless water fowl generally. What was
their astonishment to behold them swiftly and
simultaneously approach the river bank, spring[Pg 28]
out of the water and reveal themselves full grown
savages!

With guns and garments, but few of the
latter probably, on their heads, they swam across
and climbed up the bank to the level of the
sage brush plain. The leader, attired in a plug
hat and long, black overcoat flapping about his
sinewy limbs, gun in hand, advanced toward the
train calling out, “How-de-do! How-de-do! Stop!
Stop!” twice repeating the words. The Captain,
Grandfather John Denny, answered “Go back,”
emphasizing the order by vigorous gestures.
Mindful of the friendly caution of the Superintendent
at Fort Hall, the train moved on. The
gentleman of the plains retired to his band, who
dodged back behind the sagebrush and began
firing at the train. One bullet threw up the dust
under the horse ridden by one of the company.
The frightened women and children huddled
down as low as possible in the bottoms of the
wagons, expecting the shots to penetrate the canvas
walls of their moving houses. In the last
wagon, in the most exposed position, one of the
mothers sat pale and trembling like an aspen
leaf; the fate of the young sister and two little
daughters in the event of capture, beside the
danger of her own immediate death were too
dreadful to contemplate. In their extremity one
said, “O, why don’t they hurry! If I were driving
I would lay on the lash!”

When the Indians found that their shots[Pg 29]
took no effect, they changed their tactics and ran
down along the margin of the river under shelter
of the bank, to head off the train at a point where
it must go down one hill and up another. There
were seven men with five rifles and two rifle-pistols,
but these would have been of little avail
if the teams had been disabled. D. T. Denny
drove the forward wagon, having one rifle and
the pistols; three of the men were not armed.

All understood the maneuver of the Indians
and were anxious to hurry the teams unless it
was Captain John Denny, who was an old soldier
and may have preferred to fight.

Sarah Denny, his wife, looked out and saw
the Indians going down the river; no doubt she
urged him to whip up. The order was given and
after moments that seemed hours, down the long
hill they rushed pell-mell, without lock or brake,
the prairie schooners tossing like their namesakes
on a stormy sea. What a breathless, panting,
nightmare it seemed! If an axle had broken or a
linchpin loosened the race would have been lost.
But on, madly careening past the canyon where
the Indians intended to intercept them, tearing
up the opposite hill with desperate energy, expecting
every moment to hear the blood-curdling
warwhoop, nor did they slacken their speed to
the usual pace for the remainder of the day. As
night approached, the welcome light of a campfire,
that of J. N. Low’s company, induced them
to stop. This camp was on a level near a bluff;[Pg 30]
a narrow deep stream flowed by into the Snake
River not far away. The cattle were corraled,
with the wagons in a circle and a fire of brushwood
built in the center.

Around the Denny company’s campfire, the
women who prepared the evening meal were in
momentary fear of receiving a shot from an ambushed
foe, lit as they were against the darkness,
but happily their fears were not realized.
Weary as the drivers were, guards were posted
and watched all night. The dogs belonging to
the train were doubtless a considerable protection,
as they would have given the alarm had the
enemy approached.

One of the women went down to the brook
the next morning to get water for the camp and
saw the tracks of Indian ponies in the dust on the
opposite side of the stream. Evidently they had
followed the train to that point, but feared to attack
the united forces of the two camps.

After this race for life the men stood guard
every night; one of them, D. T. Denny, was on
duty one-half of every other night and alternately
slept on the ground under one of the wagons.

This was done until they reached the Cayuse
country. On Burnt River they met thirty warriors,
the advance guard of their tribe who were
moving, women, children, drags and dogs. The
Indians were friendly and cheeringly announced
“Heap sleep now; we are good Indians.”

The Denny and Low trains were well pleased[Pg 31]
to join their forces and traveled as one company
until they reached their journey’s end.

The day after the Indian attack, friendly
visits were made and Mrs. J. N. Low recalls that
she saw two women of Denny’s company frying
cakes and doughnuts over the campfire, while
two others were well occupied with the youngest
of the travelers, who were infants.

There were six men and two women in Low’s
company and when the two companies joined
they felt quite strong and traveled unmolested
the remainder of the way.

An exchange of experiences brought out the
fact that Low’s company had crossed the Missouri
the third day of May and had traveled on
the south side of the Platte at the same time the
Denny company made their way along the
north side of the same stream.

At a tributary called Big Blue, as Mrs. Low
relates, she observed the clouds rolling up and
admonished her husband to whip up or they
would not be able to cross for days if they delayed;
they crossed, ascended the bluffs where
there was a semicircle of trees, loosed the cattle
and picketed the horses. By evening the storm
reached them with lightning, heavy thunder and
great piles of hail. The next morning the water
had risen half way up tall trees.

The Indians stole the lead horse of one of the
four-horse teams and Mrs. Low rode the other on
a man’s saddle. Many western equestriennes[Pg 32]
have learned to be not too particular as to horse,
habit or saddle and have proven also the greater
safety and convenience of cross-saddle riding.

In the Black Hills while traveling along the
crest of a high ridge, where to get out of the road
would have been disastrous, the train was met by
a band of Indians on ponies, who pressed up to
the wagons in a rather embarrassing way, bent
apparently upon riding between and separating
the teams, but the drivers were too wise to permit
this and kept close together, without stopping
to parley with them, and after riding alongside
for some distance, the designing but baffled redskins
withdrew.

The presence of the native inhabitants sometimes
proved a convenience; especially was this
true of the more peaceable tribes of the far west.
On the Umatilla River the travelers were glad
to obtain the first fresh vegetable since leaving
the cultivated gardens and fields of their old
homes months before. One of the women traded
a calico apron for green peas, which were regarded
as a great treat and much enjoyed.

Farther on, as they neared the Columbia,
Captain Low, who was riding ahead of the train,
met Indians with salmon, eager to purchase so
fine a fish and not wishing to stop the wagon,
pulled off an overshirt over his head and exchanged
it for the piscatorial prize.

The food that had sustained them on the
long march was almost military in its simplic[Pg 33]ity.
Corn meal, flour, rice (a little, as it was not
then in common use), beans, bacon and dried
fruits were the main dependence. They could
spend but little time hunting and fishing. On
Bear River “David” and “Louisa” each caught
a trout, fine, speckled beauties. “David” and
the other hunters of the company also killed sage
hens, antelope and buffalo.

After leaving the Missouri River they had
no opportunity to buy anything until they
reached the Snake River, where they purchased
some dried salmon of the Indians.

[Pg 34]

CHAPTER II
DOWN THE COLUMBIA IN ’51.

After eighty days travel over one thousand
seven hundred sixty-five miles of road these
weary pilgrims reached the mighty river of the
West, the vast Columbia.

At The Dalles, the road Across the Plains
was finished, from thence the great waterways
would lead them to their journey’s end.

It was there the immigrants first feasted on
the delicious river salmon, fresh from the foaming
waters. The Indians boiled theirs, making
a savory soup, the odor of which would almost
have fed a hungry man; the white people cooked
goodly pieces in the trusty camp frying pan.

Not then accustomed to such finny monsters,
they found a comparison for the huge cuts as
like unto sides of pork, and a receptacle for the
giant’s morsels in a seaworthy washingtub. However,
high living will pall unto the taste; one may
really tire of an uninterrupted piscatorial banquet,
and one of the company, A. A. Denny, declared
his intention of introducing some variety
in the bill of fare. “Plague take it,” he said,
“I’m tired of salmon—I’m going to have some
chicken.”

But alas! the gallinaceous fowl, roaming
freely at large, had also feasted frequently on[Pg 35]
fragments no longer fresh of the overplus of salmon,
and its flavor was indescribable, wholly impossible,
as the French say. It was “fishy” fish
rather than fowl.

At The Dalles the company divided, one
party composed of a majority of the men started
over the mountains with the wagons and teams;
the women and children prepared to descend the
river in boats.

In one boat, seated on top of the “plunder”
were Mrs. A. A. Denny and two children, Miss
Louisa Boren, Mrs. Low and four children and
Mrs. Boren and one child. The other boat was
loaded in like manner with a great variety of useful
and necessary articles, heaped up, on top of
which sat several women and children, among
whom were Mrs. Sarah Denny, grandmother of
the writer, and her little daughter, Loretta.

A long summer day was spent in floating
down the great canyon where the majestic Columbia
cleaves the Cascade Range in twain. The
succeeding night the first boat landed on an
island in the river, and the voyagers went ashore
to camp. During the night one of the little girls,
Gertrude Boren, rolled out of her bed and narrowly
escaped falling into the hurrying stream;
had she done so she must have certainly been
lost, but a kind Providence decreed otherwise.
Re-embarking the following day, gliding swiftly
on the current, they traversed a considerable[Pg 36]
distance and the second night approached the
Cascades.

Swifter and more turbulent, the rushing
flood began to break in more furious foam-wreaths
on every jagged rock, impotently striving
to stay its onward rush to the limitless ocean.

Sufficient light enabled the observing eye to
perceive the writhing surface of the angry waters,
but the boatmen were stupified with drink!

All day long they had passed a bottle about
which contained a liquid facetiously called “Blue
Ruin” and near enough their ruin it proved.

I have penned the following description
which met with the approval of one of the principal
actors in what so nearly proved a tragedy:

It was midnight on the mighty Columbia.
A waning moon cast a glowworm light on the
dark, rushing river; all but one of the weary women
and tired little children were deeply sunken
in sleep. The oars creaked and dipped monotonously;
the river sang louder and louder every
boat’s length. Drunken, bloated faces leered
foolishly and idiotically; they admonished each
other to “Keep ’er goin’.”

The solitary watcher stirred uneasily, looked
at the long lines of foam out in midstream and
saw how fiercely the white waves contended, and
far swifter flew the waters than at any hour before.
What was the meaning of it? Hark! that
humming, buzzing, hissing, nay, bellowing roar!
The blood flew to her brain and made her senses[Pg 37]
reel; they must be nearing the last landing above
the falls, the great Cascades of the Columbia.

But the crew gave no heed.

Suddenly she cried out sharply to her sleeping
sister, “Mary! Mary! wake up! we are nearing
the falls, I hear them roar.”

“What is it, Liza?” she said sleepily.

“O, wake up! we shall all be drowned, the
men don’t know what they are doing.”

The rudely awakened sleepers seemed dazed
and did not make much outcry, but a strong
young figure climbed over the mass of baggage
and confronting the drunken boatmen, plead,
urged and besought them, if they considered
their own lives, or their helpless freight of humanity,
to make for the shore.

“Oh, men,” she pleaded, “don’t you hear the
falls, they roar louder now. It will soon be too
late, I beseech you turn the boat to shore. Look
at the rapids beyond us!”

“Thar haint no danger, Miss, leastways not
yet; wots all this fuss about anyhow? No danger,”
answered one who was a little disturbed;
the others were almost too much stupified to understand
her words and stood staring at the bareheaded,
black haired young woman as if she were
an apparition and were no more alarmed than
if the warning were given as a curious mechanical
performance, having no reference to themselves.

Repeating her request with greater earnestness,
if possible, a man’s voice broke in saying,[Pg 38]
“I believe she is right, put in men quick, none of
us want to be drowned.”

Fortunately this penetrated their besotted
minds and they put about in time to save the lives
of all on board, although they landed some distance
below the usual place.

A little farther and they would have been
past all human help.

One of the boatmen cheerfully acknowledged
the next day that if it “hadn’t been fur that purty
girl they had a’ gone over them falls, shure.”

The other boat had a similar experience; it
began to leak profusely before they had gone
very far and would soon have sunk, had not the
crew, who doubtless were sober, made all haste to
land.

My grandmother has often related to me
how she clapsed her little child to her heart and
resigned herself to a fate which seemed inevitable;
also of a Mrs. McCarthy, a passenger likewise,
becoming greatly excited and alternately
swearing and praying until the danger was past.
An inconvenient but amusing feature was the
soaked condition of the “plunder” and the way
the shore and shrubbery thereon were decorated
with “hiyu ictas,” as the Chinook has it, hung
out to dry. Finding it impossible to proceed,
this detachment returned and took the mountain
road.

A tramway built by F. A. Chenoweth, around
the great falls, afforded transportation for the[Pg 39]
baggage of the narrowly saved first described.
There being no accommodations for passengers,
the party walked the tramroad; at the terminus
they unloaded and stayed all night. No “commodious
and elegant” steamer awaited them, but
an old brig, bound for Portland, received them
and their effects.

Such variety of adventure had but recently
crowded upon them that it was almost fearfully
they re-embarked. A. A. Denny observed to
Captain Low, “Look here, Low, they say women
are scarce in Oregon and we had better be careful
of ours.” Presumably they were, as both
survive at the present day.

From a proud ranger of the dashing main,
the old brig had come down to be a carrier of salt
salmon packed in barrels, and plunder of immigrants;
as for the luckless passengers, they accommodated
themselves as best they could.

The small children were tied to the mast to
keep them from falling overboard, as there were
no bulwarks.

Beds were made below on the barrels before
mentioned and the travel-worn lay down,
but not to rest; the mosquitos were a bloodthirsty
throng and the beds were likened unto a corduroy
road.

One of the women grumbled a little and an
investigation proved that it was, as her husband
said, “Nothing but the tea-kettle” wedged in between
the barrels.

[Pg 40]Another lost a moccasin overboard and having
worn out all her shoes on the way, went with
one stockinged foot until they turned up the
Willamette River, then went ashore to a farmhouse
where she was so fortunate as to find the
owner of a new pair of shoes which she bought,
and was thus able to enter the “city” of Portland
in appropriate footgear.

After such vicissitudes, dangers and anxiety,
the little company were glad to tarry in the embryo
metropolis for a brief season; then, having
heard of fairer shores, the restless pioneers
moved on.

[Pg 41]

CHAPTER III
THE SETTLEMENT AT ALKI.

Midway between Port Townsend and Olympia,
in full view looking west from the city of
Seattle, is a long tongue of land, washed by the
sparkling waves of Puget Sound, called Alki
Point. It helps to make Elliott Bay a beautiful
land-locked harbor and is regarded with interest
as being the site of the first settlement by white
people in King County in what was then the
Territory of Oregon. Alki is an Indian word
pronounced with the accent on the first syllable,
which is al as in altitude; ki is spoken as ky in
silky. Alki means “by and by.”

It doth truly fret the soul of the old settler
to see it printed and hear it pronounced Al-ki.

The first movement toward its occupancy
was on this wise: A small detachment of the
advancing column of settlers, D. T. Denny and
J. N. Low, left Portland on the Willamette, on
the 10th of September, 1851, with two horses
carrying provisions and camp outfit.

These men walked to the Columbia River to
round up a band of cattle belonging to Low. The
cattle were ferried over the river at Vancouver
and from thence driven over the old Hudson Bay
Company’s trail to the mouth of Cowlitz River,
a tributary of the Columbia, up the Cowlitz to[Pg 42]
Warbass Landing and on to Ford’s prairie, a
wide and rich one, where the band were left to
graze on the luxuriant pasturage.

On a steep, rocky trail along the Cowlitz
River, Denny was following along not far behind
a big, yellow ox that was scrambling up, trying
vainly to get a firm foothold, when Low, foreseeing
calamity, called to him to “Look out!”
Denny swerved a little from the path and at that
moment the animal lost its footing and came tumbling
past them, rolling over several times until
it landed on a lower level, breaking off one of its
horns. Here was a narrow escape although not
from a wild beast. They could not then stop to
secure the animal although it was restored to the
flock some time after.

From Ford’s prairie, although footsore and
weary, they kept on their way until Olympia was
reached. It was a long tramp of perhaps two
hundred fifty miles, the exact distance could not
be ascertained as the trail was very winding.

As described by one of our earliest historians,
Olympia then consisted of about a dozen
one-story frame cabins, covered with split cedar
siding, well ventilated and healthy, and perhaps
twice as many Indian huts near the custom house,
as Olympia was then the port of entry for Puget
Sound.

The last mentioned structure afforded space
on the ground floor for a store, with a small room
partitioned off for a postoffice.

[Pg 43]Our two pioneers found here Lee Terry, who
had been engaged in loading a sailing vessel with
piles. He fell in with the two persistent pedestrians
and thus formed a triumvirate of conquerors
of a new world. The pioneers tarried not in
the embryo city but pushed on farther down the
great Inland Sea.

With Captain Fay and several others they
embarked in an open boat, the Captain, who
owned the boat, intending to purchase salmon of
the Indians for the San Francisco market. Fay
was an old whaling captain. He afterwards
married Mrs. Alexander, a widow of Whidby
Island, and lived there until his death.

The little party spent their first night on the
untrod shores of Sgwudux, the Indian name of
the promontory now occupied by West Seattle,
landing on the afternoon of September 25th,
1851, and sleeping that night under the protecting
boughs of a giant cedar tree.

On the 26th, Low, Denny and Terry hired
two young Indians of Chief Sealth’s (Seattle’s)
tillicum (people), who were camped near by, to
take them up the Duwampsh River in a canoe.
Safely seated, the paddles dipped and away they
sped over the dancing waves. The weather was
fair, the air clear and a magnificent panorama
spread around them. The whole forest-clad encircling
shores of Elliott Bay, untouched by fire
or ax, the tall evergreens thickly set in a dense
mass to the water’s edge stood on every hand.[Pg 44]
The great white dome of Mount Rainier, 14,444
feet high, before them, toward which they traveled;
behind them, stretched along the western
horizon, Towiat or Olympics, a grand range of
snow-capped mountains whose foothills were covered
with a continuous forest.

Entering the Duwampsh River and ascending
for several miles they reached the farther
margin of a prairie where Low and Terry, having
landed, set out over an Indian trail through
the woods, to look at the country, while Denny
followed on the river with the Indians. On and
on they went until Denny became anxious and
fired off his gun but received neither shot nor
shout in answer. The day waned, it was growing
dark, and as he returned the narrow deep river
took on a melancholy aspect, the great forest was
gloomy with unknown fears, and he was alone
with strange, wild men whose language was almost
unintelligible. Nevertheless, he landed and
camped with them at a place known afterward
as the Maple Prairie.

Morning of the 27th of September saw them
paddling up the river again in search of the other
two explorers, whom they met coming down in a
canoe. They had kept on the trail until an Indian
camp was reached at the junction of Black
and Duwampsh Rivers the night before. All
returned to Sgwudux, their starting point, to
sleep under the cedar tree another night.

On the evening of the 27th a scow appeared[Pg 45]
and stopped near shore where the water was
quite deep. Two women on board conversed with
Captain Fay in Chinook, evidently quite proud
of their knowledge of the trade jargon of the
Northwest. The scow moved on up Elliott Bay,
entered Duwampsh River and ascended it to the
claim of L. M. Collins, where another settlement
sprang into existence.

On the 28th the pioneers moved their camp
to Alki Point or Sma-qua-mox as it was named
by the Indians.

Captain Fay returned from down the Sound
on the forenoon of the 28th. That night, as they
sat around the campfire, the pioneers talked of
their projected building and the idea of split stuff
was advanced, when Captain Fay remarked,
“Well, I think a log house is better in an Indian
country.”

“Why, do you think there is any danger
from the Indians?” he was quickly asked.

“Well,” he replied, with a sly twinkle in his
eye, “It would keep off the stray bullets when
they poo mowich” (shoot deer).

These hints, coupled with subsequent experiences,
awoke the anxiety of D. T. Denny, who
soon saw that there were swarms of savages to
the northward. Those near by were friendly,
but what of those farther away?

One foggy morning, when the distance was
veiled in obscurity, the two young white men,
Lee and David, were startled to see a big canoe[Pg 46]
full of wild Indians from away down the Sound
thrust right out of the dense fog; they landed
and came ashore; the chief was a tall, brawny fellow
with a black beard. They were very impudent,
crowding on them and trying to get into the
little brush tent, but Lee Terry stood in the door-way
leaning, or braced rather, against the tree
upon which one end of the frail habitation was
fastened. The white men succeeded in avoiding
trouble but they felt inwardly rather “shaky”
and were much relieved when their rude visitors
departed. These Indians were Skagits.

The brush shelter referred to was made of
boughs laid over a pole placed in the crotch of
another pole at one end, the other end being held
by a crotch fastened to a tree. In it was placed
their scanty outfit and supplies, and there they
slept while the cabin was building.

A townsite was located and named “New
York,” which no doubt killed the place, exotics
do not thrive in the Northwest; however, the
name was after changed to Alki.

D. T. Denny and Lee Terry were left to
take care of the “townsite” while J. N. Low returned
with Captain Fay to Olympia and footed
it over the trail again to the Columbia. He carried
with him a letter to A. A. Denny in Portland,
remarkable as the first one penned by D. T.
Denny on Puget Sound, also in that upon it and
the account given by Low depended the decision
of the rest of the party to settle on the shores of[Pg 47]
the great Inland Sea. The substance of the letter
was, “Come as soon as you can; we have found a
valley that will accommodate one thousand families,”
referring to that of the Duwampsh River.

These two, David T. Denny and Lee Terry,
proceeded to lay the foundation of the first cabin
built on Elliott Bay and also the first in King
County. Their only tools were an ax and a hammer.
The logs were too heavy for the two white
men to handle by themselves, and after they were
cut, passing Indians, muscular braves, were
called on to assist, which they willingly did, Mr.
Denny giving them bread as a reward, the same
being an unaccustomed luxury to them.

Several days after the foundation was laid,
L. M. Collins and “Nesqually John,” an Indian,
passed by the camp and rising cabin, driving
oxen along the beach, on their way to the claim
selected by Collins on the fertile banks of the
Duwampsh River.

When D. T. Denny and Lee Terry wrote
their names on the first page of our history, they
could not fully realize the import of their every
act, yet no doubt they were visionary. Sleeping
in their little brush tent at night, what dreams
may have visited them! Dreams, perhaps, of
fleets of white-winged ships with the commerce
of many nations, of busy cities, of throngs of people.
Probably they set about chopping down the
tall fir trees in a cheerful mood, singing and
whistling to the astonishment of the pine squir[Pg 48]rels
and screech owls thus rudely disturbed.
Their camp equipage and arrangements were of
the simplest and rudest and Mr. Denny relates
that Lee Terry would not cook so he did the cooking.
He made a “johnny cake” board of willow
wood to bake bread upon.

Fish and game were cooked before the camp
fire. The only cooking vessel was a tin pail.

One evening Old Duwampsh Curley, whose
Indian name was Su-whalth, with several others,
visited them and begged the privilege of camping
near by. Permission given, the Indians built a
fire and proceeded to roast a fine, fat duck transfixed
on a sharp stick, placing a large clam shell
underneath to catch the gravy. When it was
cooked to their minds, Curley offered a choice cut
to the white men, who thanked him but declined
to partake, saying that they had eaten their supper.

Old Curley remembered it and in after years
often reminded his white friend of the incident,
laughing slyly, “He! He! Boston man halo tikke
Siwash muck-a-muck” (white man do not like
Indian’s food), knowing perfectly well the reason
they would not accept the proffered dainty.

J. N. Low had returned to Portland and
Terry went to Olympia on the return trip of
Collins’ scow, leaving David T. Denny alone with
“New York,” the unfinished cabin and the Indians.
For three weeks he was the sole occupant
and was ill a part of the time.

[Pg 49]Meanwhile, the families left behind had not
been idle, but having made up their minds that
the end of their rainbow rested on Puget Sound,
set sail on the schooner “Exact,” with others who
intended to settle at various points on the Inland
Sea, likewise a party of gold hunters bound for
Queen Charlotte’s Island.

They were one week getting around Cape
Flattery and up the Sound as far as Alki Point.
It was a rough introduction to the briny deep,
as the route covered the most tempestuous portion
of the northwest coast. Well acquainted as
they were with prairie schooners, a schooner on
the ocean was another kind of craft and they
enjoyed (?) their first experience of seasickness
crossing the bar of the Columbia. As may be
easily imagined, the fittings were not of the most
luxurious kind and father, mother and the children
gathered socially around a washing tub to
pay their respects to Neptune.

The gold miners, untouched by mal de mer,
sang jolly songs and played cards to amuse themselves.
Their favorite ditty was the round
“Three Blind Mice” and they sang also many
good old campmeeting songs. Poor fellows! they
were taken captive by the Indians of Queen Charlotte’s
Island and kept in slavery a number of
years until Victorians sent an expedition for
their rescue, paid their ransom and they were
released.

BARGAINING WITH INDIANS AT ALKI, 1851

On a dull November day, the thirteenth of
[Pg 50]the month, this company landed on Alki Point.

There were A. A. Denny, his wife, Mary
Boren Denny, and their three little children;
Miss Louisa Boren, a younger sister of Mrs.
Denny; C. D. Boren and his family; J. N. Low,
Mrs. Low and their four children and Wm. N.
Bell, Mrs. Sarah Bell and their family.

John and Sarah Denny with their little
daughter, Loretta, remained in Oregon for several
years and then removed to the Sound.

On that eventful morning the lonely occupant
of the unfinished cabin was startled by an
unusual sound, the rattling of an anchor chain,
that of the “Exact.” Not feeling well he had
the night before made some hot tea, drank it,
piled both his own and Lee Terry’s blankets over
him and slept long and late. Hearing the noise
before mentioned he rose hastily, pushed aside
the boards leaned up for a door and hurried out
and down to the beach to meet his friends who
left the schooner in a long boat. It was a gloomy,
rainy time and the prospect for comfort was so
poor that the women, except the youngest who
had no family cares, sat them down on a log on
the beach and wept bitter tears of discouragement.
Not so with Miss Louisa Boren, whose
lively curiosity and love of nature led her to examine
everything she saw, the shells and pebbles
of the beach, rank shrubbery and rich evergreens
that covered the bank, all so new and interesting
to the traveler from the far prairie country.

[Pg 51]But little time could be spent, however, indulging
in the luxury of woe as all were obliged
to exert themselves to keep their effects from being
carried away by the incoming tide and forgot
their sorrow in busily carrying their goods upon
the bank; food and shelter must be prepared, and
as ever before they met the difficulties courageously.

The roof of the cabin was a little imperfect
and one of the pioneer children was rendered
quite uncomfortable by the more or less regular
drip of the rain upon her and in after years recalled
it saying that she had forever after a
prejudice against camping out.

David T. Denny inadvertantly let fall the
remark that he wished they had not come. A. A.
Denny, his brother, came to him, pale with agitation,
asking what he meant, and David attempted
to allay his fears produced by anxiety
for his helpless family, by saying that the cabin
was not comfortable in its unfinished state.

The deeper truth was that the Sound country
was swarming with Indians. Had the pioneers
fully realized the risk they ran, nothing would
have induced them to remain; their very unconsciousness
afterward proved a safeguard.

The rainy season was fairly under way and
suitable shelter was an absolute necessity.

Soon other houses were built of round fir
logs and split cedar boards.

The householders brought quite a supply of[Pg 52]
provisions with them on the “Exact;” among
other things a barrel of dried apples, which
proved palatable and wholesome. Sea biscuit,
known as hard-bread, and potato bread made of
mashed potatoes and baked in the oven were oft
times substitutes for or adjuncts of the customary
loaf.

There was very little game in the vicinity of
the settlement and at first they depended on the
native hunters and fishermen who brought toothsome
wild ducks and venison, fresh fish and clams
in abundance.

One of the pioneers relates that some wily
rascals betrayed them into eating pieces of game
which he afterward was convinced were cut from
a cougar. The Indians who brought it called it
“mowich” (deer), but the meat was of too light
a color for either venison or bear, and the conformation
of the leg bones in the pieces resembled
felis rather than cervus.

But the roasts were savory, it was unseemly
to make too severe an examination and the food
supply was not then so certain as to permit indulgence
in an over-nice discrimination.

The inventive genius of the pioneer women
found generous exercise in the manufacture of
new dishes. The variations were rung on fish,
potatoes and clams in a way to pamper epicures.
Clams in fry, pie, chowder, soup, stew, boil and
bake—even pickled clams were found an agreeable
relish. The great variety of food fishes[Pg 53]
from the kingly salmon to the tiny smelt, with
crabs, oysters, etc., and their many modes of
preparation, were perpetually tempting to the
pioneer appetite.

The question of food was a serious one for
the first year, as the resources of this land of
plenty were unknown at first, but the pushing
pioneer proved a ready and adaptable learner.

Flour, butter, syrup, sugar, tea and coffee
were brought at long intervals over great distances
by sailing vessels. By the time these
articles reached the settlement their value became
considerable.

Game, fish and potatoes were staple articles
of diet and judging from the stalwart frames
of the Indians were safe and substantial.

Trading with the Indians brought about
some acquaintance with their leading characteristics.

On one occasion, the youngest of the white
women, Louisa Boren, attempted to barter some
red flannel for a basket of potatoes.

The basket of “wapatoes” occupied the center
of a level spot in front of the cabin, backed
by a semicircle of perhaps twenty-five Indians.
A tall, bronze tyee (chief) stood up to wa-wa
(talk). He wanted so much cloth; stretching
out his long arms to their utmost extent, fully
two yards.

“No,” she said, “I will give you so much,”
about one yard.

[Pg 54]“Wake, cultus potlatch” (No, that is just
giving them away) answered the Indian, who
measured several times and insisted that he
would not trade for an inch less. Out of patience
at last, she disdainfully turned her back and
retired inside the cabin behind a mat screen. No
amount of coaxing from the savages could induce
her to return, and the disappointed spectators
filed off, bearing their “hyas mokoke” (very
valuable) potatoes with them, no doubt marveling
at the firmness of the white “slanna” (woman).

A more successful deal in potatoes was the
venture of A. A. Denny and J. N. Low, who traveled
from Alki to Fort Nesqually, in a big canoe
manned by four Indians and obtained fifty bushels
of little, round, red potatoes grown by Indians
from seed obtained from the “Sking George”
men. The green hides of beeves were spread in
the bottom of the canoe and the potatoes piled
thereon.

Returning to Alki it was a little rough and
the vegetables were well moistened with salt
chuck, as were the passengers also, probably, deponent
saith not.

It is not difficult for those who have traveled
the Sound in all kinds of weather to realize
the aptness of the expression of the Chinese cook
of a camping party who were moving in a large
canoe; when the waves began to rise, he exclaimed
in agitation, “Too littlee boat for too[Pg 55]
muchee big waters.” It is well to bear in mind
that the “Sound” is a great inland sea. A tenderfoot’s
description of the water over which he
floated, the timorous occupant of a canoe, testifies
that it looked to him to be “Two hundred
feet deep, as clear as a kitten’s eye and as cold
as death.”

All the different sorts of canoes of which I
shall speak in another chapter look “wobbly”
and uncertain, yet the Indians make long voyages
of hundreds of miles by carefully observing
the wind and tide.

A large canoe will easily carry ten persons
and one thousand pounds of baggage. One of
these commodious travelers, with a load of natives
and their “ictas” (baggage) landed on a
stormy day at Alki and the occupants spent several
hours ashore. While engaged with their
meal one of them exclaimed, “Nannitch!” (look)
at the same time pointing at the smoke of the
campfire curling steadily straight upward.
Without another word they tumbled themselves
and belongings aboard and paddled off in silent
satisfaction.

The ascending column of smoke was their
barometer which read “Fair weather, no wind.”

The white people, unacquainted with the
shores, tides and winds of the great Inland Sea,
did well to listen to their Indian canoemen;
sometimes their unwillingness to do so exposed
them to great danger and even loss of life.

[Pg 56]The Indians living on Elliott Bay were
chiefly the indigenous tribe of D’wampsh or Duwampsh,
changed by white people into “Duwamish.”

They gave abundant evidence of possessing
human feeling beneath their rough exterior.

One of the white women at Alki, prepared
some food for a sick Indian child which finally
recovered. The child’s father, “Old Alki John,”
was a very “hard case,” but his heart was tender
toward his child, and to show his gratitude he
brought and offered as a present to the kind
white “slanna” (woman) a bright, new tin pail,
a very precious thing to the Indian mind. Of
course she readily accepted his thanks but persuaded
him to keep the pail.

Savages though they were, or so appeared,
the Indians of Elliott Bay were correctly described
in these words:

But there were amusing as well as pathetic
experiences. The Indians were like untaught
children in many things. Their curiosity over-[Pg 57]came
them and their innocent impertinence
sometimes required reproof.

In a cabin at Alki one morning, a white
woman was frying fish. Warming by the fire
stood “Duwampsh Curley;” the odor of the fish
was doubtless appetizing; Curley was moved
with a wish to partake of it and reached out a
dark and doubtful-looking hand to pick out a
piece. The white woman had a knife in her hand
to turn the pieces and raised it to strike the imprudent
hand which was quickly and sheepishly
withdrawn.

Had he been as haughty and ill-natured as
some savages the result might have been disastrous,
but he took the reproof meekly and mended
his manners instead of retaliating.

Now and then the settlers were spectators in
dramas of Indian romance.

“Old Alki John” had a wife whose history
became interesting. For some unknown reason
she ran away from Puyallup to Alki. Her husband
followed her, armed with a Hudson Bay
musket and a frame of mind that boded no good.
While A. A. Denny, D. T. Denny and Alki John
were standing together on the bank one day Old
John’s observing eye caught sight of a strange
Indian ascending the bank, carrying his gun
muzzle foremost, a suggestive position not indicative
of peaceful intentions. “Nannitch”
(look) he said quietly; the stranger advanced
boldly, but Old John’s calm manner must have[Pg 58]
had a soothing effect upon the bloodthirsty savage,
as he concluded to “wa-wa” (talk) a little
before fighting.

So the gutturals and polysyllables of the native
tongue fairly flew about until evidently, as
Mr. D. T. Denny relates, some sort of compromise
was effected. Not then understanding the
language, he could not determine just the nature
of the arrangement, but has always thought it
was amicably settled by the payment of money by
“Old Alki John” to her former husband. This
Indian woman was young and fair, literally so,
as her skin was very white, she being the whitest
squaw ever seen among them; her head was not
flattened, she was slender and of good figure.
Possibly she had white blood in her veins; her
Indian name was “Si-a-ye.”

Being left a widow, she was not left to pine
alone very long; another claimed her hand and
she became Mrs. Yeow-de-pump. When this one
joined his brethren in the happy hunting ground,
she remained a widow for some time, but is now
the wife of the Indian Zacuse, mentioned in another
place.

There were women cabin builders. Each
married woman was given half the donation
claim by patent from the government; improvement
on her part of the claim was therefore
necessary.

On a fine, fair morning in the early spring
of 1852, two women set forth from the settlement[Pg 59]
at Alki, to cross Elliott Bay in a fishing canoe,
with Indians to paddle and a large dog to protect
them from possible wild animals in the forest,
for in that wild time, bears, cougars and
wolves roamed the shores of Puget Sound.

Landed on the opposite shore, the present
site of Seattle, they made their way slowly and
with difficulty through the dense undergrowth of
the heavy forest, there being not so much as a
trail, over a long distance. Arrived at the chosen
spot, they cut with their own hands some small
fir logs and laid the foundation of a cabin. While
thus employed the weather underwent a change
and on the return was rather threatening. The
wind and waves were boisterous, the canine passenger
was frightened and uneasy, thus adding to
the danger. The water washed into the canoe
and the human occupants suffered no little anxiety
until they reached the beach at home.

One of the conditions of safe travel in a canoe
is a quiet and careful demeanor, the most
approved plan being to sit down in the bottom
of the craft and stay there.

To have a large, heavy animal squirming
about, getting up and lying down frequently,
must have tried their nerve severely and it must
have taken good management to prevent a serious
catastrophe. The Bell family were camped
at that time on their claim in a rude shelter of
Indian boards and mats.

The handful of white men at Alki spent[Pg 60]
their time and energy in getting out piles for the
San Francisco market. At first they had very
few appliances for handling the timber. The
first vessel to load was the brig Leonesa, which
took a cargo of piles, cut, rolled and hauled by
hand, as there were no cattle at the settlement.

There were also no roads and Lee Terry
went to Puyallup for a yoke of oxen, which he
drove down on the beach to Alki. Never were
dumb brutes better appreciated than these useful
creatures.

But the winter, or rather rainy season, wore
away; as spring approached the settlers explored
the shores of the Sound far and near and it
became apparent that Alki must wait till “by and
by,” as the eastern shore of Elliott Bay was
found more desirable and the pioneers prepared
to move again by locating donation claims on a
portion of the land now covered by a widespread
city, which will bring us to the next chapter,
“The Founding of Seattle and Indian War.”

The following is a brief recapitulation of the
first days on Puget Sound; in these later years
we see the rapid and skillful construction of elegant
mansions, charming cottages and stately
business houses, all in sight of the spot where
stood the first little cabin of the pioneer. The
builders of this cabin were D. T. Denny, J. N.
Low and Lee Terry, assisted by the Indians, the
only tools, an ax and a hammer, the place Alki
Point, the time, the fall of 1851.

[Pg 61]They baked their bread before the fire on a
willow board hewed from a piece of a tree which
grew near the camp; the only cooking vessel was
a tin pail; the salmon they got off the Indians was
roasted before the fire on a stick.

The cabin was unfinished when the famous
landing was made, November 13th, 1851, because
J. N. Low returned to Portland, having been on
the Sound but a few days, then Lee Terry
boarded Collins’ scow on its return trip up Sound
leaving D. T. Denny alone for about three weeks,
during most of which time he was ill. This was
Low’s cabin; after the landing of Bell, Boren
and A. A. Denny and the others of the party,
among whom were Low and C. C. Terry, a roof
was put on the unfinished cabin and they next
built A. A. Denny’s and then two cabins of split
cedar for Bell and Boren and their families.

When they moved to the east side of Elliott
Bay, Bell’s was the first one built. W. N. Bell
and D. T. Denny built A. A. Denny’s on the east
side, as he was sick. D. T. Denny had served an
apprenticeship in cabin building, young as he
was, nineteen years of age, before he came to
Puget Sound.

The first of D. T. Denny’s cabins he built
himself with the aid of three Indians. There
was not a stick or piece of sawed stuff in it.

However, by the August following his marriage,
which took place January 23rd, 1853, he
bought of H. L. Yesler lumber from his sawmill[Pg 62]
at about $25.00 per M. to put up a little board
house, sixteen by twenty feet near the salt water,
between Madison and Marion streets, Seattle.

This little home was my birthplace, the first
child of the first white family established at Elliott
Bay. Mr. and Mrs. D. T. Denny had been
threatened by Indians and their cabin robbed, so
thought it best to move into the settlement.

[Pg 63]

CHAPTER IV
FOUNDING OF SEATTLE AND INDIAN WAR.

The most astonishing change wrought in the
aspect of nature by the building of a city on
Puget Sound is not the city itself but the destruction
of the primeval forest.

By the removal of the thick timber the country
becomes unrecognizable; replaced by thousands
of buildings of brick, wood and stone,
graded streets, telephone and electric light systems,
steam, electric and cable railways and all
the paraphernalia of modern civilization, the contrast
is very great. The same amount of energy
and money expended in a treeless, level country
would probably have built a city three times as
large as Seattle.

In February, 1852, Bell, Boren and the
Dennys located claims on the east side of Elliott
Bay. Others followed, but it was not until May,
1853, that C. D. Boren and A. A. Denny filed the
first plat of the town, named for the noted chief,
“Seattle.” The second plat was filed shortly
after by D. S. Maynard. Maynard was a physician
who did not at first depend on the practice
of his profession; perhaps the settlers were too
vigorous to require pills, powders and potions,
at any rate he proposed to engage in the business
of packing salmon.

[Pg 64]The settlers at Alki moved over to their
claims in the spring of 1852, some of them camping
until they could build log cabins.

Finally all were well established and then
began the hand to hand conflict for possession
of the ground. The mighty forest must yield to
fire and the ax; then from the deep bosom of the
earth what bounty arose!

The Indians proved efficient helpers, guides
and workers in many ways. One of the pioneers
had three Indians to help him build his cabin.

To speak more particularly of the original
architecture of the country, the cabins, built usually
of round logs of the Douglas fir, about six
inches in diameter, were picturesque, substantial
and well suited to the needs of the pioneer. A
great feature of the Seattle cabin was the door
made of thick boards hewed out of the timber as
there was no sawmill on the bay until H. L. Yesler
built the first steam sawmill erected on the
Sound. This substantial door was cut across in
the middle with a diagonal joint; the lower half
was secured by a stout wooden pin, in order that
the upper half might be opened and the “wa-wa”
(talk) proceed with the native visitor, who
might or might not be friendly, while he stood on
the outside of the door and looked in with eager
curiosity, on the strange ways of the “Bostons.”

The style of these log cabins was certainly
admirable, adapted as they were to the situation
of the settler. They were inexpensive as the[Pg 65]
material was plentiful and near at hand, and
required only energy and muscle to construct
them; there were no plumber’s, gas or electric
light bills coming in every month, no taxes for
improvements and a man could build a lean-to
or hay-shed without a building permit. The interiors
were generally neat, tasteful and home-like,
made so by the versatile pioneer women who
occupied them.

These primitive habitations were necessarily
scattered as it was imperative that they should
be placed so as to perfect the titles of the donation
claims. Sometimes two settlers were able
to live near each other when they held adjoining
claims, others were obliged to live several miles
away from the main settlement and far from a
neighbor, in lonely, unprotected places.

What thoughts of the homes and friends
they had left many weary leagues behind, visited
these lonely cabin dwellers!

The husband was engaged in clearing, slashing
and burning log heaps, cutting timber, hunting
for game to supply the larder, or away on
some errand to the solitary neighbor’s or distant
settlement. Often, during the livelong day the
wife was alone, occupied with domestic toil, all
of which had to be performed by one pair of
hands, with only primitive and rude appliances;
but there were no incompetent servants to annoy,
social obligations were few, fashion was remote
and its tyranny unknown, in short, many dis[Pg 66]agreeable
things were lacking. The sense of isolation
was intensified by frequently recurring incidents
in which the dangers of pioneer life became
manifest. The dark, mysterious forest
might send forth from its depths at any moment
the menace of savage beast or relentless man.

The big, grey, timber wolf still roamed the
woods, although it soon disappeared before the
oncoming wave of invading settlers. Generally
quite shy, they required some unusual attraction
to induce them to display their voices.

On a dark winter night in 1853, the lonely
cabin of D. T. and Louisa Denny was visited by
a pair of these voracious beasts, met to discuss
the remains of a cow, belonging to W. N. Bell,
which had stuck fast among some tree roots and
died in the edge of the clearing. How they did
snarl and howl, making the woods and waters resound
with their cries as they greedily devoured
the carcass. The pioneer couple who occupied
the cabin entered no objection and were very
glad of the protection of the solid walls of their
primitive domicile. The next day, Mr. Denny,
with dog and gun, went out to hunt them but they
had departed to some remote region.

On another occasion the young wife lay sick
and alone in the cabin above mentioned and a
good neighbor, Mrs. Sarah Bell, from her home
a mile away, came to see her, bringing some wild
[A]pheasant’s eggs the men had found while cut[Pg 67]ting
spars. While the women chatted, an Indian
came and stood idly looking in over the half-door
and his companion lurked in the brush near by.

John Kanem, a brother of the chief, Pat
Kanem, afterward told the occupants of the
cabin that these Indians had divulged their intention
of murdering them in order to rob their
dwelling, but abandoned the project, giving as a
reason that a “haluimi kloochman” (another or
unknown woman) was there and the man was
away.

Surely a kind Providence watched over these
unprotected ones that they might in after years
fulfill their destiny.

During the summer of 1855, before the Indian
war, Mr. and Mrs. D. T. Denny were living
in a log cabin in the swale, an opening in the
midst of a heavy forest, on their donation claim,
to which they had moved from their first cabin on
Elliott Bay.

Dr. Choush, an Indian medicine man, came
along one day in a state of ill-suppressed fury.
He had just returned from a Government “potlatch”
at the Tulalip agency. In relating how
they were cheated he said that the Indians were
presented with strips of blankets which had
been torn into narrow pieces about six or eight
inches wide, and a little bit of thread and a needle
or two. The Indians thereupon traded among
themselves and pieced the strips together.

He was naturally angry and said menacing[Pg 68]ly
that the white people were few, their doors
were thin and the Indians could easily break
them in and kill all the “Bostons.”

All this could not have been very reassuring
to the inmates of the cabin; however they were
uniformly kind to the natives and had many
friends among them.

Just before the outbreak a troop of Indians
visited this cabin and their bearing was so
haughty that Mrs. Denny felt very anxious.
When they demanded “Klosh mika potlatch wapatoes,”
(Give us some potatoes) she hurried out
herself to dig them as quickly as possible that
they might have no excuse for displeasure, and
was much relieved when they took their departure.
One Indian remained behind a long time
but talked very little. It is supposed that he
thought of warning them of the intended attack
on the white settlement but was afraid to do so
because of the enmity against him that might
follow among his own people.

Gov. Stevens had made treaties with the
Indians to extinguish their title to the lands of
the Territory. Some were dissatisfied and
stirred up the others against the white usurpers.
This was perfectly natural; almost any American
of whatever color resents usurpation.

Time would fail to recount the injuries and
indignities heaped upon the Indians by the evil-minded
among the whites, who could scarcely[Pg 69]
have been better than the same class among the
natives they sought to displace.

As subsequently appeared, there was a difference
of opinion among the natives as to the
desirability of white settlements in their domain:
Leschi, Coquilton, Owhi, Kitsap, Kamiakin
and Kanasket were determined against
them, while Sealth (Seattle) and Pat Kanem
were peaceable and friendly.

The former, shrewd chieftains, well knew
that the white people coveted their good lands.

One night before the war, a passing white
man, David T. Denny, heard Indians talking together
in one of their “rancherees” or large
houses; they were telling how the white men
knew that the lands belonging to Tseiyuse and
Ohwi, two great Yakima chiefs, were very desirable.

Cupidity, race prejudice and cruelty caused
numberless injuries and indignities against the
Indians. In spite of all, there were those among
them who proved the faithful friends of the white
race.

Hu-hu-bate-sute or “Salmon Bay Curley,” a
tall, hawk-nosed, eagle-eyed Indian with very
curly hair, was a staunch friend of the “Bostons.”

Thlid Kanem or “Cut-Hand” sent Lake
John Che-shi-a-hud to Shilshole to inform this
“Curley,” who lived there, of the intended attack
on Seattle. Curley told Ira W. Utter, a[Pg 70]
white settler on Shilshole or Salmon Bay, and
brought him up to Seattle in his own canoe during
the night.

“Duwampsh Curley” or Su-whalth, appears
in a very unfavorable light in Bancroft’s history.
My authority, who speaks the native tongue fluently
and was a volunteer in active duty on the
day of the battle of Seattle, says it was not Curley
who disported himself in the manner therein
described. I find this refreshing note pencilled
on the margin: “Now this is all a lie about
Curley.”

Curley rendered valuable assistance on
the day of the fight. D. T. Denny saw him go on
a mission down the bay at the request of the
navy officers, to ascertain the position of the
hostiles in the north part of the town.

“Old Mose” or Show-halthlk brought word
to Seattle of the approach of the hostile bands in
January, 1856.

But I seem to anticipate and hasten to refer
again to the daily life of the Founders of Seattle.

Trade here, as at Alki, consisted in cutting
piles, spars and timber to load vessels for San
Francisco. These ships brought food supplies
and merchandise, the latter often consisting of
goods, calicoes, blankets, shawls and tinware,
suitable for barter with the Indians to whom the
settlers still looked for a number of articles of
food.

Bread being the staff of life to the white[Pg 71]
man, the supply of flour was a matter of importance.
In the winter of 1852 this commodity
became so scarce, from the long delay of ships
carrying it, that the price became quite fancy,
reaching forty dollars per barrel. Pork likewise
became a costly luxury; A. A. Denny relates
that he paid ninety dollars for two barrels and
when by an untoward fate one of the barrels of
the precious meat was lost it was regarded as a
positive calamity.

Left on the beach out of reach of high tide,
it was supposed to be safe, but during the night
it was carried away by the waves that swept the
banks under the high wind. At the next low tide
which came also at night, the whole settlement
turned out and searched the beach, with pitchwood
torches, from the head of the Bay to
Smith’s Cove, but found no trace of the missing
barrel of pork.

An extenuating circumstance was the fact
that a large salmon might be purchased for a
brass button, while red flannel, beads, knives and
other “ictas” (things) were legal tender for potatoes,
venison, berries and clams.

Domestic animals were few; I do not know
if there was a sheep, pig or cow, and but few
chickens, on Elliott Bay at the beginning of the
year 1852.

As late as 1859, Charles Prosch relates that
he paid one dollar and a half for a dozen eggs and
the same price for a pound of butter.

[Pg 72]There were no roads, only a few trails
through the forest; a common mode of travel
was to follow the beach, the traveler having to
be especially mindful of the tide as the banks
are so abrupt in many places that at high tide
the shore is impassable. The Indian canoe was
pressed into service whenever possible.

Very gradually ways through the forest were
tunneled out and made passable, by cutting the
trees and grubbing the larger stumps, but small
obstructions were disdained and anything that
would escape a wagon-bed was given peaceable
possession.

Of the original settlement, J. N. Low and
family remained at Alki.

D. T. and Louisa Denny, who were married
at the cabin home of A. A. Denny, January 23rd,
1853, moved themselves and few effects in a
canoe to their cabin on the front of their donation
claim, the habitation standing on the spot
for many years occupied by numerous “sweetbrier”
bushes, grown from seeds planted by the
first bride of Seattle.

Stern realities confronted them; a part of
the time they were out of flour and had no bread
for days; they bought fish of the Indians, which,
together with game from the forest, brought
down by the rifle of the pioneer, made existence
possible.

And then, too, the pioneer housewife soon
became a shrewd searcher for indigenous articles[Pg 73]
of food. Among these were nettle greens gathered
in the woods.

In their season the native berries were very
acceptable; the salmonberry ripening early in
June; dewberries and red and black huckleberries
were plentiful in July and August.

The first meal partaken of in this cabin consisted
of salt meat from a ship’s stores and potatoes.
They afterward learned to make a whole
meal of a medium sized salmon with potatoes,
the fragments remaining not worth mention.

The furniture of their cabin was meager, a
few chairs from a ship, a bedstead made of fir
poles and a ship’s stove were the principle articles.
One window without glass but closed by
a wooden shutter with the open upper half-door
served to light it in the daytime, while the glimmer
of a dog-fish-oil lamp was the illumination
at night.

The stock consisted of a single pair of chickens,
a wedding present from D. S. Maynard. The
hen set under the door-step and brought out a
fine brood of chicks. The rooster soon took
charge of them, scratched, called and led them
about in the most motherly manner, while the
hen, apparently realizing the fact that she was
literally a rara avis prepared to bring out another
brood.

Mr. and Mrs. D. T. Denny while visiting
their friends at Alki on one occasion witnessed a
startling scene.

[Pg 74]An Indian had come to trade, “Old Alki
John,” and a misunderstanding appears to have
arisen about the price of a sack of flour. The
women, seated chatting at one end of the cabin,
were chilled with horror to see the white man,
his face pale with anger and excitement, raise an
ax as if to strike the Indian, who had a large
knife, such as many of them wore suspended
from the wrist by a cord; the latter, a tall and
brawny fellow, regarded him with a threatening
look.

Fortunately no blow was struck and the
white man gradually lowered the ax and dropped
it on the floor. The Indian quietly departed,
much to their relief, as a single blow would likely
have resulted in a bloody affray and the massacre
of all the white people.

At that time there were neither jails, nor
courthouse, no churches, but one sawmill, no
steamboats, railways or street cars, not even a
rod of wagon road in King County, indeed all
the conveniences of modern civilization were
wanting.

There were famous, historic buildings erected
and occupied, other than the cabin homes; the
most notable of these was Fort Decatur.

The commodious blockhouse so named after
the good sloop-of-war that rescued the town of
Seattle from the hostiles, stood on an eminence
at the end of Cherry Street overlooking the Bay.[Pg 75]
At this time there were about three hundred
white inhabitants.

The hewn timbers of this fort were cut by
D. T. Denny and two others, on the front of the
donation claim, and hauled out on the beach
ready to load a ship for San Francisco, but ultimately
served a very different purpose from the
one first intended.

The mutterings of discontent among the Indians
portended war and the settlers made haste
to prepare a place of refuge. The timbers were
dragged up the hill by oxen and many willing
hands promptly put them in place; hewn to the
line, the joints were close and a good shingle
roof covered the building, to which were added
two bastions of sawed stuff from Yesler’s mill.
D. T. Denny remembers the winter was a mild
one, and men went about without coats, otherwise
“in their shirtsleeves.” While they were
building the fort, the U. S. Sloop-of-war Decatur,
sailed up the Bay with a fair breeze, came to
anchor almost directly opposite, swung around
and fired off the guns, sixteen thirty-two-pounders,
making thunderous reverberations far and
wide, a sweet sound to the settlers.

Several of the too confident ones laughed
and scoffed at the need of a fort while peace
seemed secure. One of these doubters was told
by Mrs. Louisa Denny that the people laughed
at Noah when he built the ark, and it transpired
that a party was obliged to bring this objector[Pg 76]
and his family into the fort from their claim two
miles away, after dark of the night before the
battle.

A few nights before the attack, a false alarm
sent several settlers out in fluttering nightrobes,
cold, moonlight and frosty though it was. Mr.
Hillory Butler and his wife, Mrs. McConaha and
her children calling to the former “Wait for
me.” It is needless to say that Mr. Butler waited
for nobody until he got inside the fort.

The excitement was caused by the shooting
of Jack Drew, a deserter from the Decatur. He
was instantly killed by a boy of fifteen, alone with
his sister whom he thus bravely defended. This
was Milton Holgate and the weapon a shotgun,
the charge of which took effect in the wanderer’s
face. As the report rang out through the still
night air it created a panic throughout the settlement.

A family living on the eastern outskirts of
the village at the foot of a hill were driven in and
their house burned. The men had been engaged
in tanning leather and had quite a number of
hides on hand that must have enriched the
flames. The owners had ridiculed the idea that
there was danger of an Indian attack and would
not assist in building the fort, scoffed at the man-of-war
in the harbor and were generally contemptuous
of the whole proceeding. However, when
fired on by the Indians they fled precipitately to
the fort they had scorned. One of them sank[Pg 77]
down, bareheaded, breathless and panting on a
block of wood inside the fort in an exceedingly
subdued frame of mind to the great amusement
of the soldiery, both Captain and men.

The first decided move of the hostiles was
the attack on the White River settlers, burning,
killing and destroying as is the wont of a savage
foe.

Joe Lake, a somewhat eccentric character,
had one of the hairbreadth escapes fall to his
share of the terrible times. He was slightly
wounded in an attack on the Cox home on White
River. Joe was standing in the open door when
an Indian not far away from the cabin, seeing
him, held his ramrod on the ground for a rest,
placed his gun across it and fired at Joe; the
bullet penetrated the clothing and just grazed
his shoulder. A man inside the cabin reached
up for a gun which hung over the door; the Indian
saw the movement and guessing its purpose
made haste to depart.

The occupants of the Cox residence hurriedly
gathered themselves and indispensable effects,
and embarking in a canoe, with energetic
paddling, aided by the current, sped swiftly down
the river into the Bay and safely reached the
fort.

Beside the Decatur, a solitary sailing vessel,
the Bark Brontes, was anchored in the harbor.

Those to engage in the battle were the de[Pg 78]tachments
of men from the Decatur, under Lieutenants
Drake, Hughes, Morris and Phelps, ninety-six
men and eighteen marines, leaving a small
number on board.

A volunteer three months’ company of settlers
of whom C. C. Hewitt was Captain, Wm.
Gilliam, First Lieutenant, D. T. Denny, Corporal
and Robert Olliver, Sergeant, aided in the defense.

A number of the settlers had received friendly
warning and were expecting the attack, some
having made as many as three removals from
their claims, each time approaching nearer to the
fort.

Mr. and Mrs. D. T. Denny forsook their
cabin in the wilderness and spent an anxious
night at the home of W. N. Bell, which was a mile
or more from the settlement, and the following
day moved in to occupy a house near A. A. Denny’s,
where the Frye block now stands. From
thence they moved again to a little frame house
near the fort.

Yoke-Yakeman, an Indian who had worked
for A. A. Denny and was nicknamed “Denny
Jim,” played an important part as a spy in a
council of the hostiles and gave the warning to
Captain Gansevoort of the Decatur of the impending
battle.

Mr. and Mrs. Blaine, the pioneer M. E. minister,
and his wife, who was the first school teacher
of Seattle, went on board the man-of-war on[Pg 79]
the 22nd of January, 1856, with their infant son,
from their home situated where the Boston Block
now stands.

On the morning of the 26th, while not yet
arisen, she was urging her husband to get a boat
so that she might go ashore; he demurred, parleying,
with his hand upon the doorknob. Just
then they heard the following dialogue:

Mr. H. L. Yesler (who had come aboard in
some haste): “Captain, a klootchman says there
are lots of Indians back of Tom Pepper’s house.”

Captain Gansevoort (who was lying in his
berth): “John bring me my boots.”

H. L. Yesler: “Never mind Captain, just
send the lieutenant with the howitzer.”

Captain G.: “No sir! Where my men go, I
go too John bring me my boots.”

And thus the ball opened; a shell was dropped
in the neighborhood of “Tom Pepper’s
house” with the effect to arouse the whole horde
of savages, perhaps a thousand, gathered in the
woods back of the town.

Unearthly yells of Indians and brisk firing
of musketry followed; the battle raged until
noon, when there was a lull.

A volume of personal experiences might be
written, but I will give here but a few incidents.
To a number of the settlers who were about
breakfasting, it was a time of breathless terror;
they must flee for their lives to the fort. The
bullets from unseen foes whistled over their[Pg 80]
heads and the distance traversed to the fort was
the longest journey of their lives. It was remembered
afterward that some very amusing
things took place in the midst of fright and
flight. One man, rising late and not fully attired,
donned his wife’s red flannel petticoat instead of
the bifurcated garment that usually graced his
limbs. The “pants” were not handy and the
petticoat was put on in a trice.

Louisa Boren Denny, my mother, was alone
with her child about two years old, in the little
frame house, a short distance from the fort. She
was engaged in baking biscuits when hearing the
shots and yells of the Indians she looked out to
see the marines from the Decatur swarming up
out of their boats onto Yesler’s wharf and concluded
it was best to retire in good order. With
provident foresight she snatched the pan from
the oven and turned the biscuits into her apron,
picked up the child, Emily Inez Denny, with her
free hand and hurried out, leaving the premises
to their fate. Fortunately her husband, David
T. Denny, who had been standing guard, met her
in the midst of the flying bullets and assisted her,
speedily, into the friendly fort.

A terrible day it was for all those who were
called upon to endure the anxiety and suspense
that hovered within those walls; perhaps the moment
that tried them most was when the report
was circulated that all would be burned alive as
the Indians would shoot arrows carrying fire on[Pg 81]
the roof of cedar shingles or heap combustibles
against the walls near the ground and thus set
fire to the building. To prevent the latter maneuver,
the walls were banked with earth all
around.

But the Indians kept at a respectful distance,
the rifle-balls and shells were not to their
taste and it is not their way to fight in the open.

A tragic incident was the death of Milton
Holgate. Francis McNatt, a tall man, stood in
the door of the fort with one hand up on the
frame and Jim Broad beside him; Milton Holgate
stood a little back of McNatt, and the bullet
from a savage’s gun passed either over or
under the uplifted arm of McNatt, striking the
boy between the eyes.

Quite a number of women and children were
taken on board the two ships in the harbor, but
my mother remained in the fort.

The battle was again renewed and fiercely
fought in the afternoon.

Toward evening the Indians prepared to
burn the town, but a brisk dropping of shells
from the big guns of the Decatur dispersed them
and they departed for cooler regions, burning
houses on the outskirts of the settlement as they
retreated toward the Duwamish River.

INDIAN CANOES SAILING WITH NORTH WIND

Leschi, the leader, threatened to return in a
month with his bands and annihilate the place.
In view of other possible attacks, a second block
[Pg 82]house was built and the forest side of the town
barricaded.

Fort Decatur was a two-story building, forty
feet square; the upper story was partitioned
off into small rooms, where a half dozen or more
families lived until it was safe or convenient to
return to their distant homes. Each had a stove
on which to cook, and water was carried from a
well inside the stockade.

There were a number of children thus shut
in, who enlivened the grim walls with their shifting
shadows, awakened mirth by their playfulness
or touched the hearts of their elders by their
pathos.

Like a ray of sunlight in a gloomy interior
was little Sam Neely, a great pet, a sociable, affectionate
little fellow, visiting about from corner
to corner, always sure of attention and a
kindly welcome. The marines from the man-of-war
spoiled him without stint. One of the Sergeants
gave his mother a half worn uniform,
which she skilfully re-made, gold braid, buttons
and all, for little Sam. How proud he was, with
everybody calling him the “Little Sergeant;”
whenever he approached a loquacious group,
some one was sure to say, “Well, Sergeant,
what’s the news?”

When the day came for the Neely family to
move out of the fort, his mother was very busy
and meals uncertain.

He finally appealed to a friend, who had be[Pg 83]fore
proven herself capable of sympathy, for
something to appease his gnawing hunger, and
she promptly gave him a bowl of bread and milk.
Down he sat and ate with much relish; as he
drained the last drop he observed, “I was just so
hungry, I didn’t know how hungry I was.”

Poor little Sam was drowned in the Duwampsh
River the same year, and buried on its
banks.

Laura Bell, a little girl of perhaps ten years,
during her stay in the fort exhibited the courage
and constancy characterizing even the children in
those troublous times.

She did a great part of the work for the family,
cared for her younger sisters, prepared and
carried food to her sick mother who was heard to
say with tender gratitude, “Your dear little
hands have brought me almost everything I have
had.” Both have passed into the Beyond; one
who remembers Laura well says she was a beautiful,
bright, rosy cheeked child, pleasant to look
upon.

In unconscious childhood I was carried into
Fort Decatur, on the morning of the battle, yet
by careful investigation it has been satisfactorily
proven that one lasting impression was recorded
upon the palimpsest of my immature mind.

A shot was accidentally fired from a gun inside
the fort, by which a palefaced, dark haired
lady narrowly escaped death. The bullet passed
through a loop of her hair, below the ear, just be[Pg 84]side
the white neck. Her hair was dressed in an
old fashioned way, parted in the middle on the
forehead and smoothly brushed down over the
ears, divided and twisted on each side and the two
ropes of hair coiled together at the back of the
head. Like a flashlight photograph, her face is
imprinted on my memory, nothing before or after
for sometime can I claim to recall.

A daughter, the second child of David T. and
Louisa Denny, was born in Fort Decatur on the
sixteenth of March, 1856, who lived to mature
into a gifted and gracious womanhood and passed
away from earth in Christian faith and hope on
January seventeenth, 1889.

Other children who remained in the fort for
varying periods, were those of the Jones, Kirkland,
Lewis, McConaha and Boren families.

Of the number of settlers who occupied the
fort on the day of the battle, the following are
nearly, if not quite all, the families: Wm. N.
Bell, Mrs. Bell and several young children; John
Buckley and Mrs. Buckley; D. A. Neely and family,
one of whom was little Sam Neely spoken of
elsewhere; Mr. and Mrs. Hillory Butler, gratefully
remembered as the best people in the settlement
to visit and help the sick; the Holgates, Mrs.
and Miss Holgate, Lemuel Holgate, and Milton
Holgate who was killed; Timothy Grow, B. L.
Johns and six children, whose mother died on the
way to Puget Sound; Joe Lake, the Kirkland[Pg 85]
family, father and several daughters; Wm. Cox
and family and D. T. Denny and family.

During the Indian war, H. L. Yesler took
Yoke-Yakeman, or “Denny Jim,” the friendly
Indian before mentioned, with him across Lake
Washington to the hiding place of the Sammumpsh
Indians who were aiding the hostiles.
Yesler conferred with them and succeeded in persuading
the Indians to come out of their retreat
and go across the Sound.

While returning, Denny Jim met with an accident
which resulted fatally. Intending to shoot
some ducks, he drew his shotgun toward him,
muzzle first, and discharged it, the load entering
his arm, making a flesh wound. Through lack of
skill, perhaps, in treating it, he died from the
effects, in Curley’s house situated on the slope in
front of Fort Decatur toward the Bay.

This Indian and the service he rendered
should not be forgotten; the same may be appropriately
said of the faithful Spokane of whom the
following account has been given by eye witnesses:

“At the attack of the Cascades of the Columbia,
on the 26th of March, 1856, the white people
took refuge in Bradford’s store, a log structure
near the river. Having burned a number of other
buildings, the Indians, Yakimas and Klickitats,
attempted to fire the store also; as fast as the
shingles were ignited by burning missiles in the
hands of the Indians, the first was put out by[Pg 86]
pouring brine from a pork barrel, with a tin cup,
on the incipient blazes, not being able to get any
water.

“The occupants, some wounded, suffered for
fresh water, having only some ale and whisky.
They hoped to get to the river at night, but the
Indians illuminated the scene by burning government
property and a warehouse.

“James Sinclair, who was shot and instantly
killed early in the fight, had brought a Spokane
Indian with him. This Indian volunteered to get
water for the suffering inmates. A slide used in
loading boats was the only chance and he stripped
off his clothing, slid down to the river and returned
with a bucket of water. This was made
to last until the 28th, when, the enemy remaining
quiet the Spokane repeated the daring performance
of going down the slide and returning with a
pailful of water, with great expedition, until he
had filled two barrels, a feat deserving more than
passing mention.”

On Elliott Bay, the cabins of the farther
away settlers had gone up in smoke, fired by the
hostile Indians. Some were deserted and new
ones built far away from the Sound in the depths
of the forest. It required great courage to return
to their abandoned homes from the security of the
fort, yet doubtless the settlers were glad to be at
liberty after their enforced confinement. One
pioneer woman says it was easy to see Indians[Pg 87]
among the stumps and trees around their cabin
after the war.

Many remained in the settlement, others left
the country for safer regions, while a few cultivated
land under volunteer military guard in order
to provide the settlement with vegetables.

The Yesler mill cookhouse, a log structure,
was made historical in those days. The hungry
soldiers after a night watch were fed there and
rushed therefrom to the battle.

While there was no church, hotel, storehouse,
courthouse or jail it was all these by turns. No
doubt those who were sheltered within its walls,
ran the whole gamut of human emotion and experience.

In the Puget Sound Weekly of July 30th,
1866, published in Seattle, it was thus described:

“There was nothing about this cook house
very peculiar, except the interest with which old
memories had invested it. It was simply a dingy-looking
hewed log building, about twenty-five feet
square, a little more than one story high, with a
shed addition in the rear, and to strangers and
newcomers was rather an eye-sore and nuisance
in the place—standing as it did in the business
part of the town, among the more pretentious
buildings of modern construction, like a quaint
octogenarian, among a band of dandyish sprigs
of young America. To old settlers, however, its
weather-worn roof and smoke-blackened walls,
inside and out, were vastly interesting from long[Pg 88]
familiarity, and many pleasant and perhaps a
few unpleasant recollections were connected with
its early history, which we might make subjects
of a small volume of great interest, had we time
to indite it. Suffice it to say, however, that this
old cook house was one among the first buildings
erected in Seattle; was built for the use of the saw
mill many years since, and though designed especially
for a cook house, has been used for almost
every conceivable purpose for which a log
cabin, in a new and wild country, may be employed.

“For many years the only place for one hundred
miles or more along the eastern shores of
Puget Sound, where the pioneer settlers could be
hospitably entertained by white men and get a
square meal, was Yesler’s cook house in Seattle,
and whether he had money or not, no man ever
found the latch string of the cook house drawn in,
or went away hungry from the little cabin door;
and many an old Puget Sounder remembers the
happy hours, jolly nights, strange encounters and
wild scenes he has enjoyed around the broad fireplace
and hospitable board of Yesler’s cook
house.

“During the Indian war this building was
the general rendezvous of the volunteers engaged
in defending the thinly populated country against
the depredations of the savages, and was also the
resort of the navy officers on the same duty on the
Sound. Judge Lander’s office was held in one[Pg 89]
corner of the dining room; the auditor’s office, for
some time, was kept under the same roof, and,
indeed, it may be said to have been used for more
purposes than any other building on the Pacific
coast. It was the general depository from which
law and justice were dispensed throughout a
large scope of surrounding country. It has, at
different times, served for town hall, courthouse,
jail, military headquarters, storehouse, hotel and
church; and in the early years of its history
served all these purposes at once. It was the
place of holding elections, and political parties of
all sorts held their meetings in it, and quarreled
and made friends again, and ate, drank, laughed,
sung, wept, and slept under the same hospitable
roof. If there was to be a public gathering of the
settlers of any kind and for any purpose, no one
ever asked where the place of meeting was to be,
for all knew it was to be at the cook house.

“The first sermon, by a Protestant, in King
county was preached by the Rev. Mr. Close in the
old cook house. The first lawsuit—which was the
trial of the mate of the Franklin Adams, for selling
ship’s stores and appropriating the proceeds—came
off, of course, in the old cook house. Justice
Maynard presided at this trial, and the accused
was discharged from the old cook house
with the wholesome advice that in future he
should be careful to make a correct return of all
his private sales of other people’s property.

“Who, then, knowing the full history of this[Pg 90]
famous old relic of early times, can wonder that
it has so long been suffered to stand and moulder,
unused, in the midst of the more gaudy surroundings
of a later civilization? And who can think
it strange, when, at last, its old smoky walls were
compelled to yield to the pressure of progression,
and be tumbled heedlessly into the street, that the
old settler looked sorrowfully upon the vandal
destruction, and silently dropped a tear over its
leveled ruins. Peace to the ashes of the old cook
house.”

While the pioneers lingered in the settlement,
they enjoyed the luxury of living in houses
of sawed lumber. Time has worked out his revenges
until what was then disesteemed is much
admired now. A substantial and picturesque
lodge of logs, furnished with modern contrivances
is now regarded as quite desirable, for summer
occupation at least.

The struggle of the Indians to regain their
domain resulted in many sanguinary conflicts.
The bloody wave of war ran hither and yon until
spent and the doom of the passing race was
sealed.

Seattle and the whole Puget Sound region
were set back ten years in development. Toilsome
years they were that stretched before the
pioneers. They and their families were obliged
to do whatever they could to obtain a livelihood;
they were neither ashamed nor afraid of honest[Pg 91]
work and doubtless enjoyed the reward of a good
conscience and vigorous health.

Life held many pleasures and much freedom
from modern fret besides. As one of them observed,
“We were happy then, in our log cabin
homes.”

Long after the incidents herein related occurred,
one of the survivors of the White River
massacre wrote the following letter, which was
published in a local paper:

“Burgh Hill, Ohio, Sept. 8.—I notice occasionally
a pioneer sketch in the Post-Intelligencer
relating some incident in the war of 1855-56.
I have a vivid recollection of this, being a
member of one of the families concerned therein.
I remember distinctly the attack upon the fort at
Seattle in January, 1856. Though a child, the
murdering of my mother and step-father by the
Indians a few weeks before made such an impression
upon my mind that I was terror-stricken
at the thought of another massacre, and the details
are indelibly and most vividly fixed in my
mind. When I read of the marvelous growth of
Seattle I can hardly realize that it is possible. I
add my mite to the pioneer history of Seattle and
vicinity.

“I was born in Harrison township, Grant
county, Wisconsin, November 13, 1848. When I
was five months old my father started for the
gold diggings in California, but died shortly after
reaching that state. In the early part of 1851 my[Pg 92]
mother married Harvey Jones. In the spring of
1854 we started for Washington territory, overland,
reaching our destination on White river in
the fall, having been six months and five days in
making the trip. Our route lay through Iowa,
Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington
territory. To speak in detail of all my
recollections of this journey would make this article
too lengthy.

“My step-father took up land on White river
some twenty miles up the stream from Seattle.
At that time there were only five or six families
in the settlement, the nearest neighbor to us being
about one-fourth mile distant. During the summer
of 1855 I went some two and a half miles to
school along a path through the dense woods in
danger both from wild animals and Indians.
Some of the settlers became alarmed at reports
of hostile intentions by the Indians upon our
settlement and left some two weeks before the
outbreak. Among those who thought their fears
groundless and remained was our family.

“On Sunday morning, October 28, 1855,
while at breakfast we were surprised, and the
house surrounded by a band of hostile Indians,
who came running from the grass and bushes,
whooping and discharging firearms. They seemed
to rise from the ground so sudden and stealthy
had been the attack. Our family consisted of my
step-father (sick at the time), my mother, a half-sister,
not quite four years old, a half-brother,[Pg 93]
not quite two, a hired man, Cooper by name, and
myself.

“As soon as the Indians began firing into the
house my mother covered us children over with a
feather bed in the corner of one of the rooms
farthest from the side attacked. In a short time
it became evident we were entirely at the mercy
of the savages, and after a hurried consultation
between my mother and the hired man, he concluded
to attempt to escape by flight; accordingly
he came into the room where I was, and with an
ax pried off the casing of the window and removed
the lower sash, and then jumped out, but
as was afterward learned he was shot when only
a few rods from the house.

“My step-father was shot about the same time
inside the house while passing from his room to
the one in which my mother was. In a short time
there appeared to be a cessation of the firing, and
upon looking out from under the bed over us I
saw an Indian in the next room carrying something
out. Soon we were taken out by them. I
did not see my mother. We were placed in the
charge of the leader of the band who directed
them in their actions. They put bedclothes and
other combustible articles under the house and set
fire to them, and in this way burned the house.
When it was well nigh burned to the ground, we
were led away by one of the tribe, who in a short
time allowed us to go where we pleased. I first
went to the nearest neighbor’s, but all was con[Pg 94]fusion,
and no one was about. I then came back
to the burned house.

“I found my mother a short distance from
the house, or where it had stood, still alive. She
warned me to leave speedily and soon. I begged
to stay with her but she urged me to flee. We
made a dinner of some potatoes which had been
baked by the fire. I carried my little half-brother
and led my half-sister along the path to where I
had gone to school during the summer, but there
was no one there. I went still further on, but
they, too, had gone. I came back to the school
house, not knowing what to do. It was getting
late. I was tired, as was my sister. My little
brother was fretful, and cried to see his mother.
I had carried him some three and a half or four
miles altogether.

“While trying to quiet them I saw an Indian
coming toward us. He had not seen us. I hid the
children in the bushes and moved toward him to
meet him. I soon had the relief to recognize in
him an acquaintance I had often seen while attending
school. We knew him as Dave. He told
me to bring the children to his wigwam. His
squaw was very kind, but my sister and brother
were afraid of her. In the night he took us in a
canoe down the river to Seattle. I was taken on
board the man-of-war, Decatur, and they were
placed in charge of some one in the fort. An
uncle, John Smale, had crossed the plains when
we did, but went to California. He was written[Pg 95]
to about the massacre, and reached us in June,
1856. We went to San Francisco and then to the
Isthmus, and from there we went to New York
city. From there we were taken to Wisconsin,
where my sister and brother remained. I was
brought back to Ohio in September, 1856. They
both died in October, 1864, of diphtheria, in Wisconsin.”

“John I. King, M. D.”

[Pg 96]

>CHAPTER V.
THE MURDER OF MCCORMICK.

The shores of Lake Union, in Seattle, now
surrounded by electric and steam railways, saw
mills and manufactories, dwellings and public
buildings, were clothed with a magnificent, dense,
primeval forest, when the adventurous pioneers
first looked upon its mirror-like surface. The
shadowy depths of the solemn woods held many
a dark and tragic secret; contests between enemies
in both brute and human forms were doubtless
not infrequently hidden there.

Many men came to the far northwest unheralded
and unknown to the few already established,
and wandering about without guides, unacquainted
with the dangers peculiar to the
region, were incautious and met a mysterious
fate.

For a long time the “Pioneer and Democrat,”
of Olympia, Washington, one of the
earliest newspapers of the northwest, published
an advertisement in its columns inquiring for
James Montgomery McCormick, sent to it from
Pennsylvania. It is thought to have been one and
the same person with the subject of this sketch.
Even if it were not, the name will do as well as
any other.

One brilliant summer day in July of 1853,[Pg 97]
a medium sized man, past middle age, was pushing
his way through the black raspberry jungle
on the east side of Lake Union, gathering handfuls
of the luscious fruit that hung in rich purple
clusters above his head. A cool bubbling spring,
that came from far up the divide toward Lake
Washington, tempted him and stooping down he
drank of the refreshing stream where it filled a
little pool in the shadow of a mossy log. Glancing
about him, he marked with a keen delight the
loveliness of the vegetation, the plumy ferns, velvet
mosses and drooping cedars; how grateful to
him must have been the cool north breeze wandering
through the forest! No doubt he thought
it a pleasant place to rest in before returning to
the far away settlement. Upon the mossy log he
sat contentedly, marveling at the stillness of the
mighty forest.

The thought had scarcely formed itself when
he was startled by the dipping of paddles, wild
laughter and vociferous imitations of animals
and birds. A canoe grated on the beach and
after a brief expectant interval, tramping feet
along the trail betokened an arrival and a group
of young Indians came in sight, one of whom
carried a Hudson Bay musket.

“Kla-how-ya” (How do you do), said the
leader, a flathead, with shining skin recently
oiled, sinister black brows, and thick black hair
cut square and even at the neck.

At first they whistled and muttered, affect[Pg 98]ing
little interest in his appearance, yet all the
while were keenly studying him.

The white man had with him a rifle, revolver
and camp ax. The young savages examined
the gun, lifting it up and sighting at a knot-hole
in a distant tree; then the ax, the sharp edge of
which they fingered, and the revolver, to their
minds yet more fascinating.

They were slightly disdainful as though not
caring to own such articles, thereby allaying any
fears he may have had as to their intentions.
Being able to converse but little with the natives,
the stranger good-naturedly permitted them to
examine his weapons and even his clothing came
under their scrutiny. His garments were new,
and well adapted to frontier life.

When he supposed their curiosity satisfied,
he rose to go, when one of the Indians asked him,
“Halo chicamum?” (Have you any money?) he
incautiously slapped his hip pocket and answered
“Hiyu chicamum” (plenty of money), perhaps
imagining they did not know its use or value,
then started on the trail.

They let him go a little way out of sight and
in a few, half-whispered, eager, savage words
agreed to follow him, with what purpose did not
require a full explanation.

Noiselessly and swiftly they followed on his
track. One shot from the musket struck him in
the back of the head and he fell forward and
they rushed upon him, seized the camp ax and[Pg 99]
dealt repeated blows; life extinct, they soon
stripped him of coat, shirt, and pantaloons,
rifled the pockets, finding $200 and a few small
trinkets, knife or keys. With the haste of guilt
they threw the body still clothed in a suit of undergarments,
behind a big log, among the bushes
and hurried away with their booty, paddling
swiftly far up the lake to their camp.

A dark, cloudy night followed and the Indians
huddled around a little fire, ever and anon
starting at some sound in the gloomy forest. Already
very superstitious, their guilt made them
doubly afraid of imaginary foes. On a piece of
mat in the center of the group lay the money,
revolver, etc., of which they had robbed the unfortunate
white man. They intended to divide
them by “slahal,” the native game played with
“stobsh” and “slanna” (men and women), as
they called the round black and white disks with
which they gambled. A bunch of shredded cedar
bark was brought from the canoe and the game
began. All were very skillful and continued for
several hours, until at last they counted the
clothes to one, all the money to another, and the
revolver and trifles to the rest. One of the less
fortunate in a very bad humor said “The game
was not good, I don’t want this little ‘cultus’
(worthless) thing.”

“O, you are stupid and don’t understand
it,” they answered tauntingly, thereupon he
rolled himself in his blanket and sulked himself[Pg 100]
to sleep, while the others sat half dreamily planning
what they would do with their booty.

Very early they made the portage between
Lakes Union and Washington and returned to
their homes.

But they did not escape detection.

Only a few days afterward an Indian woman,
the wife of Hu-hu-bate-sute or “Salmon Bay
Curley,” crossed Lake Union to the black raspberry
patch to gather the berries. Creeping here
and there through the thick undergrowth, she
came upon a gruesome sight, the disfigured body
of the murdered white man. Scarcely waiting
for a horrified “Achada!” she fled incontinently
to her canoe and paddled quickly home to tell her
husband. Hu-hu-bate-sute went back with her
and arrived at the spot, where one log lay across
another, hollowed out the earth slightly, rolled
in and covered the body near the place where it
was discovered.

Suspecting it was the work of some wild,
reckless Indians he said nothing about it.

Their ill-gotten gains troubled the perpetrators
of the deed, brought them no good fortune
and they began to think there was “tamanuse”
about them; they gave the revolver away,
bestowed the small articles on some unsuspecting
“tenas” (children) and gave a part of the
money to “Old Steve,” whose Indian name was
Stemalyu.

The one who criticised the division of the[Pg 101]
spoils, whispered about among the other Indians
dark hints concerning the origin of the suddenly
acquired wealth and gradually a feeling arose
against those who had the money. Quarreling
one day over some trifle, one of them scornfully
referred to the other’s part of the cruel deed:
“You are wicked, you killed a white man,” said
he. The swarthy face of the accused grew livid
with rage and he plunged viciously at the speaker,
but turning, eel-like, the accuser slipped
away and ran out of sight into the forest. An
old Indian followed him and asked “What was
that you said?”

“O nothing, just idle talk.”

“You had better tell me,” said the old man
sternly.

After some hesitation he told the story. The
old man was deeply grieved and so uneasy that
he went all the way to Shilshole (Salmon Bay)
to see if his friend Hu-hu-bate-sute knew anything
about it and that discreet person astonished
him by telling him his share of the story. By
degrees it became known to the Indians on both
lakes and at the settlement.

Meanwhile the wife of the one accused in
the contention, took the money and secretly dropped
it into the lake.

One warm September day in the fall of the
same year, quite a concourse of Indians were
gathered out doors near the big Indian house a
little north of D. T. Denny’s home in the set[Pg 102]tlement
(Seattle); they were having a great
“wa-wa” (talk) about something; he walked
over and asked them what it was all about.

“Salmon Bay Curley,” who was among
them, thereupon told him of the murder and the
distribution of the valuables.

Shortly after, W. N. Bell, D. T. Denny, Dr.
Maynard, E. A. Clark and one or two others,
with Curley as a guide, went out to the lake,
found the place and at first thought of removing
the body, but that being impossible, Dr. Maynard
placed the skull, or rather the fragments of it,
in a handkerchief and took the two pairs of
spectacles, one gold-rimmed, the other steel-rimmed,
which were left by the Indians, and all
returned to the settlement to make their report.

Investigation followed and as a result four
Indians were arrested. A trial before a Justice
Court was held in the old Felker house, which
was built by Captain Felker and was the first
large frame house of sawed lumber erected on
the site of Seattle.

At this trial, Klap-ke-lachi Jim testified positively
against two of them and implicated two
others. The first two were summarily executed
by hanging from a tall sharply leaning stump
over which a rope was thrown; it stood where
the New England Hotel was afterward built. A
young Indian and one called Old Petawow were
the others accused.

Petawow was carried into court by two[Pg 103]
young Indians, having somehow broken his leg.
There was not sufficient evidence against him to
convict and he was released.

C. D. Boren was sheriff and for lack of a
jail, the young Indian accused was locked in a
room in his own house.

Not yet satisfied with the work of execution,
a mob headed by E. A. Clark determined to hang
this Indian also. They therefore obtained the
assistance of some sailors with block and tackle
from a ship in the harbor, set up a tripod of
spars, cut for shipment, over which they put the
rope. In order to have the coast clear so they
could break the “jail,” a man was sent to Boren’s
house, who pretended that he wished to buy
some barrels left in Boren’s care by a cooper
and stacked on the beach some distance away.

The unsuspecting victim of the ruse accompanied
him to the beach where the man detained
him as long as he thought necessary, talking of
barrels, brine and pickling salmon, and perhaps
not liking to miss the “neck-tie party,” at last
said, “Maybe we’d better get back, the boys are
threatening mischief.”

Taking the hint instantly, Boren started on
a dead run up the beach in a wild anxiety to save
the Indian’s life. In sight of the improvised
scaffold he beheld the Indian with the noose
around his neck, E. A. Clark and D. Livingston
near by, a sea captain, who was a mere-on-looker,[Pg 104]
and the four sailors in line with the rope in their
hands, awaiting the order to pull.

The sheriff recovered himself enough to
shout, “Drop that rope, you rascals!”

“O string him up, he’s nothing but a Siwash,”
said one.

“Dry up! you have no right to hang him, he
will be tried at the next term of court,” said
Boren. The sailors dropped the rope, Boren removed
the noose from the neck of the Indian,
who was silent, bravely enduring the indignity
from the mob. The majesty of the law was recognized
and the crowd dispersed.

The Indian was sent to Steilacoom, where he
was kept in jail for six months, but when tried
there was no additional evidence and he was
therefore released. Returning to his people he
changed his name, taking that of his father’s
cousin, and has lived a quiet and peaceable life
throughout the years.

Sad indeed seems the fate of this unknown
wanderer, but not so much so as that of others
who came to the Northwest to waste their lives
in riotous living and were themselves responsible
for a tragic end of a wicked career, so often sorrowfully
witnessed by the sober and steadfast.

Of the participants in this exciting episode,
D. T. Denny, C. D. Boren and the Indian, whose
life was so promptly and courageously saved
by C. D. Boren from an ignominious death, are
(in 1892) still living in King County, Washington.

[Pg 105]

CHAPTER VI.
KILLING COUGARS.

It was springtime in an early year of pioneer
times. D. T. and Louisa Denny were living
in their log cabin in the swale, an opening
in the midst of the great forest, about midway
between Elliott Bay and Lake Union. Not very
far away was their only neighbor, Thomas
Mercer, with his family of several young daughters.

On a pleasant morning, balmy with the
presage of coming summer, as the two pioneers,
David T. Denny and Thomas Mercer, wended,
their way to their task of cutting timber, they
observed some of the cattle lying down in an
open space, and heard the tinkling bell of one
of the little band wandering about cropping fresh
spring herbage in the edge of the woods. They
looked with a feeling of affection at the faithful
dumb creatures who were to aid in affording
sustenance, as well as a sort of friendly companionship
in the lonely wilds.

After a long, sunny day spent in swinging
the ax, whistling, singing and chatting, they returned
to their cabins as the shadows were deepening
in the mighty forest.

LOG CABIN IN THE SWALE

In the first cabin there was considerable
anxiety manifested by the mistress of the same,
[Pg 106]revealed in the conversation at the supper table:

“David,” said she, “there was something
wrong with the cattle today; I heard a calf bawl
as if something had caught it and ‘Whiteface’
came up all muddy and distressed looking.”

“Is that so? Did you look to see what it
was?”

“I started to go but the baby cried so that I
had to come back. A little while before that I
thought I heard an Indian halloo and looked out
of the door expecting to see him come down to
the trail, but I did not see anything at all.”

“What could it be? Well, it is so dark now
in the woods that I can’t see anything; I will
have to wait until tomorrow.”

Early the next morning, David went up to
the place where he had seen the calves the day
before, taking “Towser,” a large Newfoundland
dog with him, also a long western rifle he
had brought across the plains.

Not so many rods away from the cabin he
found the remnants of a calf upon which some
wild beast had feasted the day previous.

There were large tracks all around easily
followed, as the ground was soft with spring
rains. Towser ran out into the thick timber hard
after a wild creature, and David heard something
scratch and run up a tree and thought it must be
a wild cat.

No white person had ever seen any larger
specimen of the feline race in this region.[Pg 107]

He stepped up to a big fir log and walked
along perhaps fifty feet and looking up a giant
cedar tree saw a huge cougar glaring down at
him with great, savage yellow eyes, crouching
motionless, except for the incessant twitching,
to and fro, of the tip of its tail, as a cat does
when watching a mouse.

Right before him in so convenient a place
as to attract his attention, stood a large limb
which had fallen and stuck into the ground
alongside the log he was standing on, so he
promptly rested his gun on it, but it sank into the
soft earth from the weight of the gun and he
quickly drew up, aiming at the chest of the
cougar.

The gun missed fire.

Fearing the animal would spring upon him,
he walked back along the log about twenty feet,
took a pin out of his coat and picked out the
tube, poured in fresh powder from his powder
horn and put on a fresh cap.

All the time the yellow eyes watched him.

Advancing again, he fired; the bullet struck
through its vitals, but away it went bolting up
the tree quite a distance. Another bullet was
rammed home in the old muzzle loader. The
cougar was dying, but still held on by its claws
stuck in the bark of the tree, its head resting on
a limb. Receiving one more shot in the head it
let go and came hurtling down to the ground.

Towser was wild with savage delight and bit[Pg 108]
his prostrate enemy many times, chewing at the
neck until it was a mass of foam, but not once did
his sharp teeth penetrate the tough, thick hide.

Hurrying back, David called for Mercer, a
genial man always ready to lend a hand, to help
him get the beast out to the cabin. The two men
found it very heavy, all they could stagger under,
even the short distance it had to be carried.

As soon as the killing of the cougar was reported
in the settlement, two miles away, everybody
turned out to see the monster.

Mrs. Catherine Blaine, the school teacher,
who had gone home with the Mercer children,
saw the animal and marveled at its size.

Henry L. Yesler and all the mill hands repaired
to the spot to view the dead monarch of
the forest, none of whom had seen his like before.
Large tracks had been seen in various
places but were credited to timber wolves. This
cougar’s forearm measured the same as the leg
of a large horse just above the knee joint.

Such an animal, if it jumped down from a
considerable height, would carry a man to the
ground with such force as to stun him, when he
could be clawed and chewed up at the creature’s
will.

While the curious and admiring crowd were
measuring and guessing at the weight of the
cougar, Mr. Yesler called at the cabin. He kept
looking about while he talked and finally said,
“You are quite high-toned here, I see your house[Pg 109]
is papered,” at which all laughed good-naturedly.
Not all the cabins were “papered,” but this
one was made quite neat by means of newspapers
pasted on the walls, the finishing touch being a
border of nothing more expensive than blue
calico.

At last they were all satisfied with their inspection
of the first cougar and returned to the
settlement.

A moral might be pinned here: if this cougar
had not dined so gluttonously on the tender calf,
which no doubt made excellent veal, possibly he
would not have come to such a sudden and violent
end.

Had some skillful taxidermist been at hand
to mount this splendid specimen of Felis Concolor,
the first killed by a white man in this region,
it would now be very highly prized.

Some imagine that the danger of encounters
with cougars has been purposely exaggerated by
the pioneer hunters to create admiring respect
for their own prowess. This is not my opinion,
as I believe there is good reason to fear them,
especially if they are hungry.

They are large, swift and agile, and have
the advantage in the dense forest of the northwest
Pacific coast, as they can station themselves
in tall trees amid thick foliage and pounce upon
deer, cattle and human beings.

Several years after the killing of the first
specimen, a cow was caught in the jaw by a coug[Pg 110]ar,
but wrenched herself away in terror and pain
and ran home with the whole frightened herd at
her heels, into the settlement of Seattle.

The natives have always feared them and
would much rather meet a bear than a cougar,
as the former will, ordinarily, run away, while
the latter is hard to scare and is liable to follow
and spring out of the thick undergrowth.

In one instance known to the pioneers first
mentioned in this chapter, an Indian woman who
was washing at the edge of a stream beat a cougar
off her child with a stick, thereby saving its life.

In early days, about 1869 or ’70, a Mr. T.
Cherry, cradling oats in a field in Squowh Valley,
was attacked by a cougar; holding his cradle
between him and the hungry beast, he backed
toward the fence, the animal following until the
fence was reached. A gang of hogs were feeding
just outside the enclosure and the cougar
leaped the fence, seized one of the hogs and ran
off with it.

A saloon-keeper on the Snohomish River,
walking along the trail in the adjacent forest one
day with his yellow dog, was startled by the
sudden accession to their party of a huge and
hungry cougar. The man fled precipitately,
leaving the dog to his fate. The wild beast fell
to and made a meal of the hapless canine, devouring
all but the tip of his yellow tail, which
his sorrowing master found near the trail the
next day.

[Pg 111]A lonely pioneer cabin on the Columbia
River was enclosed by a high board fence. One
sunny day as the two children of the family were
playing in the yard, a cougar sprang from a
neighboring tree and caught one of the children;
the mother ran out and beat off the murderous
beast, but the child was dead.

She then walked six or seven miles to a settlement
carrying the dead child, while leading
the other. What a task! The precious burden,
the heavier load of sorrow, the care of the remaining
child, the dread of a renewed attack
from the cougar and the bodily fatigue incident
to such a journey, forming an experience upon
which it would be painful to dwell.

Many more such incidents might be given,
but I am reminded at this point that they would
appropriately appear in another volume.

Since the first settlement there have been
killed in King County nearly thirty of these animals.

C. Brownfield, an old settler on Lake Union,
killed several with the aid of “Jack,” a yellow
dog which belonged to D. T. Denny for a time,
then to A. A. Denny.

C. D. Boren, with his dog, killed others.

Moses Kirkland brought a dog from Louisiana,
a half bloodhound, with which Henry Van
Asselt hunted and killed several cougars.

D. T. Denny killed one in the region occupied
by the suburb of Seattle known as Ross. It[Pg 112]
had been dining off mutton secured from Dr. H.
A. Smith’s flock of sheep. It was half grown
and much the color of a deer.

Toward Lake Washington another flock of
sheep had been visited by a cougar, and Mr. Wetmore
borrowed D. T. Denny’s little dog
“Watch,” who treed the animal, remaining by
it all night, but it escaped until a trap was set,
when, being more hungry than cautious, it was
secured.

[Pg 113]

CHAPTER VII.
PIONEER CHILD LIFE.

The very thought of it makes the blood tingle
and the heart leap. No element was wanting
for romance or adventure. Indians, bears, panthers,
far journeys, in canoes or on horseback,
fording rivers, camping and tramping, and all
in a virgin wilderness so full of grandeur and
loveliness that even very little children were impressed
by the appearance thereof. The strangeness
and newness of it all was hardly understood
by the native white children as they had
no means of comparing this region and mode of
life with other countries and customs.

Traditions did not trouble us; the Indians
were generally friendly, the bears were only
black ones and ran away from us as fast as their
furry legs would carry them; the panthers did
not care to eat us up, we felt assured, while there
was plenty of venison to be had by stalking, and
on a journey we rode safely, either on the pommel
of father’s saddle or behind mother’s, clinging
like small kittens or cockleburs.

Familiarity with the coquettish canoe made
us perfectly at home with it, and in later years
when the tenderfoot arrived, we were convulsed
with inextinguishable laughter at what seemed to
us an unreasoning terror of a harmless craft.

WHERE WE WANDERED LONG AGO

Ah! we lived close to dear nature then! Our
play-grounds were the brown beaches or the hillsides
covered with plumy young fir trees, the
alder groves or the slashings where we hacked
and chopped with our little hatchets in imitation
of our elders or the Father of His Country and
namesake of our state. Running on long logs,
the prostrate trunks of trees several hundred
feet long, and jumping from one to another was
found to be an exhilarating pastime.

When the frolicsome Chinook wind came
singing across the Sound, the boys flew home
built kites of more or less ambitious proportions
and the little girls ran down the hills, performing
a peculiar skirt dance by taking the gown by the
hem on either side and turning the skirt half
over the head. Facing the wind it assumed a
baloonlike inflation very pleasing to the small
performer. It was thought the proper thing to
let the hair out of net or braids at the time, as
the sensation of air permeating long locks was
sufficient excuse for its “weirdness” as I suppose
we would have politely termed it had we ever
heard the word. Instead we were more likely to
be reproved for having such untidy heads and
perhaps reminded that we looked as wild as Indians.
“As wild as Indians,” the poor Indians!
How they admired the native white children!
Without ceremony they claimed blood brotherhood,
saying, “You were born in our ‘illahee’
(country) and are our ‘tillicum’ (people).[Pg 115]
You eat the same food, will grow up here and
belong to us.”

Often we were sung to sleep at night by their
“tamanuse” singing, as we lived quite near the
bank below which many Indians camped, on Elliott
Bay.

I never met with the least rudeness or suffered
the slightest injury from an Indian except
on one occasion. Walking upon the beach one
day three white children drew near a group of
Indian camps. Almost deserted they were, probably
the inhabitants had gone fishing; the only
being visible was a boy about ten years of age.
Snarling out some bitter words in an unknown
tongue, he flung a stone which struck hard a
small head, making a slight scalp wound. Such
eyes! they fairly glittered with hatred. We hurried
home, the victim crying with the pain inflicted,
and learned afterward that the boy was
none of our “tillicum” but a stranger from the
Snohomish tribe. What cruel wrong had he
witnessed or suffered to make him so full of bitterness?

The Indian children were usually quite amiable
in disposition, and it seemed hard to refuse
their friendly advances which it became necessary
to do. In their primitive state they seemed
perfectly healthy and happy little creatures.
They never had the toothache; just think of that,
ye small consumers of colored candies! Unknown
to them was the creeping horror that[Pg 116]
white children feel when about to enter the terrible
dentist’s den. They had their favorite fear,
however, the frightful “statalth,” or “stick siwash,”
that haunted the great forest. As near
as we could ascertain, these were the ghosts of a
long dead race of savages who had been of gigantic
stature and whose ghosts were likewise very
tall and dreadful and very fond of chasing people
out of the woods on dark nights. Plenty of
little white people know what the sensation is,
produced by imagining that something is coming
after them in the dark.

I have seen a big, brawny, tough looking Indian
running as fast as he could go, holding a
blazing pitchwood torch over his head while he
glanced furtively over his shoulder for the approaching
statalth.

Both white and Indian children were afraid
of the Northern Indians, especially the Stickeens,
who were head-takers.

We were seldom panic stricken; born amid
dangers there seemed nothing novel about them
and we took our environment as a matter of
course. We were taught to be courageous but
not foolhardy, which may account for our not
getting oftener in trouble.

The boys learned to shoot and shoot well at
an early age, first with shot guns, then rifles.
Sometimes the girls proved dangerous with firearms
in their hands. A sister of the writer
learned to shoot off the head of a grouse at long[Pg 117]
range. A girl schoolmate, when scarcely grown,
shot and killed a bear. My brothers and cousin,
Wm. R. Boren, were good shots at a tender age
and killed numerous bears, deer, grouse, pheasants,
ducks, wild pigeon, etc., in and about the
district now occupied by the city of Seattle.

The wild flowers and the birds interested us
deeply and every spring we joyfully noted the
returning bluebirds and robins, the migrating
wren and a number of other charming feathered
friends. The high banks, not then demolished by
grades, were smothered in greenery and hung
with banners of bloom every succeeding season.

We clambered up and down the steep places
gathering armfuls of lillies (trillium), red currant
(ribes sanguineum), Indian-arrow-wood
(spiraea), snowy syringa (philadelphus) and
blue forgetmenots and the yellow blossoms of the
Oregon grape (berberis glumacea and aquifolium),
which we munched with satisfaction for
the soursweet, and the scarlet honeysuckle to bite
off the honeyglands for a like purpose.

The salmonberry and blackberry seasons
were quite delightful. To plunge into the thick
jungle, now traversed by Pike Street, Seattle,
was a great treat. There blackberries attained
Brobdignagian hugeness, rich and delicious.

On a Saturday, our favorite reward for lessons
and work well done, was to be allowed to
go down the lovely beach with its wide strip of
variegated shingle and bands of brown, ribbed[Pg 118]
sand, as far as the “three big stones,” no farther,
as there were bears, panthers and Indians, as
hereinbefore stated, inhabiting the regions
round about.

One brilliant April day we felt very brave,
we were bigger than ever before, five was quite
a party, and the flowers were O! so enchanting
a little farther on. Two of us climbed the bank
to gather the tempting blossoms.

Our little dog, “Watch,” a very intelligent
animal, took the lead; scarcely had we gained
the top and essayed to break the branch of a
wild currant, gay with rose colored blossoms,
when Watch showed unusual excitement about
something, a mysterious something occupying
the cavernous depths of an immense hollow log.
With his bristles up, rage and terror in every
quivering muscle, he was slowly, very slowly,
backing toward us.

Although in the woods often, we had never
seen him act so before. We took the hint and
to our heels, tumbled down the yielding, yellow
bank in an exceedingly hasty and unceremonious
manner, gathered up our party of thoroughly
frightened youngsters and hurried along the sand
homeward, at a double quick pace.

Hardly stopping for a backward glance to
see if the “something” was coming after us, we
reached home, safe but subdued.

Not many days after the young truants were
invited down to an Indian camp to see the car[Pg 119]cass
of a cougar about nine feet long. There it
lay, stretched out full length, its hard, white
teeth visible beyond the shrunken lips, its huge
paws quite helpless and harmless.

It is more than probable that this was the
“something” in the great hollow log, as it was
killed in the vicinity of the place where our
stampede occurred.

Evidently Watch felt his responsibility and
did the best he could to divert the enemy while
we escaped.

The dense forest hid many an unseen danger
in early days and it transpired that I never
saw a live cougar in the woods, but even a dead
one may produce real old fashioned fright in a
spectator.

Having occasion, when attending the University,
at the age of twelve, to visit the library
of that institution, a strange adventure befell
me; the selection of a book absorbed my mind
very fully and I was unprepared for a sudden
change of thought. Turning from the shelves,
a terrible sight met my eyes, a ferocious wild
beast, all its fangs exhibited, in the opposite corner
of the room. How did each particular hair
stand upright and perspiration ooze from every
pore! A moment passed and a complete collapse
of the illusion left the victim weak and
disgusted; it was only the stuffed cougar given
to the Faculty to be the nucleus of a great collection.

[Pg 120]The young Washingtonians, called “clam-diggers,”
were usually well fed, what with venison,
fish, grouse and berries, game of many
kinds, and creatures of the sea, they were really
pampered, in the memory of the writer. But it
is related by those who experienced the privations
incident to the first year or two of white
settlement, that the children were sometimes
hungry for bread, especially during the first
winter at Alki. Fish and potatoes were plentiful,
obtained from the Indians, syrup from a
vessel in the harbor, but bread was scarce. On
one occasion, a little girl of one of the four white
families on Elliott Bay, was observed to pick
up an old crust and carry it around in her pocket.
When asked what she intended to do with that
crust, with childish simplicity she replied, “Save
it to eat with syrup at dinner.” Not able to resist
its delicious flavor she kept nibbling away at
the crust until scarcely a crumb remained; its
dessicated surface had no opportunity to be
masked with treacle.

To look back upon our pioneer menu is quite
tantalizing.

The fish, of many excellent kinds, from the
“salt-chuck,” brought fresh and flapping to our
doors, in native baskets by Indian fishermen,
cooked in many appetizing ways; clams of all
sizes from the huge bivalves weighing three-quarters
of a pound a piece to the tiny white soup
clam; sustain me, O my muse, if I attempt to[Pg 121]
describe their excellence. Every conceivable
preparation, soup, stew, baked, pie, fry or chowder
was tried with the happiest results. The
Puget Sound oyster, not the stale, globe-trotting
oyster of however aristocratic antecedents, the
enjoyment in eating of which is chiefly as a reminiscence,
but the fresh western oyster, was much
esteemed.

The crab, too, figured prominently on the bill
of fare, dropped alive in boiling water and served
in scarlet, a la naturel.

A pioneer family gathered about the table
enjoying a feast of the stalk-eyed crustaceans,
were treated to a little diversion in this wise.
The room was small, used for both kitchen and
diningroom, as the house boasted of but two or
three rooms, consequently space was economized.

A fine basket of crabs traded from an Indian
were put in a tin pan and set under the
table; several were cooked, the rest left alive.
As one of the children was proceeding with the
dismemberment necessary to extract the delicate
meat, as if to seek its fellows, the crab slipped
from her grasp and slid beneath the table. Stooping
down she hastily seized her crab, as she supposed,
but to her utter astonishment it seemed to
have come to life, it was alive, kicking and
snapping. In a moment the table was in an uproar
of crab catching and wild laughter. The
mother of the astonished child declares that to[Pg 122]
this day she cannot help laughing whenever she
thinks of the crab that came to life.

It was to this home that John and Sarah
Denny, and their little daughter, Loretta, came
to visit their son, daughter and the grandchildren,
in the winter of 1857-8.

Grandmother was tall and straight, dressed
in a plain, dark gown, black silk apron and lace
cap; her hair, coal black, slightly gray on the
temples; her eyes dark, soft and gentle. She
brought a little treat of Oregon apples from their
farm in the Waldo Hills, to the children, who
thought them the most wonderful fruit they had
ever seen, more desirable than the golden apples
of Hesperides.

We were to return with them, joyful news!
What visions of bliss arose before us! new places
to see and all the nice things and good times we
children could have at grandfather’s farm.

When the day came, in the long, dark canoe,
manned by a crew of Indians, we embarked for
Olympia, the head of navigation, bidding “good-bye”
to our friends, few but precious, who
watched us from the bank, among whom were an
old man and his little daughter.

A few days before he had been sick and one
of the party sent him a steaming cup of ginger
and milk which, although simple, had proved
efficacious; ere we reached our home again he
showed his gratitude in a substantial manner, as
will be seen farther on.

[Pg 123]At one beautiful resting place, the canoe
slid up against a strip of shingle covered with
delicate shells; we were delighted to be allowed
to walk about, after sitting curled up in the bottom
of the canoe for a long time, to gather crab,
pecten and periwinkle shells, even extending our
ramble to a lovely grove of dark young evergreens,
standing in a grassy meadow.

The first night of the journey was spent in
Steilacoom. It was March of 1858 and it was
chilly traveling on the big salt water. We were
cold and hungry but the keeper of the one hotel
in the place had retired and refused to be
aroused, so we turned to the only store, where
the proprietor received us kindly, brought out
new blankets to cover us while we camped on the
floor, gave us bread and a hot oyster stew, the
best his place afforded. His generous hospitality
was never forgotten by the grateful recipients
who often spoke of it in after years.

I saw there a “witches’ scene” of an old
Indian woman boiling devilfish or octopus in a
kettle over a campfire, splendidly lit against the
gloom of night, and all reflected in the water.

At the break of day we paddled away over
the remainder of the salt-chuck, as the Indians
call the sea, until Stetchas was reached. Stetchas
is “bear’s place,” the Indian name for the site
of Olympia.

From thence the mail stage awaited us to
Cowlitz Landing. The trip over this stretch of[Pg 124]
country was not exactly like a triumphal progress.
The six-horse team plunged and floundered,
while the wagon sank up to the hub in
black mud; the language of the driver has not
been recorded.

At the first stop out from Olympia, the Tilley’s,
famous in the first annals, entertained us.
At a bountiful and appetizing meal, one of the
articles, boiled eggs, were not cooked to suit
Grandfather John Denny. With amusing bluntness
he sent the chicken out to be killed before
he ate it, complaining that the eggs were not hard
enough. Mrs. Tilly made two or three efforts and
finally set the dish down beside him saying,
“There, if that isn’t hard enough you don’t deserve
to have any.”

The long rough ride ended at Warbass’
Landing on the Cowlitz River, a tributary of the
Columbia, and another canoe trip, this time on a
swift and treacherous stream, was safely made
to Monticello, a mere little settlement. A tiny
steamboat, almost microscopic on the wide water,
carried us across the great Columbia with its
sparkling waves, and up the winding Willamette
to Portland, Oregon.

From thence the journey progressed to the
falls below Oregon City.

At the portage, we walked along a narrow
plank walk built up on the side of the river bank
which rose in a high rounded hill. Its noble outline
stood dark with giant firs against a blue[Pg 125]
spring sky; the rushing, silvery flood of the
Willamette swept below us past a bank fringed
with wild currants just coming into bloom.

At the end of the walk there stood a house
which represented itself as a resting place for
weary travelers. We spent the night there but
Alas! for rest; the occupants were convivial and
“drowned the shamrock” all night long; as no
doubt they felt obliged to do for wasn’t it “St.
Patrick’s Day in the mornin’?”

Most likely we three, the juveniles, slumbered
peacefully until aroused to learn that we
were about to start “sure enough” for grandfather’s
farm in the Waldo Hills.

At length the log cabin home was reached
and our interest deepened in everything about.
So many flowers to gather as they came in lively
processional, blue violets under the oaks, blue-flags
all along the valley; such great, golden buttercups,
larkspurs, and many a wildling we
scarcely called by any name.

All the affairs of the house and garden, field
and pasture seemed by us especially gotten up,
for our amusement and we found endless entertainment
therein.

If a cheese was made or churning done we
were sure to be “hanging around” for a green
curd or paring, a taste of sweet butter or a
chance to lift the dasher of the old fashioned
churn. The milking time was enticing, too, and
we trotted down to the milking pen with our[Pg 126]
little tin cups for a drink of fresh, warm milk
from the fat, lowing kine, which fed all day on
rich grasses and waited at the edge of the flower
decked valley for the milkers with their pails.

As summer advanced our joys increased, for
there were wild strawberries and such luscious
ones! no berries in after years tasted half so
good.

Some artist has portrayed a group of children
on a sunny slope among the hills, busy with
the scarlet fruit and called it “The Strawberry
of Memory;” such was the strawberry of that
summer.

One brilliant June day when all the landscape
was steeped in sunshine we went some distance
from home to gather a large supply. It is
needless to say that we, the juvenile contingent,
improved the opportunity well; and when we sat
at table the following day and grandfather
helped us to generous pieces of strawberry
“cobbler” and grandmother poured over them
rich, sweet cream, our satisfaction was complete.
It is likely that if we had heard of the boy who
wished for a neck as long as a giraffe so that he
could taste the good things all the way down, we
would have echoed the sentiment.

Mentioning the giraffe, of the animal also
we probably had no knowledge as books were
few and menageries, none at all.

No lack was felt, however, as the wild animals
were numerous and interesting. The birds,[Pg 127]
rabbits and squirrels were friendly and fearless
then; the birds were especially loved and it was
pleasing to translate their notes into endearments
for ourselves.

But the rolling suns brought round the day
when we must return to our native heath on
Puget Sound. Right sorry were the two little
“clam-diggers” to leave the little companion of
delightful days, and grandparents. With a
rush of tears and calling “good-bye! good-bye!”
as long as we could see or hear we rode
away in a wagon, beginning the long journey,
full of variety, back to the settlement on Elliott
Bay.

Ourselves, and wagon and team purchased
in the “web-foot” country, were carried down
the Willamette and across the sweeping Columbia
on a steamer to Monticello. There the wagon
was loaded into a canoe to ascend the Cowlitz
River, and we mounted the horses for a long
day’s ride, one of the children on the pommel
of father’s saddle, the other perched behind on
mother’s steed.

The forest was so dense through which we
rode for a long distance that the light of noonday
became a feeble twilight, the way was a mere
trail, the salal bushes on either side so tall that
they brushed the feet of the little riders. The
tedium of succeeding miles of this weird wilderness
was beguiled by the stories, gentle warnings
and encouragement from my mother.

[Pg 128]The cicadas sang as if it were evening, the
dark woods looked a little fearful and I was
advised to “Hold on tight and keep awake, there
are bears in these woods.”

The trail led us to the first crossing of the
Cowlitz River, where father hallooed long and
loud for help to ferry us over, from a lonely
house on the opposite shore, but only echo and
silence returned. The deep, dark stream, sombre
forest and deserted house made an eerie impression
on the children.

The little party boarded the ferryboat and
swimming the horses, alongside crossed without
delay.

The next afternoon saw us nearing the crossing
of the Cowlitz again at Warbass Landing.

The path crossed a pretty open space covered
with ripe yellow grass and set around with
giant trees, just before it vanished in the hurrying
stream.

Father rode on and crossed, quite easily, the
uneven bed of the swift river, with its gravelly
islands and deep pools.

When it came our turn, our patient beast
plunged in and courageously advanced to near
the middle of the stream, wavered and stood still
and seemed about to go down with the current.
How distinctly the green, rapid water, gravelly
shoals and distant bank with its anxious onlookers
is photographed on my memory’s page!

Only for a moment did the brave animal[Pg 129]
falter and then sturdily worked her way to the
shore. Mr. Warbass, with white face and trembling
voice, said “I thought you were gone,
sure.” His coat was off and he had been on the
point of plunging in to save us from drowning,
if possible. Willing hands helped us down and
into the hospitable home, where we were glad
to rest after such a severe trial. A sleepless night
followed for my mother, who suffered from the
reaction common to such experience, although
not panic stricken at the time of danger.

It was here I received my first remembered
lesson in “meum et tuum.” While playing under
the fruit trees around the house I spied a
peach lying on the ground, round, red and fair
to see. I took it in to my mother who asked
where I got it, if I had asked for it, etc. I replied
I had found it outdoors.

“Well, it isn’t yours, go and give it to the
lady and never pick up anything without asking
for it.”

A lesson that was heeded, and one much
needed by children in these days when individual
rights are so little regarded.

The muddy wagon road between this point
and Olympia over which the teams had struggled
in the springtime was now dry and the wagon
was put together with hope of a fairly comfortable
trip. It was discovered in so doing that the
tongue of the vehicle had been left at Monticello.
Not to be delayed, father repaired to the woods[Pg 130]
and cut a forked ash stick and made it do duty
for the missing portion.

At Olympia we were entertained by Mr. and
Mrs. Dickinson with whom we tarried as we went
to Oregon.

My mother preferred her steed to the steamer
plying on the Sound; that same trip the selfsame
craft blew up.

On horseback again, we followed the trail
from Olympia to the Duwampsh River, over hills
and hollows, out on the prairie or in the dark
forest, at night putting up at the house of a hospitable
settler. From thence we were told that
it was only one day’s travel but the trail stretched
out amazingly. Night, and a stormy one, overtook
the hapless travelers.

The thunder crashed, the lightning flamed,
sheets of rain came down, but there was no escape.

A halt was called at an open space in a grove
of tall cedar trees, a fire made and the horses
hitched under the trees.

The two children slept snugly under a fir
bark shed made of slabs of bark leaned up
against a large log. Father and mother sat by
the fire under a cedar whose branches gave a
partial shelter. Some time in the night I was
awakened by my mother lying down beside me,
then slept calmly on.

The next morning everything was dripping
wet and we hastened on to the Duwampsh cross[Pg 131]ing
where lived the old man who stood on the
bank at Seattle when we started.

What a comfort it was to the cold, wet, hungry,
weary quartette to be invited into a dry
warm place! and then the dinner, just prepared
for company he had been expecting; a bountiful
supply of garden vegetables, beets, cabbage, potatoes,
a great dish of beans and hot coffee. These
seemed veritable luxuries and we partook of
them with a hearty relish.

A messenger was sent to Seattle to apprise
our friends of our return, two of them came to
meet us at the mouth of the Duwampsh River and
brought us down the bay in a canoe to the landing
near the old laurel (Madrona) tree that
leaned over the bank in front of our home.

The first Fourth of July celebration in which
I participated took place in the old M. E. Church
on Second Street, Seattle, in 1861.

Early in the morning of that eventful day
there was hurrying to and fro in the Dennys’
cottage, on Seneca Street, embowered in flowers
which even luxuriant as they were we did not
deem sufficient. The nimble eldest of the children
was sent to a flower-loving neighbor’s for blossoms
of patriotic hues, for each of the small
Americans was to carry a banner inscribed with
a strong motto and wreathed with red, white and
blue flowers. Large letters, cut from the titles
of newspapers spelled out the legends on squares
of white cotton, “Freedom for All,” “Slavery[Pg 132]
for none,” “United we stand, divided we fall,”
each surrounded with a heavy wreath of beautiful
flowers.

Arrived at the church, we found ourselves
a little late, the orator was just rounding the first
of his eloquent periods; the audience, principally
men, turned to view the disturbers as they
sturdily marched up the aisle to a front seat, and
seeing the patriotic family with their expressive
emblems, broke out in a hearty round of applause.
Although very young we felt the spirit
of the occasion.

The first commencement exercises at the University
took place in 1863. It was a great event,
an audience of about nine hundred or more, including
many visitors from all parts of the
Sound, Victoria, B. C., and Portland, Oregon,
gathered in the hall of the old University, then
quite new.

I was then nine years of age and had been
trained to recite “Barbara Frietchie,” it “goes
without the saying” that it was received with acclaim,
as feeling ran high and the hearts of the
people burned within them for the things that
were transpiring in the South.

Still better were they pleased and much affected
by the singing of “Who Will Care for
Mother Now,” by Annie May Adams, a lovely
young girl of fifteen, with a pure, sympathetic,
soprano voice and a touching simplicity of style.

How warm beat the hearts of the people on[Pg 133]
this far off shore, as at the seat of war, and even
the children shouted, sang and wept in sympathy
with those who shed their lifeblood for their
country.

The singing of “Red, White and Blue” by
the children created great enthusiasm; war tableaux
such as “The Soldier’s Farewell,” “Who
Goes There?” “In Camp,” were well presented
and received with enthusiastic applause, and
whatever apology might have been made for the
status of the school, there was none to be made
for its patriotism.

Our teachers were Unionists without exception
and we were taught many such things;
“Rally Round the Flag” was a favorite and up
went every right hand and stamped hard every
little foot as we sang “Down With the Traitor
and Up With the Stars” with perhaps more energy
than music.

The children of my family, with those of A.
A. Denny’s, sometimes held “Union Meetings;”
at these were speeches made that were very intense,
as we thought, from the top of a stump or
barrel, each mounting in turn to declaim against
slavery and the Confederacy, to pronounce sentence
of execution upon Jeff. Davis, Captain
Semmes, et al. in a way to have made those
worthies uneasy in their sleep. Every book, picture,
story, indeed, every printed page concerning
the war was eagerly scanned and I remember
sitting by, through long talks of Grandfather[Pg 134]
John Denny with my father, to which I listened
intently.

We finally burned Semmes in effigy to express
our opinion of him and named the only
poor, sour apple in our orchard for the Confederate
president.

For a time there were two war vessels in
the harbor, the “Saranac” and “Suwanee,” afterwards
wrecked in Seymour Narrows. The
Suwanee was overturned and sunk by the shifting
of her heavy guns, but was finally raised.
Both had fine bands that discoursed sweet music
every evening. We stood on the bank to listen,
delighted to recognize our favorites, national airs
and war songs, from “Just Before the Battle,
Mother” to “Star Spangled Banner.”

Other beautiful music, from operas, perhaps,
we enjoyed without comprehending, although
we did understand the stirring strains
with which we were so familiar.

In those days the itinerant M. E. ministers
were often the guests of my parents and many
were the good natured jokes concerning the fatalities
among the yellow-legged chickens.

On one occasion a small daughter of the
family, whose discretion had not developed with
her hospitality, rushed excitedly into the sitting
room where the minister was being entertained
and said, “Mother, which chicken shall I catch?”
to the great amusement of all.

One of the reverend gentlemen declared that[Pg 135]
whenever he put in an appearance, the finest and
fattest of the flock immediately lay down upon
their backs with their feet in the air, as they
knew some of them would have to appear on the
festal board.

Like children everywhere we lavished our
young affections on pets of many kinds. Among
these were a family of kittens, one at least of
which was considered superfluous. An Indian
woman, who came to trade clams for potatoes,
was given the little “pish-pish,” as she called it,
with which she seemed much pleased, carrying it
away wrapped in her shawl.

Her camp was a mile away on the shore of
Elliott Bay, from whence it returned through
the thick woods, on the following day. Soon
after she came to our door to exhibit numerous
scratches on her hands and arms made by the
“mesachie pish-pish” (bad cat), as she now considered
it. My mother healed her wounds by
giving her some “supalel” (bread) esteemed a
luxury by the Indians, they seldom having it
unless they bought a little flour and made ash-cake.

Now this same ash-cake deserves to rank
with the southern cornpone or the western Johnny
cake. Its flavor is sweet and nut-like, quite
unlike that of bread baked in an ordinary oven.

The first Christmas tree was set up in our
own house. It was not then a common American
custom; we usually called out “Christmas Gift,”[Pg 136]
affecting to claim a present after the Southern
“Christmas Gif” of the darkies. One early
Christmas, father brought in a young Douglas
fir tree and mother hung various little gifts on
its branches, among them, bright red Lady apples
and sticks of candy; that was our very first
Christmas tree. A few years afterward the
whole village joined in loading a large tree with
beautiful and costly articles, as times were good,
fully one thousand dollars’ worth was hung upon
and heaped around it.

When the fourth time our family returned to
the donation claim, now a part of the city of
Seattle, we found a veritable paradise of flowers,
field and forest.

The claim reached from Lake Union to Elliott
Bay, about a mile and a half; a portion of
it was rich meadow land covered with luxuriant
grass and bordered with flowering shrubs, the
fringe on the hem of the mighty evergreen forest
covering the remainder.

Hundreds of birds of many kinds built their
nests here and daily throughout the summer
chanted their hymns of praise. Robins and
wrens, song-sparrows and snow birds, thrushes
and larks vied with each other in joyful song.

The western meadow larks wandered into
this great valley, adding their rich flute-like
voices to the feathered chorus.

Woodpeckers, yellow hammers and sap-suckers,
beat their brave tattoo on the dead tree[Pg 137]
trunks and owls uttered their cries from the thick
branches at night. Riding to church one Sunday
morning we beheld seven little owls sitting in a
row on the dead limb of a tall fir tree, about fourteen
feet from the ground. Winking and blinking
they sat, silently staring as we passed by.

Rare birds peculiar to the western coast, the
rufous-backed hummingbird, like a living coal
of fire, and the bush-titmouse which builds a curious
hanging nest, also visited this natural park.

The road we children traveled from this
place led through heavy forest and the year of
the drouth (1868) a great fire raged; we lost but
little time on this account; it had not ceased before
we ran past the tall firs and cedars flaming
far above our heads.

Returning from church one day, when about
half way home, a huge fir tree fell just behind
us, and a half mile farther on we turned down a
branch road at the very moment that a tree fell
across the main road usually traveled.

The game was not then all destroyed; water
fowl were numerous on the lakes and bays and
the boys of the family often went shooting.

Rather late in the afternoon of a November
day, the two smaller boys, taking a shot gun with
them, repaired to Lake Union, borrowed a little
fishing canoe of old Tsetseguis, the Indian who
lived at the landing, and went to look at some
muskrat traps they had set.

It was growing quite dark when they thought[Pg 138]
of returning. For some reason they decided to
change places in the canoe, a very “ticklish”
thing to do. When one attempted to pass the
other, over went the little cockle-shell and both
were struggling in the water. The elder managed
to thrust one arm through the strap of the
hunting bag worn by the younger and grasped
him by the hair, said hair being a luxuriant mass
of long, golden brown curls. Able to swim a little
he kept them afloat although he could not keep
the younger one’s head above water. His cries
for help reached the ears of a young man, Charles
Nollop, who was preparing to cook a beefsteak
for his supper—he threw the frying pan one way
while the steak went the other, and rushed, coatless
and hatless, to the rescue with another man,
Joe Raber, in a boat.

An older brother of the two lads, John B.
Denny, was just emerging from the north door
of the big barn with two pails of milk; hearing,
as he thought, the words “I’m drowning,” rather
faintly from the lake, he dropped the pails unceremoniously
and ran down to the shore swiftly,
found only an old shovel-nosed canoe and no paddle,
seized a picket and paddled across the little
bay to where the water appeared agitated; there
he found the boys struggling in the water, or
rather one of them, the other was already unconscious.
Arriving at the same time in their boat
Charley Nollop and Joe Raber helped to pull
them out of the water. The long golden curls of[Pg 139]
the younger were entangled in the crossed cords
of the shot pouch and powder flask worn by the
older one, who was about to sink for the last time,
as he was exhausted and had let go of the younger,
who was submerged.

Their mother reached the shore as the unconscious
one was stretched upon the ground and
raised his arms and felt for the heart which was
beating feebly.

The swimmer walked up the hill to the
house; the younger, still unconscious, was carried,
face downward, into a room where a large
fire was burning in an open fireplace, and laid
down before it on a rug. Restoratives were
quickly applied and upon partial recovery he
was warmly tucked in bed. A few feverish days
followed, yet both escaped without serious injury.

Mrs. Tsetseguis was much grieved and repeated
over and over, “I told the Oleman not to
lend that little canoe to the boys, and he said,
‘O it’s all right, they know how to manage a
canoe.’”

Tsetseguis was also much distressed and
showed genuine sympathy, following the rescued
into the house to see if they were really
safe.

The games we played in early days were
often the time-honored ones taught us by our
parents, and again were inventions of our own.
During the Rebellion we drilled as soldiers or[Pg 140]
played “black man;” by the latter we wrought
excitement to the highest pitch, whether we
chased the black man, or returning the favor, he
chased us.

The teeter-board was available when the
neighbor’s children came; the wonder is that no
bones were broken by our method.

The longest, strongest, Douglas fir board
that could be found, was placed across a large
log, a huge stone rested in the middle and the
children, boys and girls, little and big, crowded
on the board almost filling it; then we carefully
“waggled” it up and down, watching the stone in
breathless and ecstatic silence until weary of it.

Our bravado consisted in climbing up the
steepest banks on the bay, or walking long logs
across ravines or on steep inclines.

The surroundings were so peculiar that old
games took on new charms when played on Puget
Sound. Hide-and-seek in a dense jungle of
young Douglas firs was most delightful; the
great fir and cedar trees, logs and stumps, afforded
ample cover for any number of players,
from the sharp eyes of the one who had been
counted “out” with one of the old rhymes.

The shadow of danger always lurked about
the undetermined boundary of our play-grounds,
wild animals and wild men might be not far beyond.

We feared the drunken white man more
than the sober Indian, with much greater rea[Pg 141]son.
Even the drunken Indian never molested
us, but usually ran “amuck” among the inhabitants
of the beach.

Neither superstitious nor timid we seldom
experienced a panic.

The nearest Indian graveyard was on a hill
at the foot of Spring Street, Seattle. It sloped
directly down to the beach; the bodies were
placed in shallow graves to the very brow and
down over the face of the sandy bluff. All this
hill was dug down when the town advanced.

The childrens’ graves were especially pathetic,
with their rude shelters, to keep off the
rain of the long winter months, and upright
poles bearing bits of bright colored cloth, tin
pails and baskets.

Over these poor graves no costly monuments
stood, only the winds sang wild songs there, the
sea-gulls flitted over, the fair, wild flowers
bloomed and the dark-eyed Indian mothers tarried
sometimes, human as others in their sorrow.

But the light-hearted Indian girls wandered
past, hand in hand, singing as they went, pausing
to turn bright friendly eyes upon me as they
answered the white child’s question, “Ka mika
klatawa?” (Where are you going?)

“O, kopa yawa” (O, over yonder), nodding
toward the winding road that stretched along the
green bank before them. Without a care or sorrow,
living a healthy, free, untrammeled life,[Pg 142]
they looked the impersonation of native contentment.

The social instinct of the pioneers found expression
in various ways.

A merry party of pioneer young people, invited
to spend the evening at a neighbor’s, were
promised the luxury of a candy-pull. The first
batch was put on to boil and the assembled
youngsters engaged in old fashioned games to
while away the time. Unfortunately for their
hopes the molasses burned and they were obliged
to throw it away. There was a reserve in the
jug, however, and the precious remainder was
set over the fire and the games went on again.
Determined to succeed, the hostess stirred, while
an equally anxious and careful guest held the
light, a small fish-oil lamp. The lamp had a leak
and was set on a tin plate; in her eagerness to
light the bubbling saccharine substance and to
watch the stirring-down, she leaned over a little
too far and over went the lamp directly into the
molasses.

What consternation fell upon them! The
very thought of the fish-oil was nauseating, and
that was all the molasses. There was no candy-pulling,
there being no grocery just around the
corner where a fresh supply might be obtained,
indeed molasses and syrup were very scarce articles,
brought from a great distance.

The guests departed, doubtless realizing[Pg 143]
that the “best laid plans … gang aft
agley.”

The climate of Puget Sound is one so mild
that snow seldom falls and ice rarely forms as
thick as windowglass, consequently travel, traffic
and amusement are scarcely modified during
the winter, or more correctly, the rainy season.
Unless it rained more energetically than usual,
the children went on with their games as in summer.

The long northern twilight of the summertime
and equally long evenings in winter had
each their special charm.

The pictures of winter scenes in eastern
magazines and books looked strange and unfamiliar
to us, but as one saucy girl said to a tenderfoot
from a blizzard-swept state, “We see
more and deeper snow everyday than you ever
saw in your life.”

“How is that?” said he.

“On Mount Rainier,” she answered, laughing.

Even so, this magnificent mountain, together
with many lesser peaks, wears perpetual robes
of snow in sight of green and blooming shores.

When it came to decorating for Christmas,
well, we had a decided advantage as the evergreens
stood thick about us, millions of them.
Busy fingers made lavish use of rich garlands
of cedar to festoon whole buildings; handsome
Douglas firs, reaching from floor to ceiling, load[Pg 144]ed
with gay presents and blazing with tapers,
made the little “clam-diggers’” eyes glisten and
their mouths water. In the garden the flowers
bloomed often in December and January, as
many as twenty-six varieties at once.

One New Year’s day I walked down the garden
path and plucked a fine, red rosebud to decorate
the New Year’s cake.

The pussy-willows began the floral procession
of wildlings in January and the trilliums
and currants were not far behind unless a “cold
snap” came on in February and the flowers dozed
on, for they never seem to sleep very profoundly
here. By the middle of February there was,
occasionally, a general display of bloom, but
more frequently it began about the first of
March, the seasons varying considerably.

The following poem tells of favorite flowers
gathered in the olden time “i’ the spring o’
the year!”

In the summertime we had work as well as
play, out of doors. The garden surrounding our
cottage in 1863, overflowed with fruits, vegetables
and flowers. Nimble young fingers were
made useful in helping to tend them. Weeding
beds of spring onions and lettuce, sticking peas
and beans, or hoeing potatoes, were considered
excellent exercise for young muscles; no need
of physical “culchuah” in the school had dawned
upon us, as periods of work and rest, study and
play, followed each other in healthful succession.

[Pg 145]Having a surplus of good things, the children
often went about the village with fresh
vegetables and flowers, more often the latter,
generous bouquets of fragrant and spicy roses
and carnations, sweet peas and nasturtiums, to
sell. Two little daughters in pretty, light print
dresses and white hats were flower girls who
were treated like little queens.

There was no disdain of work to earn a living
in those days; every respectable person did
something useful.

For recreation, we went with father in the
wagon over the “bumpy” road when he went to
haul wood, or perhaps a long way on the county
road to the meadow, begging to get off to gather
flowers whenever we saw them peeping from
their green bowers.

Driving along through the great forest
which stood an almost solid green wall on either
hand, we called “O father, stop! stop; here is
the lady-slipper place.”

“Well, be quick, I can’t wait long.”

Dropping down to the ground, we ran as fast
as our feet could carry us to gather the lovely,
fragrant orchid, Calypso Borealis, from its mossy
bed.

When the ferns were fully grown, eight or
ten feet high, the little girls broke down as many
as they could drag, and ran along the road, great
ladies, with long green trains!

A VISIT FROM OUR TILLICUM

We found the way to the opening in the
[Pg 146]woods, where in the midst thereof, grandfather
sat making cedar shingles with a drawing knife.
Huge trees lay on the ground, piles of bolts had
been cut and the heap of shingles, clear and
straight of the very best quality, grew apace.

Very tall and grand the firs and cedars stood
all around, like stately pillars with a dome of
blue sky above; the birds sang in the underbrush
and the brown butterflies floated by.

Among all the beautiful things, there was
one to rivet the eye and attention; a dark green
fir tree, perhaps thirty feet high, around whose
trunk and branches a wild honeysuckle vine had
twined itself from the ground to the topmost
twig.

It had the appearance of a giant candelabrum,
with the orange-scarlet blossoms that tipped
the boughs like jets of flame.

Many a merry picnic we had in blackberry
time, taking our lunch with us and spending the
day; sometimes in an Indian canoe we paddled
off several miles, to Smith’s Cove or some other
likely place.

It was necessary to watch the tide at the
Cove or the shore could not be reached across the
mudflat.

Once ashore how happy we were; clambering
about over the hills, gathering the ripe fruit,
now and then turning about to gaze at the snowy
sentinel in the southern sky, grand old Mount
Rainier.

[Pg 147]How wide the sparkling waters of the bay!
the sky so pure and clear, the north wind so cool
and refreshing. The plumy boughs stirred gently
overhead and shed for us the balsamic odors,
the flowers waved a welcome at our feet.

In the winter there was seldom any “frost
on the rills” or “snow on the hills,” but when it
did come the children made haste to get all the
possible fun out of the unusual pastime of coasting.
Mothers were glad when the Chinook wind
came and ate up the snow and brought back the
ordinary conditions, as the children were frequently
sick during a cold spell.

Now the tenderfoot, as the newcomer is called
in the west, is apt to be mistaken about the
Chinook wind; there is a wet south wind and a
dry south wind on Puget Sound. The Chinook,
as the “natives” have known it, is a dry wind,
clears the sky, and melts and dries up the snow
at once. Wet south wind, carrying heavy rain
often follows after snow, and slush reigns for a
few days. Perhaps this is a distinction without
much difference.

Storms rarely occur, I remember but two
violent ones in which the gentle south wind
seemed to forget its nature and became a raging
gale.

The first occurred when I was a small child.
The wind had been blowing for some time, gradually
increasing in the evening, and as night
advanced becoming heavier every hour. Large[Pg 148]
stones were taken up from the high bank on the
bay and piled on the roof with limbs broken from
tough fir trees. Thousands of giant trees fell
crashing and groaning to the ground, like a continuous
cannonade; the noise was terrific and we
feared for our lives.

At midnight, not daring to leave the house,
and yet fearing that it might be overthrown,
we knelt and commended ourselves to Him who
rules the storm.

About one o’clock the storm abated and
calmly and safely we lay down to sleep.

The morning broke still and clear, but many
a proud monarch of the forest lay prone upon the
ground.

Electric storms were very infrequent; if
there came a few claps of thunder the children
exclaimed, “O mother, hear the thunder storm!”

“Well, children, that isn’t much of a thunder
storm; you just ought to hear the thunder
in Illinois, and the lighting was a continual
blaze.”

Our mother complained that we were scarcely
enough afraid of snakes; as there are no deadly
reptiles on Puget Sound, we thrust our hands
into the densest foliage or searched the thick
grass without dread of a lurking enemy.

The common garter snake, a short, thick
snake, whose track across the dusty roads I have
seen, a long lead-colored snake and a small brown
one, comprise the list known to us.

[Pg 149]Walking along a narrow trail one summer
day, singing as I went, the song was abruptly
broken, I sprang to one side with remarkable
agility, a long, wiggling thing “swished” through
the grass in an opposite direction. Calling for
help, I armed myself with a club, and with my
support, boldly advanced to seek out the serpent.
When discovered we belabored it so earnestly
that its head was well-nigh severed from
its body.

It was about five feet long, the largest I had
even seen, whether poisonous or not is beyond
my knowledge.

There are but two spiders known to be dangerous,
a white one and a small black “crab”
spider. A little girl acquaintance was bitten by
one of these, it was supposed, though not positively
known; the bite was on the upper arm and
produced such serious effects that a large piece
of flesh had to be removed by the surgeon’s knife
and amputation was narrowly escaped.

A mysterious creature inhabiting Lake
Union sometimes poisoned the young bathers.
One of my younger brothers was bitten on the
knee, and a lameness ensued, which continued
for several months. There was only a small
puncture visible with a moderate swelling, which
finally passed away.

The general immunity from danger extends
to the vegetable world, but very few plants are[Pg 150]
unsafe to handle, chief among them being the
Panax horridum or “devil’s club.”

So the happy pioneer children roamed the
forest fearlessly and sat on the vines and moss
under the great trees, often making bonnets of
the shining salal leaves pinned together with
rose thorns or tiny twigs, making whistles of
alder, which gave forth sweet and pleasant
sounds if successfully made; or in the garden
making dolls of hollyhocks, mallows and morning
glories.

[Pg 151]

CHAPTER VIII.
MARCHING EXPERIENCES OF ESTHER CHAMBERS.

The following thrilling account, written by
herself and first published in the “Weekly
Ledger” of Tacoma, Washington, of June 3,
1892, is to be highly commended for its clear
and forcible style:

“My father, William Packwood, left Missouri
in the spring of 1844 with my mother and
four children in an ox team to cross the plains to
Oregon.

“My mother’s health was very poor when we
started. She had to be helped in and out of the
wagon, but the change by traveling improved her
health so much that she gained a little every day,
and in the course of a month or six weeks she was
able to get up in the morning and cook breakfast,
while my father attended his team and did
other chores. I had one sister older than myself,
and I was only six years old. My little sister
and baby brother, who learned to walk by
rolling the water keg as we camped nights and
mornings, were of no help to my sick mother.

“The company in which we started was Captain
Gilliam’s and we traveled quite a way when
we joined Captain Ford’s company, making upward
of sixty wagons in all.

“Our company was so large that the Indians[Pg 152]
did not molest us, although we, after letting our
stock feed until late in the evening, had formed
a large corral of the wagons, in which we drove
the cattle and horses, and stood guard at night,
as the Indians had troubled small companies by
driving off their stock, but they were not at all
hostile to us.

“We came to a river and camped. The next
morning we were visited by Indians, who seemed
to want to see us children, so we were terribly
afraid of the Indians, and, as father drove in the
river to cross, the oxen got frightened at the Indians
and tipped the wagon over, and father
jumped and held the wagon until help came. We
thought the Indians would catch us, so we
jumped to the lower part of the box, where there
was about six inches of water. The swim and
fright I will never forget—the Indian fright,
of course.

“I was quite small but I do remember the
beautiful scenery. We could see antelope, deer,
rabbits, sage hens and coyotes, etc., and in the
camp we children had a general good time. All
joined at night in the plays. One night Mr. Jenkins’
boys told me to ask their father for his
sheath knife to cut some sticks with. When using
it on the first stick, I cut my lefthand forefinger
nail and all off, except a small portion
of the top of my finger, and the scar is still
visible.

“On another evening we children were hav[Pg 153]ing
a nice time, when a boy by the name of Stephen,
who had been in the habit of hugging around
the children’s shoulders and biting them, hugged
me and bit a piece almost out of my shoulder.
This was the first time I remember seeing my
father’s wrath rise on the plains, as he was a
very even-tempered man. He said to the offending
boy, ‘If you do that again, I shall surely
whip you.’

“A few days later we came to a stream that
was deep but narrow. Mr. Stephens, this boy’s
father, was leading a cow by a rope tied around
his waist and around the cow’s head for the purpose
of teaching the rest of the cattle to swim.
The current being very swift, washed the cow
down the stream, dragging the man. The women
and children were all crying at a great rate,
when one of the party went to Mrs. Stephens,
saying, ‘Mr. Stephens is drowning.’ ‘Well,’
she replied, ‘there is plenty of more men where
he came from.’ Mr. Stephens, his cow and all
lodged safely on a drift. They got him out safely,
but he did not try to swim a stream with a
cow tied to his waist again.

“We could see the plains covered with buffalo
as we traveled along, just like the cattle of our
plains are here.

“One day a band of buffalo came running toward
us, and one jumped between the wheel cattle
and the wheels of the wagon, and we came
very near having a general stampede of the cat[Pg 154]tle;
so when the teamsters got their teams quieted
down, the men, gathering their guns, ran and
killed three of the buffalo, and all of the company
were furnished with dried beef, which was
fine for camping.

“We came to a place where there was a boiling
spring that would cook eggs, and a short distance
from this was a cold, clear spring, and a
short distance from this was a heap of what
looked like ashes, and when we crossed it the
cattles’ feet burned until they bawled. Another
great sight I remember of seeing was an oil
spring.

“Then we reached the Blue Mountains. Snow
fell as we traveled through them.

“We then came down in the Grande Ronde
valley, and it seemed as if we had reached a
paradise. It was a beautiful valley. Here Indians
came to trade us dried salmon, la camas
cakes and dried crickette cakes. We traded for
some salmon and the la camas cakes, but the
crickette cakes we did not hanker after.

“A man in one train thought he would fool an
Indian chief, so he told the Indian he would
swap his girl sixteen years old, for a couple of
horses. The bargain was made and he took the
horses, and the Indian hung around until near
night. When the captain of the company found
out that the Indian was waiting for his girl to go
with him, the captain told the man that we might
all be killed through him, and made him give up[Pg 155]
the horses to the chief. The Indian chief was
real mad as he took the horses away.

“We went on down to The Dalles, where we
stopped a few days. There was a mission at The
Dalles where two missionaries lived, Brewer and
Waller. We emigrants traded some of our poor,
tired cattle off to them for some of their fat
beef, and some coarse flour chopped on a hand
mill, like what we call chop-feed nowadays.

“Then we had to make a portage around the
falls, and the women and children walked. I
don’t remember the distance, but we walked until
late at night, and waded in the mud knee-deep,
and my mother stumped her toe and fell
against a log or she might have gone down into
the river. We little tots fell down in the mud
until you’d have thought we were pigs.

“The men drove around the falls another
way, and got out of provisions.

“My father, seeing a boat from the high
bluffs, going down to the river hailed it, and
when he came down to the boat he found us. He
said he had gotten so hungry that he killed a
crow and ate it, and thought it tasted splendid.
He took provisions to the cattle drivers and we
came on down the river to Fort Vancouver. It
rained on us for a week and our bedclothes were
drenched through and through, so at night we
would open our bed of wet clothes and cuddle in
them as though we were in a palace car, and all
kept well and were not sick a day in all of our[Pg 156]
six months’ journey crossing the plains. My
mother gained and grew fleshy and strong.

“Next we arrived in what is now the city
of Portland, which then consisted of a log cabin
and a few shanties. We stayed there a few days
to dry our bedding.

“Then we moved out to the Tualatin Plains,
where we wintered in a barn, with three other
families, each family having a corner of the barn,
with fire in the center and a hole in the roof for
the smoke to go out. My father went to work
for a man by the name of Baxton, as all my
father was worth in money, I think, was twenty-five
cents, or something like that. He arrived
with a cow, calf and three oxen, and had
to support his family by mauling rails in the
rain, to earn the wheat, peas and potatoes we ate,
as that was all we could get, as bread was out
of the question. Shortly after father had gone
to work my little brother had a rising on his
cheek. It made him so sick that mother wanted
us little tots to go to the place where my father
was working. It being dark, we got out of our
way and went to a man, who had an Indian woman,
by the name of Williams. In the plains there
are swales that fill up with water when the heavy
rains come, and they are knee deep. I fell in
one of these, but we got to Mr. Williams all
right. But when we found our neighbor we began
crying, so Mr. Williams persuaded us to
come in and he would go and get father, which[Pg 157]
he did, and father came home with us to our
barn house. My little brother got better, and my
father returned to his work again.

“Among the settlers on the Tualatin Plains
were Mr. Lackriss, Mr. Burton, Mr. Williams
and General McCarver, who had settled on farms
before we came, and many a time did we go to
their farms for greens and turnips, which were
something new and a great treat to us.

“Often the Indians used to frighten us
with their war dances, as we called them, as we
did not know the nature of Indians, so, as General
McCarver was used to them, we often asked
him if the Indians were having a war dance for
the purpose of hostility. He told us, that was
the way they doctored their sick.

“General McCarver settled in Tacoma when
the townsite was first laid out and is well known.
He died in Tacoma, leaving a family.

“After we moved out to the Tualatin Plains,
many a night when father was away we lay
awake listening to the dogs barking, thinking the
Indians were coming to kill us, and when father
came home I felt safe and slept happily.

“In the spring of 1845 my father took a nice
place in West Yamhill, about two miles from
the Willamette River and we had some settlers
around, but our advantage for a school was
poor, as we were too far from settlers to have
a school, so my education, what little I have, was
gotten by punching the cedar fire and studying[Pg 158]
at night, but, however, we were a happy family,
hoping to accumulate a competency in our new
home.

“One dog, myself and elder sister and brother
were carrying water from our spring, which was
a hundred yards or more from our house, when
a number of Indians came along. We were
afraid of them and all hid. I hid by the trail,
when an old Indian, seeing me, yelled out,
‘Adeda!’ and I began to laugh, but my sister
was terribly frightened and yelled at me to hide,
so they found all of us, but they were friendly
to us, only a wretched lot to steal, as they stole
the only cow we had brought through, leaving
the calf with us without milk.

“My father was quite a hunter, and deer were
plenty, and once in a while he would get one, so
we did get along without milk. During the first
year we could not get bread, as there were no
mills or places to buy flour. A Canadian put up
a small chop mill and chopped wheat something
like feed is chopped now.

“My father being a jack-of-all-trades, set to
work and put up a turning lathe and went to
making chairs, and my mother and her little tots
took the straw from the sheaves and braided and
made hats. We sold the chairs and hats and
helped ourselves along in every way we could
and did pretty well.

“One day, while my father’s lathe was running,
some one yelled ‘Stop!’ A large black[Pg 159]
bear was walking through the yard. The men
gave him a grand chase, but bruin got away from
them.

“My father remained on this place until the
spring of 1847, when he and a number of other
families decided to move to Puget Sound. During
that winter they dug two large canoes, lashed
them together as a raft or flatboat to move on,
and sold out their places, bought enough provisions
to last that summer, and loading up with
their wagons, families and provisions, started
for Puget Sound.

“Coming up the Cowlitz River was a hard
trip, as the men had to tow the raft over rapids
and wade. The weather was very bad. Arriving
at what was called the Cowlitz Landing we
stayed a few days and moved out to the Catholic
priest’s place (Mr. Langlay’s) where the
women and children remained while the men
went back to Oregon for our stock. They had
to drive up the Cowlitz River by a trail, and swim
the rivers. My father said it was a hard trip.

“On arriving at Puget Sound we found a
good many settlers. Among them, now living
that I know of, was Jesse Ferguson, on
Bush Prairie. We stayed near Mr. Ferguson’s
place until my father, McAllister and Shager,
who lives in Olympia, took them to places in the
Nisqually bottoms. My father’s place then, is
now owned by Isaac Hawk.

“Mr. McAllister was killed in the Indian war[Pg 160]
of 1855-6, leaving a family of a number of children,
of whom one is Mrs. Grace Hawk. The
three families living in the bottom were often
frightened by the saucy Indians telling us to
leave, as the King George men told them to make
us go, so on one occasion there came about 300
Indians in canoes. They were painted and had
knives, and said they wanted to kill a chief that
lived by us by the name of Quinasapam. When
he saw the warriors coming he came into our
house for protection, and all of the Indians who
could do so came in after him. Mr. Shager and
father gave them tobacco to smoke. So they
smoked and let the chief go and took their departure.
If there were ever glad faces on this
earth and free hearts, ours were at that time.

“My father and Mr. McAllister took a job
of bursting up old steamboat boilers for Dr. Tolmie
for groceries and clothing, and between their
improving their farms they worked at this.
While they were away the Indians’ dogs were
plenty, and, like wolves, they ran after everything,
including our only milch cow, and she
died, so there was another great loss to us, but
after father got through with the old boilers, he
took another job of making butter firkins for Dr.
Tolmie and shingles also. This was a great help
to the new settlers. The Hudson Bay Company
was very kind to settlers.

“In 1849 the gold fever began to rage and
my father took the fever. I was standing before[Pg 161]
the fire, listening to my mother tell about it,
when my dress caught fire, and my mother and
Mrs. Shager got the fire extinguished, when I
found my hair was off on one side of my head
and my dress missing. I felt in luck to save my
life.

“In the spring of 1850 all arrangements were
made for the California gold mines and we
started by land in an ox team. We went back
through Oregon and met our company in Yamhill,
where we had lived. They joined our company
of about thirty wagons. Portions of our
journey were real pleasant, but the rest was terribly
rough. In one canyon we crossed a stream
seventy-five times in one day, and it was the most
unpleasant part of our journey.

“After two months’ travel we arrived in Sacramento
City, Cal., and found it tolerably warm
for us, not being used to a warm climate.

“Father stayed in California nearly two
years. Our fortune was not a large one. We
returned by sea to Washington and made our
home in the Nisqually Bottom.

“On April 30, 1854, I was married to a man
named G. W. T. Allen and lived with him on
Whidby Island seven years, during which time
four children were born. We finally agreed to
disagree. Only one of our children by my first
husband is living. She is Mrs. L. L. Andrews of
Tacoma, Washington. He is in the banking business.
On July 7, 1863, I was married to my[Pg 162]
present husband, McLain Chambers. We have
lived in Washington ever since. We have had
nine children. Our oldest, a son, I. M. Chambers,
lives on a farm near Roy, Wash. Others
are married and live at Roy, Yelm and Stampede.
We have two little boys at home. Have
lost three within the last three years. We live a
mile and a half southeast of Roy, Wash.

“I have lived here through all the hostilities
of the war. Dr. Tolmie sent wagons to haul us
to the fort for safety. My present husband was
a volunteer and came through with a company
of scouts, very hungry. They were so hungry
that when they saw my mother take a pan of biscuits
from the stove, one of them saying, ‘Excuse
me, but we are almost starved,’ grabbed the
biscuits from the pan, eating like a hungry dog.

“I suppose you have heard of the murder of
Col. I. N. Ebey of Whidby Island? He was beheaded
by the Northern or Fort Simpson Indians
and his family and George Corliss and his
wife made their escape from the house by climbing
out of the windows, leaving even their clothes
and bushwhacking it until morning. I was on
Whidby Island about seven miles from where he
was killed, that same night, alone with my little
girl, now Mrs. Andrews. When one of our
neighbors called at the gate and said, ‘Colonel
Ebey was beheaded last night,’ I said ‘Captain
Barrington, it cannot be, as I have been staying
here so close by alone without being disturbed.’[Pg 163]
Shortly after the Indians came armed, and one
of them came up to me, shaking a large knife in
his hand saying, ‘Iskum mika tenas and klatawa
copa stick or we will kill you.’ I said to him, ‘I
don’t understand; come and go to the field where
my husband and an Indian boy are,’ but they
refused to go and left me soon. I started for the
field with my child, and the further I went the
more scared I got until when I reached my husband,
I cried like a child. He ran to the house
and sent a message to the agent on the reservation,
but they skipped out of his reach, and never
bothered me again, but I truly suffered as though
I were sick, although I stayed alone with a boy
eight or nine years old.”

“A BOY OF SEVEN WHO CAME TO SHOW HIS FATHER
THE WAY.”

In the same columns with the preceding
sketch appeared R. A. Bundy’s story of his juvenile
adventures:

“I will try to give an account of my trip
crossing the plains in the pioneer days. You
need not expect a flowery story, as you will observe
before I get through. The chances for an
education in those days were quite different from
what they are today. Here goes with my story,
anyway:

“My father left his old home in the State of
Illinois in the month of April in the year 1865.
As I was a lad not seven years of age until the[Pg 164]
27th of the month, of course I was obliged to go
along to show the old man the way.

“We were all ready to start, and a large number
of others that were going in the same train
had gathered at our place. There were also
numerous relatives present to bid us good-bye,
and warn us of the big undertaking we were
about to embark in, and tell of the dangers we
would encounter. But a lad of my age always
thinks it is a great thing to go along with a covered
wagon, especially if ‘pap’ is driving. I
crawled right in and did not apprehend anything
dangerous or wearisome about a short trip
like that. I will have to omit dates and camping
places, as I was too young to pay any attention
to such things; and you may swear that I was
always around close. Everything went along
smoothly with me for a short time. Riding in
a covered wagon was a picnic, but my father’s
team was composed of both horses and cattle,
and the oxen soon became tenderfooted and had
to be turned loose and driven behind the wagons.

“About this time A. L. McCauley, whose account
of the trip has appeared in the ‘Ledger,’
fell in with the train. He thought himself a
brave man and as he had had a ‘right smart’
experience in traveling, especially since the war
broke out, and was used to going in the lead and
had selected a great many safe camping places
for himself during that time, the men thought he[Pg 165]
would be a good man to hide from the Indians,
so he was elected captain. He went ahead and
showed my old man the way. I being now relieved
of this responsibility, stayed behind the
train and drove the tenderfooted oxen. When
McCauley found a camping place I always
brought up the rear.

“That was not quite so much of a picnic as
some of us old-timers have nowadays at Shilo. I
found out after driving oxen a few days, that I
was going ‘with’ the old man.

“For a week or two my job was not as bad
as some who have never tried it might imagine.
But six months of travel behind the wagons
barefooted, over sagebrush, sand toads, hot sand
and gravel, rattlesnakes, prickly pears, etc.,
made me sometimes wish I had gone back home
when the old dog did, or that ‘pap’ had sold
me at the sale with the other property. In spite
of my disagreeable situation, however, I kept
trudging alone, bound to stay with the crowd.
I thought my lot was a rough one when I saw
other boys older than myself riding and occasionally
walking just for pleasure. I could not
see where the fun came in, and thought that if
the opportunity was offered I could stand it to
ride all the time. I thought I had the disadvantage
until the Indians got all the stock.

“I remember one night that our famous captain
said he had found us a good, safe camping
place. The next morning the people were all[Pg 166]
right but the horses and cattle were all gone.
For a while it looked like the whole train would
have to walk. I did not care so much for myself
but I thought it would be hard on those that
were not used to it.

“During the day the men got a part of the
horses back, and I was feeling pretty good, thinking
the rest would get to ride, but along in the
afternoon my joyful mood was suddenly
changed. All the men, excepting a few on the
sick list, were out after the stock, when the captain
and some other men came running into camp
as fast as their horses could carry them. The
captain got off his horse, apparently almost
scared to death. He told the women that they
would never see their men again; that the Indians
were coming from every direction. That
was in the Wood River country, and it made me
feel pretty bad after walking so far. We were
all frightened, and some boys and myself found
a hiding place in a wagon. We got under a
feather bed and waited, expecting every minute
that the Indians would come. They did not come
so we came out and found that the captain was
feeling rather weak and had laid down to have a
rest. Shortly after we came out, one of the men
came in leading an Indian pony. It was then
learned that the captain and some of the men
with him had been running from some of the
men belonging to the train, thinking they were
Indians. They found all their horses but two[Pg 167]
and captured two Indian ponies. The next day
we journeyed on and I felt more like walking,
knowing that the others could ride. We did
not meet with any other difficulty that seriously
attracted my attention.

“We arrived on the Touchet at Waitsburg
in October or November, and don’t you forget it,
I had spent many a hot, tiresome day, having
walked all the way across the plains.”

[Pg 168]

CHAPTER IX
AN OLYMPIA WOMAN’S TRIP ACROSS THE PLAINS IN
1851.

Mrs. C. J. Crosby of Olympia, Washington,
contributes this narrative of her personal experience,
to the literature of the Northwest:

“It was in the early spring of ’51 that my
father took the emigrant fever to come West, to
what was then termed Oregon Territory, and get
some of Uncle Sam’s land which was donated to
any one who had the perseverance and courage
to travel six long weary months, through a wild,
savage country with storms and floods as well as
the terrible heat and dust of summer to contend
against. Our home was in Covington, Indiana,
and my father, Jacob Smith, with his wife and
five children, myself being the eldest, started
from there the 24th day of March for a town called
Council Bluffs on the Missouri River, where
all the emigrants bought their supplies for their
long journey in the old time prairie schooner.
Our train was composed of twenty-four wagons
and a good number of people. A captain was
selected, whose duty it was to ride ahead of the
train and find good camping place for the day or
night, where there was plenty of wood, water
and grass.

“The first part of our journey we encoun[Pg 169]tered
terrible floods, little streams would suddenly
become raging torrents and we were
obliged to cross them in hasilty-constructed boats;
two incidents I distinctly remember.

“We had traveled all day and in the evening
came to a stream called the Elk Horn, where we
had some trouble and only part of the train
crossed that night—we were among the number;
well, we got something to eat as best we
could, and being very tired all went to bed as
early as possible; the river was a half mile from
where we camped, but in the night it overflowed
and the morning found our wagons up to the
hubs in water, our cooking utensils floating off
on the water, except those that had gone to the
bottom, and all the cattle had gone off to find dry
ground, and for a while things in general looked
very discouraging. However, the men started
out at daylight in search of the stray cattle, soon
found them and hitched them to the wagons and
started for another camping place, and to wait
until we were joined by those who were left behind
the night before. We all rejoiced to leave
that river as soon as possible, but not many days
expired before we came to another river which
was worse than the first one—it was exceedingly
high and very swift, but by hard work and perseverance
they got all the wagons across the river
without any accident, with the exception of my
father’s, which was the last to cross. They got
about half way over when the provision wagon[Pg 170]
slid off the boat and down the river it went.
Well, I can hardly imagine how any one could
understand our feelings unless they had experienced
such a calamity; to see all the provisions
we had in the world floating away before our
eyes and not any habitation within many hundred
miles of us; for a while we did indeed feel
as though the end had come this time sure. We
could not retrace our footsteps, or go forward
without provisions; each one in the train had
only enough for their own consumption and dare
not divide with their best friend; however, while
they were debating what was best to do, our
wagon had landed on a sandbar and the men
waded out and pulled it ashore. It is needless
for me to say there was great rejoicing in
the camp that day; of course, nearly everything
in the wagon was wet, but while in camp they
were dried out. Fortunately the flour was sealed
up in tin cans; the corn meal became sour before
it got dry, but it had to be used just the same.
In a few days we were in our usual spirits, but
wondering what new trials awaited us, and it
came all too soon; the poor cattle all got poisoned
from drinking alkali water; at first they
did not know what to do for them, but finally
someone suggested giving them fat bacon, which
brought them out all right in a day or two. Then
their feet became very sore from constant traveling
and thorns from the cactus points, and we[Pg 171]
would be obliged to remain in camp several days
for them to recruit.

“As we proceeded farther on our way we began
to fear the Indians, and occasionally met
strolling bands of them all decked out with bows
and arrows, their faces hideous with paint and
long feathers sticking in their top-knots, they
looked very fierce and savage; they made us understand
we could not travel through their country
unless we paid them. So the men gave them
some tobacco, beads and other trinkets, but would
not give them any ammunition; they went away
angry and acted as though they would give us
trouble.

“Some of the men stood guard every night
to protect the camp as well as the horses and
cattle, as they would drive them off in the night
and frequently kill them.

“Thus we traveled from day to day, ever
anxious and on the lookout for a surprise from
some ambush by the wayside, they were so
treacherous, but kind Providence protected us
and we escaped the fate of the unfortunate emigrants
who preceded us.

“Fortunately there was but little sickness in
our train and only one death, that of my little
brother; he was ill about two weeks and we never
knew the cause of his death. At first it seemed
an impossibility to go away and leave him alone
by the wayside, and what could we do without a
coffin and not any boards to make one? A trunk[Pg 172]
was thought of and the little darling was laid
away in that. The grave had to be very deep
so the wild animals could not dig up the body,
and the Indians would plunder the graves, too,
so it was made level with the ground. We felt
it a terrible affliction; it seemed indeed the climax
of all we had endured. It was with sad
hearts we once again resumed our toilsome journey.

“We saw the bones of many people by the
wayside, bleaching in the sun, and it was ever a
constant reminder of the dear little one that was
left in the wilderness. However, I must not
dwell too long over this dark side of the picture,
as there was much to brighten and cheer us many
times; there were many strange, beautiful things
which were a great source of delight and wonder,
especially the boiling springs, the water so hot
it would cook anything, and within a short distance
springs of ice water, and others that made
a noise every few minutes like the puffing of a
steamer. Then there were rocks that resembled
unique old castles, as they came into view in the
distance. All alone in the prairie was one great
rock called Independence Rock; it was a mile
around it, half a mile wide and quite high in
some places; there were hundreds of emigrants’
names and dates carved on the side of the rock
as high as they could reach. It reminded one of
a huge monument. I wonder if old Father Time
has effaced all the names yet?

[Pg 173]“In the distance we saw great herds of buffalo
and deer; the graceful, swift-footed antelope
was indeed a sight to behold, and we never grew
tired of the lovely strange flowers we found along
the road.

The young folks, as well as the old, had their
fun and jokes, and in the evening all would
gather ’round the campfire, telling stories and
relating the trials and experiences each one had
encountered during the day, or meditating what
the next day would bring forth of weal or woe.
Thus the months and days passed by, and our
long journey came to an end when we reached
the Dalles on the Columbia River, where we embarked
on the small steamer that traveled down
the river and landed passengers and freight at
a small place called the Cascades. At this place
there was a portage of a half mile; then we traveled
on another steamer and landed in Portland
the last day of October, the year 1851, remained
there during the winter and in the spring of
1852 came to Puget Sound with a number of
others who were anxious for some of Uncle
Sam’s land.

“Olympia, a very small village, was the only
town on the Sound except Fort Steilacoom,
where a few soldiers were stationed. We spent a
short time in Olympia before going to Whidby
Island, where my father settled on his claim, and
we lived there five years, when we received a
patent from the government, but before our home[Pg 174]
was completed he had the misfortune to break
his arm, and, not being properly set, he was a
cripple the remainder of his life.”

In 1852 there were a couple of log houses
at Alki Point, occupied by Mr. Denny and others;
they called the “town” New York. We
went ashore from the schooner and visited
them.

To the above properly may be added an account
published in a Seattle paper:

“Mrs. C. J. Crosby, of Olympia, gives the
following interesting sketch of her early days
on Whidby Island:

“As I am an old settler and termed a moss-back
by those who have come later, I feel urged
to relate a few facts pertaining to my early life
on Whidby Island in the days of 1852. My
father, Jacob Smith, with his wife and five children,
crossed the plains the year of 1851. We
started from Covington, Indiana, on the 24th day
of March and arrived in Portland, Oregon, the
last day of October.

“We remained there during the winter, coming
to Olympia the spring of 1852, where we
spent a short time before going down to the
island. My father settled on a claim near Pen’s
Cove, and almost opposite what is now called
Coupeville. We lived there five years, when he
sold his claim to Capt. Swift for three thousand
five hundred dollars and we returned to Olympia.

“The year ’52 we found several families[Pg 175]
living on the island; also many bachelors who
had settled on claims. I have heard my mother
say she never saw the face of a white woman for
nine months. My third sister was the second
white child born on the island. I remember once
we did not have any flour or bread for six weeks
or more. We lived on potatoes, salmon and
clams. Finally a vessel came in the Sound bringing
some, but the price per barrel was forty-five
dollars and it was musty and sour. Mother
mixed potatoes with the flour so that we could
eat it at all, and also to make it last a long time.

“There is also another incident impressed
on my memory that I never can forget. One
morning an Indian came to the house with some
fish oil to sell, that and tallow candles being the
only kind of light we had in those days. She
paid him all he asked for the oil, besides giving
him a present, but he wanted more. He got very
angry and said he would shoot her. She told
him to shoot and took up the fire shovel to him.
Meantime she told my brother to go to a neighbor’s
house, about half a mile distant, but before
the men arrived the Indian cleared out. However,
had it not been for the kindness of the Indians
we would have suffered more than we did.”

From other published accounts I have culled
the following:

“Peter Smith crossed the plains in 1852 and
settled near Portland. When it was known the
Indians would make trouble, Mr. Smith, being[Pg 176]
warned by a friendly Indian, took his family to
Fort Steilacoom and joined the ‘Home Guard,’
but shortly afterward joined a company of
militia and saw real war for three months.

“Just before the hostilities in 1855, two Indians
visited his house. One of them was a magnificent
specimen of physical manhood and chief
of his tribe. They wanted something to eat.
Now several settlers had been killed by Indians
after gaining access to their houses, but, nothing
daunted, Mrs. Smith went to work and prepared
a very fine dinner, and Mr. S. made them sandwiches
for their game bag, putting on an extra
allowance of sugar, and appeared to be as bold
as a lion. He also accepted an invitation to visit
their camp, which he did in their company, and
formed a lasting friendship.

“The mince, fruit and doughnuts did their
good work.

“During the war Mr. Smith had his neck
merely bruised by a bullet. On his return home
he found the Indians had been there before him
and stolen his hogs and horses and destroyed his
grain, a loss of eleven hundred dollars, for which
he has never received any pay.”

[Pg 177]

CHAPTER X.
CAPT. HENRY ROEDER ON THE TRAIL.

Capt. Roeder came by steamer to Portland
and thence made his way to Olympia overland
from the mouth of the Cowlitz River. This was
in the winter of 1852. The story of this journey
is best told in the words of the veteran pioneer
himself, who has narrated his first experiences
in the then Territory of Oregon as follows:

“In company with R. V. Peabody, I traveled
overland from the mouth of the Cowlitz, through
the mud to Olympia. We started early in December
from Portland. It took us four days to
walk from the Cowlitz River to Olympia, and
it was as hard traveling as I have ever seen.
Old residents will remember what was known as
Sanders’ Bottom. It was mud almost to your
waist. We stopped one night with an old settler,
whose name I cannot now recall, but whom we
all called in those days ‘Old Hardbread.’ On
the Skookumchuck we found lodging with Judge
Ford, and on arriving at Olympia we put up
with Mr. Sylvester, whose name is well known
to all the old residents on the Sound. I remember
that at Olympia we got our first taste of the
Puget Sound clam, and mighty glad we were,
too, to get a chance to eat some of them.

“From Olympia to Seattle we traveled by[Pg 178]
Indian canoe. I remember distinctly rounding
Alki Point and entering the harbor of Elliott
Bay. I saw what was, perhaps, the first house
that was built, where now stands the magnificent
city of Seattle. This was a cabin that was being
erected on a narrow strip of land jutting out
into the bay, which is now right in the heart of
Seattle. Dr. Maynard was the builder. It was
situated adjoining the lot at Commercial and
Main Streets, occupied by the old Arlington just
before the fire of 1889. The waters of the Sound
lapped the shores of the narrow peninsula upon
which it was built, but since then the waters have
been driven back by the filling of earth, sawdust
and rock, which was put on both sides of the
little neck of land.

“After a few days’ stay here, Peabody and
I journeyed by Indian canoe to Whatcom. We
carried our canoe overland to Hood Canal. On
the second day out we encountered a terrible
storm and put into shelter with a settler on the
shore of the canal. His name was O’Haver, and
he lived with an Indian wife. We had white
turnips and dried salmon for breakfast and dried
salmon and white turnips for dinner. This bill
of fare was repeated in this fashion for three
days, and I want to tell you that we were glad
when the weather moderated and we were enabled
to proceed.

“We were told that we could procure something
in the edible line at Port Townsend, but[Pg 179]
were disappointed. The best we could obtain at
the stores was some hard bread, in which the
worms had propagated in luxuriant fashion.
This food was not so particularly appetizing, as
you may imagine. A settler kindly took pity on
us and shared his slender stock of food. Thence
we journeyed to Whatcom, where I have resided
nearly ever since.”

Capt. Roeder told also before he had finished
his recital of an acquaintance he had formed in
California with the noted Spanish murderer and
bandit, Joaquin, and his tribe of cutthroats and
robbers. Joaquin’s raids and his long career
in crime among the mining camps of the early
days of California are part of the history of that
state. Capt. Roeder was traveling horseback on
one occasion between Marysville and Rush
Creek. This was in 1851. The night before he
left Marysville the sheriff and a posse had attempted
to capture Joaquin and his band. The
authorities had offered a reward of $10,000 for
Joaquin and $5,000 for his men, dead or alive.
The sheriff went out from Marysville with a
cigar in his mouth and his sombrero on the side
of his head, as if he were attending a picnic. It
was his own funeral, however, instead of a picnic,
for his body was picked out of a fence corner,
riddled with bullets.

“I was going at a leisurely gait over the
mountain road or bridle path that led from
Marysville to Rush Creek,” said Capt. Roeder.[Pg 180]
“Suddenly, after a bend in the road, I found
myself in the midst of a band of men mounted
on bronchos. They were dark-skinned and of
Spanish blood. Immediately I recognized Joaquin
and ‘Three-Fingered Jack,’ his first lieutenant.
My heart thumped vigorously, and I
thought that it was all up with me. I managed
somehow to control myself and did not evince
any of the excitement I felt or give the outlaws
any sign that I knew or suspected who they were.

“One of the riders, after saluting me in
Spanish, asked me where I was from and
whither I was traveling. I told them freely and
frankly, as if the occurrence were an everyday
transaction. Learning that I had just come from
Marysville, the seat of their last outrage, they
inquired the news. I told them the truth—that
the camp was in a state of great excitement, due
to the late visit of the outlaw, Joaquin, and his
band; that the sheriff had been murdered and
three or four miners and others in the vicinity
had been murdered and robbed. It was Joaquin’s
pleasant practice to lariat a man, rob him and
cut his throat, leaving the body by the roadside.
They asked me which way Joaquin had gone and
I told them that he was seen last traveling towards
Arizona. As a matter of fact, the outlaw
and his band were then traveling in a direction
exactly opposite from that which I had given.

“My replies apparently pleased them.
‘Three-Fingered Jack’ proposed a drink, after[Pg 181]
asking me which way I traveled. I said, ‘I would
have proposed the compliment long ago had I
any in my canteen,’ whereat Jack drew his own
bottle and offered me a drink.

“You may imagine my feelings then. I
knew that if they believed I had recognized them
they would give me poison or kill me with a knife.
I took the canteen and drank from it. You may
imagine my joy when I saw Jack lift the bottle
to his lips and drain it. Then I knew that I had
deceived them. We exchanged adieus in Spanish,
and that is the last I saw of Joaquin and his
associate murderers.”

[Pg 182]

PART II.

MEN, WOMEN AND ADVENTURES

CHAPTER I.
SONG OF THE PIONEERS.

[Pg 186]

CHAPTER II.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES AND SKETCHES.

JOHN DENNY.

As elsewhere indicated, only a few of the
leading characters will be followed in their
careers. Of these, John Denny is fittingly placed
first.

John Denny was born of pioneer parents
near Lexington, Kentucky, May 4th, 1793. In
1813 he was a volunteer in Col. Richard M. Johnson’s
regiment of mounted riflemen, and served
through the war, participated in the celebrated
battle of the Thames in Canada, where Tecumseh
was killed and the British army under Proctor
surrendered. Disaster fell upon him, the results
of which followed him throughout his life. The
morning gun stampeded the horses in camp while
the soldiers were still asleep, and they ran over
John Denny where he lay asleep in a tent,
wounding his knee so that the synovial fluid ran
out and also broke three of his ribs. In 1823 he
removed to Putnam County, Indiana, then an
unknown wilderness, locating six miles east of
Greencastle, where he resided for the succeeding
twelve years. He is remembered as a leading
man of energy and public spirit.

In 1835 he removed to Illinois and settled in
Knox County, then near the frontier of civiliza[Pg 187]tion,
where he lived for the next succeeding sixteen
years, during which time he represented his
county in both branches of the state legislature,
serving with Lincoln, Douglas, Baker, Yates,
Washburn and Trumbull, with all of whom he
formed warm personal friendships, which lasted
through life, despite political differences.

In 1851, at an age when most men think they
have outlived their usefulness and seek the repose
demanded by their failing physical strength,
accompanied by his children and grandchildren,
he braved the toils and perils of an overland
journey to this then remote wilderness upon the
extreme borders of civilization and settled upon
a farm in Marion County, Oregon, while his sons,
Arthur A. and David T., took claims on Elliott
Bay and were among the founders of Seattle,
where they command universal respect for their
intelligence, integrity and public spirit, Arthur
having represented the territory as delegate in
congress and served several terms in the Territorial
Legislature.

David has held many responsible public
positions, including Probate Judge and Regent
of the University, and is respected by all as a
clear-headed and scrupulously honest man and
most estimable citizen.

John Denny remained in Oregon about six
years, but held no official position there, for the
reason that he was an uncompromising Whig and
Oregon was overwhelmingly Democratic, includ[Pg 188]ing
among the leaders of the Democratic party
George H. Williams, Judge Deady, Gov. Gibbs
and much of the best intellect of the state.

He, however, entered warmly into the political
discussions of the times, and many incidents
are remembered and many anecdotes told of the
astonishment and discomfiture of some of the
most pretentious public speakers when meeting
the unpretending pioneer farmer in public discussion.
He was a natural orator and had improved
his gift by practice and extensive reading.

Few professional men were better posted in
current history and governmental philosophy or
could make a better use of their knowledge in
addressing a popular audience.

In 1859 he removed to Seattle, and from that
time on to the day of his death was a recognized
leader in every enterprise calculated to promote
the prosperity of the town or advance its educational
and social interests. No public measure,
no public meeting to consider public enterprise,
was a success in which he was not a central
figure, not as an assumed director, but as an
earnest co-operator, who enthused others by his
own undaunted spirit of enterprise, and when
past eighty years of age his voice was heard stirring
up the energies of the people, and by his
example, no less than his precepts, he shamed
the listless and selfish younger men into activity
and public spirit.

[Pg 189]When any special legislative aid was desired
for this section, John Denny was certain to be
selected to obtain it; by his efforts mainly the
Territorial University was located at this place.

He passed his long and active life almost
wholly upon the frontiers of civilization, not
from any aversion to the refinements and restraints
of social life, for few men possessed
higher social qualities or had in any greater
degree the nicer instincts of a gentleman—he
held a patent of nobility under the signet of the
Almighty, and his intercourse with others was
ever marked by a courtesy which betokened not
only self-respect but a due regard for the rights
and opinions of others. He was impelled by as
noble ambition as ever sought the conquest of
empire or the achievement of personal glory—the
subduing of the unoccupied portions of his
country to the uses of man, with the patriotic
purpose of extending his country’s glory and
augmenting its resources.

His first care in every settlement was to
establish and promote education, religion and
morality as the only true foundation of social
as well as individual prosperity, and with all his
courage and manly strength he rarely, if ever,
was drawn into a lawsuit.

John Denny was of that noble race of men,
now nearly extinct, who formed the vanguard of
Western civilization and were the founders of
empire. Their day is over, their vocation ended,[Pg 190]
because the limit of their enterprise has been
reached. Among the compeers of the same stock
were Dick Johnson, Harrison, Lincoln, Harden
and others famous in the history of the country,
who only excelled him in historic note by biding
their opportunities in waiting to reap the fruits
of the harvest which they had planted. He was
the peer of the best in all the elements of manhood,
of heart and brain. In all circumstances
and surroundings he was a recognized leader of
men, and would have been so honored and so
commanded that leading place in public history
had he waited for the development of the social
institutions which he helped to plant in the Western
states, now the seat of empire. All who
entered his presence were instinctively impressed
by his manhood. Yet no man was less pretentious
or more unostentatious in his intercourse
with others.

He reverenced his manhood, and felt himself
here among men his brethren under the eye of a
common Father.

He felt that he was bound to work for all
like a brother and like a son.

So he was brave, so he was true, so his integrity
was unsullied, so not a stain dims his
memory; so he rebuked vice and detested meanness
and hated with a cordial hate all falsehood,
all dishonesty and all trickery; so he was the
chivalrous champion of the innocent and oppressed;
so he was gentle and merciful, because[Pg 191]
he was working among a vast family as a brother
“recognizing the Great Father, Who sits over
all, Who is forever Truth and forever Love.”

Such words as these were said of him at the
time of his death, when the impressions of his
personality were fresh in the minds of the people.

He entered into rest July 28th, 1875.

It is within my recollection that the keen
criticisms and droll anecdotes of John Denny
were often repeated by his hearers. The power
with which he swayed an audience was something
wonderful to behold; the burning enthusiasm
which his oratory kindled, inciting to action,
the waves of convulsive laughter his wit evoked
were abundant evidence of his influence.

In repartee, he excelled. At one time when
A. A. Denny was a member of the Territorial
Legislature, John Denny was on his way to the
capital to interview him, doubtless concerning
some important measure; he received the hospitality
of a settler who was a stranger to him
and moreover very curious with regard to the
traveler’s identity and occupation. At last this
questioning brought forth the remarkable statement
that he, John Denny, had a son in the
lunatic ass-ylum in Olympia whom he intended
visiting.

The questioner delightedly related it afterward,
laughing heartily at the compliment paid
to the Legislature.

In a published sketch a personal friend[Pg 192]
says: “He was so full of humor that it was
impossible to conceal it, and his very presence
became a mirth-provoking contagion absolutely
irresistible in its effects.

“Let him come when he would, everybody
was ready to drop everything else to listen to a
story from Uncle John.

“He went home to the States during the
war, via the Isthmus of Panama. On the trip
down from San Francisco the steamer ran on a
rock and stuck fast. Of course, there was a
great fright and excitement, many crying out
‘We shall all be drowned,’ ‘Lord save us!’ etc.
Amid it all Uncle John coolly took in the chances
of the situation, and when a little quiet had been
restored so he could be heard by all in the cabin,
he said: ‘Well, I reckon there was a fair bargain
between me and the steamship company to
carry me down to Panama, and they’ve got their
cash for it, and now if they let me drown out
here in this ornery corner, where I can’t have a
decent funeral, I’ll sue ’em for damages, and
bust the consarned old company all to flinders.’

“This had the effect to divert the passengers,
and helped to prevent a panic, and not a
life was lost.

“In early life he had been a Whig and in
Illinois had fought many a hard battle with the
common enemy. He had represented his district
repeatedly in the legislature of that state, and
he used to tell with pride, and a good deal of[Pg 193]
satisfaction, how one day a handful of the Whigs,
Old Abe and himself among the number, broke
a quorum of the house by jumping from a
second-story window, thereby preventing the
passage of a bill which was obnoxious to the
Whigs.

“The Democrats had been watching their
opportunity, and having secured a quorum with
but few of the Whigs in the house, locked the
doors and proposed to put their measure
through. But the Whigs nipped the little game
in the manner related.”

After Lincoln had become President and
John Denny had crossed the Plains and pioneered
it in Oregon and Washington Territories,
the latter visited the national capital on important
business.

While there Mr. Denny attended a presidential
reception and tested his old friend’s
memory in this way: Forbidding his name to
be announced, he advanced in the line and gave
his hand to President Lincoln, then essayed to
pass on. Lincoln tightened his grasp and said,
“No you don’t, John Denny; you come around
back here and we’ll have a talk after a while.”

On the stump he was perfectly at home,
never coming off second best. His ready wit
and tactics were sure to stand him in hand at
the needed moment.

SARAH DENNY
JOHN DENNY,   S. LORETTA DENNY

In one of the early campaigns of Washington
Territory, which was a triangular combat
[Pg 194]waged by Republicans, Democrats and “Bolters,”
John Denny, who was then a Republican,
became one of the third party. At a political
meeting which was held in Seattle, at which I
was present, a young man recently from the
East and quite dandyish, a Republican and a
lawyer, made quite a high-sounding speech;
after he sat down John Denny advanced to
speak.

He began very coolly to point out how they
had been deceived by the rascally Republican
representative in his previous term of office, and
suddenly pointing his long, lean forefinger directly
at the preceding speaker, his voice gathering
great force and intensity, he electrified
the audience by saying, “And no little huckleberry
lawyer can blind us to the facts in the
case.”

The audience roared, the “huckleberry lawyer’s”
face was scarlet and his curly locks fairly
bristled with embarrassment. The hearers were
captivated and listened approvingly to a round
scoring of the opponents of the “bolters.”

He was a fearless advocate of temperance,
or prohibition rather, of woman suffragists
when they were weak, few and scoffed at, an
abolitionist and a determined enemy of tobacco.
I have seen him take his namesake among the
grandchildren between his aged knees and say,
“Don’t ever eat tobacco, John; your grandfather
wishes he had never touched it.” His oft-[Pg 195]repeated
advice was heeded by this grandson,
who never uses it in any form.

He was tall, slender, with snow-white hair
and a speaking countenance full of the most
glowing intelligence.

When the news came to the little village of
Seattle that he had returned from Washington
City, where he had been laboring to secure an
appropriation for the Territorial University,
two of his little grandchildren ran up the hill
to meet him; he took off his high silk hat, his
silvery hair shining in the fair sunlight and
smiled a greeting, as they grasped either hand
and fairly led him to their home.

A beautiful tribute from the friend before
quoted closes this brief and inadequate sketch:

“He sleeps out yonder midway between the
lakes (Washington and Union), where the
shadows of the Cascades in the early morning
fall upon the rounded mound of earth that marks
his resting place, and the shadows of the Olympics
in the early evening rest lovingly and
caressingly on the same spot; there, where the
song birds of the forest and the wild flowers and
gentle zephyrs, laden with the perfume of the
fir and cedar, pay a constant tribute to departed
goodness and true worth.”

[Pg 196]

SARAH LATIMER DENNY.

The subject of this sketch was a Tennessean
of an ancestry notable for staying qualities, religious
steadfastness and solid character, as well
as gracious and kindly bearing.

On her father’s side she traced descent from
the martyr, Hugh Latimer, and although none
of the name have been called to die at the stake
in the latter days, Washington Latimer, nephew
of Sarah Latimer Denny, was truly a martyr to
principle, dying in Andersonville prison during
the Rebellion.

The prevailing sentiment of the family was
patriotic and strongly in favor of the abolition
movement.

One of the granddaughters pleasurably recalls
the vision of Joseph Latimer, father of
Sarah, sitting in his dooryard, under the boughs
of a great Balm of Gilead tree, reading his Bible.

Left to be the helper of her mother when
very young, by the marriage of her elder sister,
she quickly became a competent manager in
household affairs, sensible of her responsibilities,
being of a grave and quiet disposition.

She soon married a young Baptist minister,
Richard Freeman Boren, whose conversion and
call to the ministry were clear and decided. His
first sermon was preached in the sitting room
of a private house, where were assembled, among
others, a number of his gay and pleasure-loving[Pg 197]
companions, whom he fearlessly exhorted to a
holy life.

His hands were busy with his trade of
cabinetmaking a part of the time, for the support
of his family, although he rode from place
to place to preach.

A few years of earnest Christian work, devoted
affection and service to his family and he
passed away to his reward, leaving the young
widow with three little children, the youngest
but eighteen months old.

In her old age she often reverted to their
brief, happy life together, testifying that he
never spoke a cross word to her.

She told of his premonition of death and
her own remarkable dream immediately preceding
that event.

While yet in apparently perfect health he
disposed of all his tools, saying that he would
not need them any more.

One night, toward morning, she dreamed
that she saw a horse saddled and bridled at the
gate and some one said to her that she must
mount and ride to see her husband, who was very
sick; she obeyed, in her dream, riding over a
strange road, crossing a swollen stream at one
point.

At daylight she awoke; a horse with side-saddle
on was waiting and a messenger called
her to go to her husband, as he was dangerously
ill at a distant house. Exactly as in her dream[Pg 198]
she was conducted, she traversed the road and
crossed the swollen stream to reach the place
where he lay, stricken with a fatal malady.

After his death she returned to her father’s
house, but the family migrated from Tennessee
to Illinois, spent their first winter in Sangamon
County, afterward settling in Knox County.

There the brave young pioneer took up her
abode in a log cabin on a piece of land which she
purchased with the proceeds of her own hard
toil.

The cabin was built without nails, of either
oak or black walnut logs, it is not now known,
with oak clapboards, braces and weight-poles
and puncheon floor. There was one window
without glass, a stick and clay mortar chimney,
and a large, cheerful fireplace where the backlogs
and fore-sticks held pyramids of dancing,
ruddy flames, and the good cooking was done in
the good old way.

By industry and thrift everything was
turned to account. The ground was made to
yield wheat, corn and flax; the last was taken
through the whole process of manufacture into
bed and table linen on the spot. Sheep were
raised, the wool sheared, carded, spun, dyed and
woven, all by hand, by this indefatigable worker,
just as did many others of her time.

They made almost every article of clothing
they wore, besides cloth for sale.

Great, soft, warm feather beds comforted[Pg 199]
them in the cold Illinois winters, the contents of
which were plucked from the home flock of
geese.

As soon as the children were old enough,
they assisted in planting corn and other crops.

The domestic supplies were almost entirely
of home production and manufacture. Soap for
washing owed its existence to the ash-hopper
and scrap-kettle, and the soap-boiling was an
important and necessary process. The modern
housewife would consider herself much afflicted
if she had to do such work.

And the sugar-making, which had its pleasant
side, the sugar camp and its merry tenants.

About half a mile from the cabin stood the
sugar maple grove to which this energetic provider
went to tap the trees, collect the sap and
finally boil the same until the “sugaring off.”
A considerable event it was, with which they began
the busy season.

One of the daughters of Sarah Latimer
Denny remembers that when a little child she
went with her mother to the sugar camp where
they spent the night. Resting on a bed of leaves,
she listened to her mother as she sang an old
camp meeting hymn, “Wrestling Jacob,” while
she toiled, mending the fire and stirring the sap,
all night long under dim stars sprinkled in the
naked branches overhead.

Other memories of childish satisfaction
hold visions of the early breakfast when “Uncle[Pg 200]
John” came to see his widowed sister, who, with
affectionate hospitality, set the “Johnny-cake”
to bake on a board before the fire, made chocolate,
fried the chicken and served them with
snowy biscuits and translucent preserves.

For the huge fireplace, huge lengths of logs,
for the backlogs, were cut, which required three
persons to roll in place.

Cracking walnuts on the generous hearth
helped to beguile the long winter evenings. A
master might have beheld a worthy subject in
the merry children and their mother thus occupied.

If other light were needed than the ruddy
gleams the fire gave, it was furnished by a lard
lamp hung by a chain and staple in the wall, or
one of a pallid company of dipped candles.

Sometimes there were unwelcome visitors
bent on helping themselves to the best the farm
afforded; one day a wolf chased a chicken up
into the chimney corner of the Boren cabin, to
the consternation of the small children. Wolves
also attacked the sheep alongside the cabin at
the very moment when one of the family was
trying to catch some lambs; such savage boldness
brought hearty and justifiable screams from
the young shepherdess thus engaged.

The products of the garden attached to this
cabin are remembered as wonderful in richness
and variety; the melons, squashes, pumpkins,
etc., the fragrant garden herbs, the dill and[Pg 201]
caraway seeds for the famous seedcakes carried
in grandmothers’ pockets or “reticules.” In
addition to these, the wild fruits and game; haws,
persimmons, grapes, plums, deer and wild turkey;
the medicinal herbs, bone-set and blood-root;
the nut trees heavily laden in autumn, all
ministered to the comfort and health of the pioneers.

The mistress was known for her generous
hospitality then, and throughout her life. In
visiting and treating the sick she distanced educated
practitioners in success. Never a violent
partisan, she was yet a steadfast friend. One
daughter has said that she never knew any one
who came so near loving her neighbor as herself.
Just, reasonable, kind, ever ready with sympathetic
and wholesome advice, it was applicably
said of her, “She openeth her mouth with wisdom
and in her tongue is the law of kindness.”

As the years went by the children were sent
to school, the youngest becoming a teacher.

Toilsome years they were, but doubtless full
of rich reward.

Afterward, while yet in the prime of life,
she married John Denny, a Kentuckian and pioneer
of Indiana, Illinois and finally of Oregon
and Washington.

With this new alliance new fields of effort
and usefulness opened before her. The unusual
occurrence of a widowed mother and her two
daughters marrying a widower and his two sons[Pg 202]
made this new tie exceeding strong. With
them, as before stated, she crossed the plains
and “pioneered it” in Oregon among the Waldo
Hills, from whence she moved to Seattle on
Puget Sound with her husband and little daughter,
Loretta Denny, in 1859.

The shadow of pioneer days was scarcely
receding, the place was a little straggling village
and much remained of beginnings. As before in
all other places, her busy hands found much to
do; many a pair of warm stockings and mittens
from her swift needles found their way into the
possession of the numerous grand and great-grandchildren.
In peaceful latter days she sat
in a cozy corner with knitting basket at hand,
her Bible in easy reach.

Her mind was clear and vigorous and she
enjoyed reading and conversing upon topics old
and new.

Her cottage home with its blooming plants,
of which “Grandmother’s calla,” with its frequent,
huge, snowy spathes, was much admired,
outside the graceful laburnum tree and sweet-scented
roses, was a place that became a Mecca
to the tired feet and weary hearts of her kins-folk
and acquaintances.

With devoted, filial affection her youngest
daughter, S. Loretta Denny, remained with her
until she entered into rest, February 10th, 1888.

[Pg 203]

CHAPTER III.
DAVID THOMAS DENNY.

David Thomas Denny was the first of the
name to set foot upon the shores of Puget Sound.
Born in Putnam County, Indiana, March 17th,
1832, he was nineteen years of age when he
crossed the plains with his father’s company in
1851. He is a descendant of an ancient family,
English and Scotch, who moved to Ireland and
thence to America, settling in Berk’s County,
Pa. His father was John Denny, a notable man
in his time, a soldier of 1812, and a volunteer
under William Henry Harrison.

The long, rough and toilsome journey across
the plains was a schooling for the subsequent
trials of pioneer life. Young as he was, he stood
in the very forefront, the outmost skirmish line
of his advancing detachment of the great army
moving West. The anxious watch, the roughest
toil, the reconnaissance fell to his lot. He drove
a four-horse team, stood guard at night, alternately
sleeping on the ground, under the wagon,
hunted for game to aid in their sustenance, and,
briefly, served his company in many ways with
the energy and faithfulness which characterized
his subsequent career.

With his party he reached Portland in August,
1851; from thence, with J. N. Low, he made[Pg 204]
his way to Olympia on Puget Sound, where he
arrived footsore and weary, they having traveled
on foot the Hudson Bay Company’s trail
from the Columbia River. From Olympia, with
Low, Lee Terry, Captain Fay and others, he
journeyed in an open boat to Duwampsh Head,
which has suffered many changes of name, where
they camped, sleeping under the boughs of a
great cedar tree the first night, September 25th,
1851.

The next day Denny, Terry and Low made
use of the skill and knowledge of the native inhabitants
by hiring two young Indians to take
them up the Duwampsh River in their canoe.
He was left to spend the following night with
the two Indians, as his companions had wandered
so far away that they could not return,
but remained at an Indian camp farther up the
river. On the 28th they were reunited and returned
to their first camp, from which they removed
the same day to Alki Point.

A cabin was commenced and after a time,
Low and Terry returned to Portland, leaving
David Thomas Denny, nineteen years of age, the
only white person on Elliott Bay. There were
then swarms of Indians on the Sound.

For three weeks he held this outpost of
civilization, a part of the time being far from
well. So impressed was he with the defenselessness
of the situation that he expressed himself
as “sorry” when his friends landed from the[Pg 205]
schooner “Exact” at Alki Point on the 13th of
November, 1851. No doubt realizing that an
irretrievable step had been taken, he tried to
reassure them by explaining that “the cabin was
unfinished and that they would not be comfortable.”
Many incidents of his early experience
are recorded in this volume elsewhere.

He was married on the 23rd of January,
1853, to Miss Louisa Boren, one of the most intelligent,
courageous and devoted of pioneer
women. They were the first white couple married
in Seattle. He was an explorer of the eastern
side of Elliott Bay, but was detained at home
in the cabin by lameness occasioned by a cut on
his foot, when A. A. Denny, W. N. Bell and C.
D. Boren took their claims, so had fourth choice.

For this reason his claim awaited the growth
of the town of Seattle many years, but finally
became very valuable.

It was early discovered by the settlers that
he was a conscientious man; so well established
was this fact that he was known by the sobriquet
of “Honest Dave.”

Like all the other pioneers, he turned his
hand to any useful thing that was available, cutting
and hewing timber for export, clearing a
farm, hauling wood, tending cattle, anything
honorable; being an advocate of total abstinence
and prohibition, he never kept a saloon.

He has done all in his power to discountenance
the sale and use of intoxicants, the baleful[Pg 206]
effects of which were manifest among both
whites and Indians.

Every movement in the early days seems to
have been fraught with danger. D. T. Denny
traveled in a canoe with two Indians from the
Seattle settlement in July, 1852, to Bush’s
Prairie, back of Olympia, to purchase cattle for
A. A. Denny, carrying two hundred dollars in
gold for that purpose. He risked his life in so
doing, as he afterward learned that the Indians
thought of killing him and taking the money, but
for some unknown reason decided not to do the
deed.

He was a volunteer during the Indian war
of 1855-6, in Company C, and with his company
was not far distant when Lieut. Slaughter was
killed, with several others. Those who survived
the attack were rescued by this company.

On the morning of the battle of Seattle, he
was standing guard near Fort Decatur; the most
thrilling moment of the day to him was probably
that in which he helped his wife and child into
the fort as they fled from the Indians.

Although obliged to fight the Indians in
self-defense in their warlike moods, yet he was
ever their true friend and esteemed by them as
such. He learned to speak the native tongue
fluently, in such manner as to be able to converse
with all the neighboring tribes, and unnumbered
times, through years of disappointment, sorrow[Pg 207]
and trouble, they sought his advice and sympathy.

For a quarter of a century the hand-to-hand
struggle went on by the pioneer and his family,
to conquer the wilds, win a subsistence and obtain
education.

By thrift and enterprise they attained independence,
and as they went along helped to
lay the foundations of many institutions and
enterprises of which the commonwealth is now
justly proud.

David Thomas Denny possessed the gifts
and abilities of a typical pioneer; a good shot,
his trusty rifle provided welcome articles of
food; he could make, mend and invent useful
and necessary things for pioneer work; it was a
day, in fact, when “Adam delved” and “Eve”
did likewise, and no man was too fine a “gentleman”
to do any sort of work that was required.

Having the confidence of the community, he
was called upon to fill many positions of trust;
he was a member of the first Board of Trustees
of Seattle, Treasurer of King County, Regent
of the Territorial University, Probate Judge,
School Director, etc., etc.

Although a Republican and an abolitionist,
he did not consider every Democrat a traitor,
and thereby incurred the enmity of some. Party
feeling ran high.

At that time (during the Rebellion) there
stood on Pioneer Place in Seattle a very tall[Pg 208]
flagstaff. Upon the death of a prominent Democrat
it was proposed to half-mast the flag on this
staff, but during the night the halyards were cut,
it was supposed by a woman, at the instigation
of her husband and others, but the friends of
the deceased hired “Billie” Fife, a well-known
cartoonist and painter, to climb to the top and
rig a new rope, a fine sailor feat, for which he
received twenty dollars.

The first organizer of Good Templar Lodges
was entertained at Mr. Denny’s house, and he,
with several of the family, became charter members
of the first organization on October 4th,
1866. He was the first chaplain of the first lodge
of I. O. G. T. organized in Seattle.

In after years the subject of this sketch became
prominent in the Prohibition movement;
it was suggested to him at one time that he permit
his name to be used as Prohibition candidate
for Governor of the State of Washington, but
the suggestion was never carried out. He would
have considered it an honor to be defeated in a
good cause.

He also became a warm advocate of equal
suffrage, and at both New York and Omaha M.
E. general conferences he heartily favored the
admission of women lay delegates, and much
regretted the adverse decision by those in authority.

The old pioneers were and are generally
broad, liberal and progressive in their ideas and[Pg 209]
principles; they found room and opportunity to
think and act with more freedom than in the
older centers of civilization, consequently along
every line they are in the forefront of modern
thought.

For its commercial development, Seattle
owes much to David Thomas Denny, and others
like him, in perhaps a lesser degree. In the days
of small beginnings, he recognized the possibilities
of development in the little town so fortunately
located. His hard-earned wealth, energy
and talents have been freely given to make the
city of the present as well as that which it will be.

D. T. Denny made a valuable gift to the
city of Seattle in a plot of land in the heart of
the best residence portion of the city. Many
years ago it was used as a cemetery, but was
afterward vacated and is now a park. He landed
on the site of Seattle with twenty-five cents in
his pocket. His acquirement of wealth after
years of honest work was estimated at three
million.

Not only his property, money, thought and
energy have gone into the building up of Seattle,
but hundreds of people, newly arrived, have occupied
his time in asking information and advice
in regard to their settling in the West.

DAVID THOMAS DENNY

He was president of the first street railway
company of Seattle, and afterward spent thousands
of dollars on a large portion of the system
of cable and electric roads of which the citizens
[Pg 210]of Seattle are wont to boast, unknowing, careless
or forgetting that what is their daily convenience
impoverished those who built, equipped and
operated them. He and his company owned and
operated for a time the Consolidated Electric
road to North Seattle, Cedar Street and Green
Lake; the cable road to Queen Anne Hill, and
built and equipped the “Third Street and Suburban”
electric road to the University and Ravenna
Park.

The building and furnishing of a large
sawmill with the most approved modern machinery,
the establishing of an electric light plant,
furnishing a water supply to a part of the city,
and in many other enterprises he was actively
engaged.

For many years he paid into the public
treasury thousands of dollars for taxes on his
unimproved, unproductive real estate, a considerable
portion of which was unjustly required
and exacted, as it was impossible to have sold
the property at its assessed valuation. As one
old settler said, he paid “robber taxes.”

When, in the great financial panic that
swept over the country in 1893, he obtained a
loan of the city treasurer and mortgaged to
secure it real estate worth at least three times
the sum borrowed, the mob cried out against him
and sent out his name as one who had robbed the
city, forsooth!

[Pg 211]This was not the only occasion when the
canaille expressed their disapproval.

Previous to, and during the anti-Chinese
riot in Seattle, which occurred on Sunday, February
7th, 1886, he received a considerable
amount of offensive attention. In the dark district
of Seattle, there gathered one day a forerunner
of the greater mob which created so much
disturbance, howling that they would burn him
out. “We’ll burn his barn,” they yelled, their
provocation being that he employed Chinese
house servants and rented ground to Mongolian
gardeners. The writer remembers that it was a
fine garden, in an excellent state of cultivation.
No doubt many of the agitators themselves had
partaken of the products thereof many times,
it being one of the chief sources of supply of the
city.

The threats were so loud and bitter against
the friends of the Chinese that it was felt necessary
to post a guard at his residence. The eldest
son was in Oregon, attending the law school
of the University; the next one, D. Thos. Denny,
Jr., not yet of age, served in the militia during
the riot; the third and youngest remained at
home ready to help defend the same. The outlook
was dark, but after some serious remarks
concerning the condition of things, Mr. Denny
went up stairs and brought down his Winchester
rifle, stood it in a near corner and calmly resumed
his reading. As he had dealt with savages[Pg 212]
before, he stood his ground. At a notorious trial
of white men for unprovoked murder of Chinese,
it was brought out that “Mr. David Denny, he
‘fliend’ (friend) of Chinese, Injun and Nigger.”

During the time that his great business
called for the employment of a large force of
men, he was uniformly kind to them, paying the
highest market price for their labor. Some
were faithful and honest, some were not; instead
of its being a case of “greedy millionaire,”
it was a case of just the opposite thing, as it was
well known that he was robbed time and again by
dishonest employes.

When urged to close down his mill, as it was
running behind, he said “I can’t do it, it will
throw a hundred men out of employment and
their families will suffer.” So he borrowed
money, paying a ruinous rate of interest, and
kept on, hoping that business would improve;
it did not and the mill finally went under. A
good many employes who received the highest
wages for the shortest hours, struck for more,
and others were full of rage when the end came
and there were only a few dollars due on their
wages.

Neither was he a “heartless landlord,” the
heartlessness was on the other side, as numbers
of persons sneaked off without paying their rent,
and many built houses, the lumber in which was
never paid for.[Pg 213]

According to their code it was not stealing
to rob a person supposed to be wealthy.

The common remark was, “Old Denny can
stand it, he’s got lots of money.”

The anarchist-communistic element displayed
their strength and venom in many ways
in those days. They heaped abuse on those, who
unfortunately for themselves, employed men,
and bit the hand that fed them.

Their cry was “Death to Capitalists!” They
declared their intention at one time of hanging
the leading business men of Seattle, breaking
the vaults of the bank open, burning the records
and dividing lands and money among themselves.
But the reign of martial law at the culmination
of their heroic efforts in the Anti-Chinese
riot, brought them to their senses, the history
of which period may be told in another
chapter.

From early youth, David Thomas Denny
was a faithful member of the M. E. Church,
serving often in official capacity and rendering
valuable assistance, with voice, hand and pocketbook.
Twice he was sent as lay delegate to the
General Conference, a notable body of representative
men, of which he was a member in 1888
and again in 1892.

The conference of 1888 met in New York
City and held its sessions at the Metropolitan
Opera House. His family accompanied him,[Pg 214]
crossing the continent by the Canadian Pacific
R. R. by way of Montreal to New York.

In the latter place, they met their first great
sorrow, in the death, after a brief illness, of the
beloved youngest daughter, the return and her
burial in her native land by the sundown seas.
Soon followed other days of sadness and trial;
in less than a year, the second daughter, born in
Fort Decatur, passed away, and others of the
family, hovered on the brink of the grave, but
happily were restored.

Loss of fortune followed loss of friends as
time went on, but these storms passed and calm
returned. He went steadfastly on, confident of
the rest that awaits the people of God.

At the age of sixty-seven he was wide awake,
alert and capable of enduring hardships, no
doubt partly owing to a temperate life. In late
years he interested himself in mining and was
hopeful of his own and his friends’ future, and
that of the state he helped to found.

While sojourning in the Cascade Mountains
in 1891, David T. Denny wrote the following:

“Ptarmigan Park: On Sept. 25th, 1851,
just forty years ago, Leander Terry, an older
brother of C. C. Terry, John N. Low and I,
landed on what has since been known as Freeport
Point, now West Seattle. We found Chief
Sealth with his tribe stopping on the beach and
fishing for salmon—a quiet, dignified man was
Sealth.

[Pg 215]“We camped on the Point and slept under a
large cedar tree, and the next morning hired a
couple of young Indians to take us up the Duwampsh
River; stayed one night at the place
which was afterward taken for a claim by E. B.
Maple, then returned and camped one night at
our former place on the Point; then on the morning
of the 28th of September went around to Alki
Point and put down the foundation of the first
cabin started in what is now King County.
Looking out over Elliott Bay at that time the site
where Seattle now stands, was an unbroken
forest with no mark made by the hand of man
except a little log fort made by the Indians,
standing near the corner of Commercial and Mill
Streets.

“Since that day we have had our Indian war,
the Crimean war has been fought, the war between
Prussia and Austria, that between France
and Prussia, the great Southern Rebellion and
many smaller wars.

“Then to think of the wonderful achievements
in the use of electricity and the end is not yet.

“I should like to live another forty years just
to see the growth of the Sound country, if nothing
else. I fully believe it is destined to be the
most densely populated and wealthiest of the
United States. One thing that leads me to this
conclusion is the evidence of a large aboriginal
population which subsisted on the natural productions
of the land and water. Reasoning by[Pg 216]
comparison, what a vast multitude can be supported
by an intelligent use of the varied resources
of the country and the world to draw
from besides.”

And again he wrote:

“Ptarmigan Park, Sept. 28th, 1891: Just
forty years ago yesterday, J. N. Low, Lee Terry
and myself laid the foundation of the first cabin
started in what is now King County, Washington,
then Thurston County, Oregon Territory.

“Vast have been the changes since that day.

“Looking back it does not seem so very long
ago and yet children born since that have grown
to maturity, married, and reared families.

“Many of those who came to Elliott Bay are
long since gone to their last home. Lee Terry has
been dead thirty-five years, Capt. Robert Fay,
twenty or more years, and J. N. Low over two
years, in fact most of the early settlers have
passed away: John Buckley and wife, Jacob
Maple, S. A. Maple, Wm. N. Bell and wife, C. C.
Terry and wife, A. Terry, L. M. Collins and wife,
Mrs. Kate Butler, E. Hanford, Mother Holgate,
John Holgate and many others. If they could
return to Seattle now they would not know the
place, and yet had it not been for various hindrances,
the Indian war, the opposition of the
N. P. R. R. and the great fire, Seattle would be
much larger than it now is, the country would
be much more developed and we would have a
larger rural population.

[Pg 217]“However, from this time forward, I fully
believe the process of development will move
steadily on, especially do I believe that we are
just commencing the development of the mineral
resources of the country. Undoubtedly
there has been more prospecting for the precious
metals during 1891 than ever before all put together.

“In the Silver Creek region there has been,
probably, six hundred claims taken and from all
accounts the outlook is very favorable. Also
from Cle Elum and Swauk we have glowing accounts.

“In the Ptarmigan Park district about fifty
claims have been taken, a large amount of development
work done and some very fine samples
of ore taken out.”

(Signed) D. T. Denny.

In the Seattle Daily Times of September
25th, 1901.

“JUST FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY.

“On September 25, 1851, Mr. D. T. Denny,
Now Living in This City, Was Greeted on the
Shores of Elliott Bay by Chief Seattle.

“Fifty years ago today, the first white settlers
set foot in King County.

“Fifty years ago today, a little band of pioneers
rounded Alki Point and grounded their
boat at West Seattle. Chief Seattle stalked majestically
down the beach and greeted them in his
characteristic way. During the ensuing week[Pg 218]
they were guests of a Western sachem, the king
of Puget Sound waters, and never were white
men more royally entertained.

“At that time Chief Seattle was at the height
of his popularity. With a band of five hundred
braves behind him, he stood in a position to command
the respect of all wandering tribes and
of the first few white men, whose heart-hungering
and restlessness had driven them from the
civilization of the East, across the plains of the
Middle West, to the shores of the Pacific.

“As Mr. Denny is essentially the premier of
this country, it would not be out of order to give
a glimpse of his early history. He is the true
type of pioneer. Although he is somewhat bent
with age, and his hair is white with the snows
of many winters, nevertheless, he still shows
signs of that ruggedness that was with him in
the early Western days of his youth. Not only
is he a pioneer, but he came from a family of
pioneers. Years and years ago his ancestors
crossed the Atlantic and landed on the Atlantic
coast. Not satisfied with the prevailing conditions
there, they began to push westward, settling
in what is now Pennsylvania. As the country
became opened up and settled, this Denny
family of hardy pioneers again turned their
faces to the westward sun, and this time Indiana
made them a home, and still later Illinois.”

[Pg 219]

THE START WESTWARD.

It was in the latter state that Mr. D. T.
Denny and his brother first began to hear stories
of the Willamette valley. Wonderful tales were
being carried across the plains of the fertility of
the land around the Columbia River and the
spirit of restlessness that had been characteristic
of their ancestors began to tell upon them, and
after reading all they could find of this practically
unknown wilderness, they bade farewell
to their Illinois friends, and started off across
the plains.

The start was made on the 10th day of April,
1851, from Knox County, Illinois. D. T. Denny
was accompanied by his older brother A. A. Denny,
and family. They drove two four-horse
teams, and a two-horse wagon, and ten days
after the start had been made they crossed the
Missouri River. The fourth of July, 1851, found
them at Fort Hall on Snake River, Montana, an
old Hudson Bay trading station. On the 11th
day of August, they reached The Dalles, Oregon,
and there, after a brief consultation, they decided
to separate.

Mr. A. A. Denny here shipped the wagons
and his family down the river on some small vessel
they were fortunate enough to find there,
while Mr. D. T. Denny took the horses and
pushed over the Cascade Mountains. He followed
what was then known as the old Barlow[Pg 220]
road and reached Portland on the 17th day of
August.

They decided to stay in Portland for a few
days, until they could learn more about the country
than they then knew, and it was in that city
that the subject of this sketch worked his first
day for money. He helped Thomas Carter unload
a brig that had reached port from Boston,
receiving the sum of three dollars for his labors,
and it was the “biggest three dollars he ever
earned in his life,” so he said.

While at Portland they began to hear stories
of Puget Sound, and after a brief consultation,
the Denny brothers and Mr. John N. Low, who
had also made the journey across the plains, decided
to investigate the country that now lies
around the Queen City of the West.

OFF FOR ELLIOTT BAY.

As A. A. Denny had his family to look after,
it was decided that Mr. Low and D. T. Denny
would make the trip, and as a consequence, on
the 10th day of September they ferried Low’s
stock across the river to what was then Fort Vancouver.
From there they followed the Hudson
Bay trail to the Cowlitz River, and up the Cowlitz
to Ford’s Prairie. Leaving their stock there
for a short time, they pushed on to Olympia, now
the capital of the state.

When they reached Olympia they found
Capt. R. C. Fay and George M. Martin on the[Pg 221]
point of leaving down Sound to fish for salmon,
and Messrs. Low, Denny and Terry arranged to
come as far as the Duwamish River with them.
The start was made. There was no fluttering
of flags nor booming of cannon such as marked
the departure of Columbus when he left for a
new country, and in fact this little band of men,
in an open boat, little dreamed that they would
ultimately land within a stone’s throw of what
was destined to become one of the greatest cities
in the West.

Fifty years ago today they camped with
Chief Seattle on the promontory across the bay.
They slept that night under the protecting
branches of a cedar tree, and on the morning of
the 26th they hired two of Seattle’s braves to
paddle them up the river in a dugout canoe.
They spent that day in looking over the river
bottoms, where are now situated the towns of
Maple Prairie and Van Asselt. There were no
settlements there then, and nothing but giant
pines and firs greeted their gaze for miles. It
was a wonderful sight to these hardy Eastern
men, and as they wished to know something more
of the country, Messrs. Low and Terry decided
to leave the canoe and depart on a short tour
of exploration. One, two and three hours passed
and they failed to put in an appearance. In
vain did Mr. Denny fire his gun, and yell himself
hoarse, but he was compelled to spend the night
in the wilderness with the two Indians.

[Pg 222]

DECIDED TO LOCATE.

The next day, however, or to be explicit,
on the 27th of September, he was gratified at
the appearance of his friends on the river bank.
They had become lost the night before, and
falling in with a band of Indians, had spent the
night with them. Having seen enough of the
country to become convinced that it was the
place for them, they returned to what is now
West Seattle for the night. After the sun had
disappeared behind the Olympics, they heard a
scow passing the point, which afterwards they
found contained L. M. Collins and family, who
had pushed on up the river and settled on the
banks of the Duwamish.

On the morning of the 28th they decided to
take up claims back of Alki point, and on that
day started to lay the foundation of the first
cabin in King county. Having decided to settle
on Elliott bay, Mr. Low determined to return
to Portland for his family, whereupon Mr. Denny
wrote the following letter to his brother and
sent it with him:

“We have examined the valley of the Duwamish
river and find it a fine country. There
is plenty of room for one thousand settlers.
Come on at once.”

By the time Mr. Low had reached Portland,
William Bell and C. D. Boren had also become
interested in the Puget Sound district, and therefore
Messrs. Low, Denny, Bell and Boren, with[Pg 223]
their families, hired a schooner to take them
down the Columbia, up on the outside, in through
the Strait, and up the Sound to Alki, reaching
the latter point on the 13th of November, 1851.

In speaking of those early pioneer days, Mr.
Denny said:

“We built up quite a settlement over on
Alki, and the Indians of course came and settled
around us. No, we were not molested to any
great extent. I remember that on one night,
our women folks missed a lot of clothing they
had hung out to dry, and I at once went to their
big chief and told him what had happened. In
a very short time not only were the missing
articles returned to us, but a lot that we didn’t
know were gone.”

WHISKY CAUSED TROUBLE.

“In those early days, in all my experience
with Indians, I have always found them peaceable
enough as long as they left whisky alone.
Of course we had trouble with them, but it was
always due to the introduction of the white
man’s firewater, which has been more than a
curse to the red man.

“When we reached here, the Indians were
more advanced than one would have naturally
supposed. We were able to buy berries, fish and
game of them, and potatoes also. Great fine
tubers they were too, much better than any we
had ever been able to raise back in Illinois. In
fact I don’t know what we would have done[Pg 224]
during the first two winters had it not been for
the Indians.

“But talk about game,” he continued, a
glow coming to his face as the old scenes were
brought up to him, “why, I have seen the waters
of Elliott Bay fairly black with ducks. Deer
and bear were plentiful then and this was a
perfect paradise for the man with a rod or gun.
Never, I am sure, was there a country in which
it was so easy to live as it was in the Puget
Sound district fifty years ago.”

“In coming across the plains, Mr. Denny,
were you attacked by Indians, or have any adventures
out of the ordinary?” was asked.

“Well,” said he meditatively, “we did have
one little brush that might have ended with the
loss of all our lives. It was just after leaving
Fort Hall, in Montana. We had come up to
what I think was called the American Falls.
While quite a distance away we noticed the water
just below the falls was black, with what we
supposed were ducks, but as we drew nearer we
saw they were Indians swimming across with one
hand and holding their guns high in the air with
the other. We turned off slightly and started
down the trail at a rattling rate. We had not
gone far when a big chief stepped up on the
bank. He was dressed mainly in a tall plug
hat and a gun, and he shouted, ‘How do, how
do, stop, stop!’ Well, we didn’t, and after re[Pg 225]peating
his question he dropped behind the sage
brush and opened fire.

“My brother lay in my wagon sick with
mountain fever, and that, of course, materially
reduced our fighting force. Had they succeeded
in shooting down one of our horses, it would, of
course, have been the end of us, but fortunately
they did not and we at last escaped them. No,
no one was wounded, but it was the worst scrape
I ever had with the Indians, and I hope I will
never have to go through a similar experience
again. It isn’t pleasant to be shot at, even by
an Indian.”

RECOGNIZED THE SPOT.

“In 1892,” said Mr. Denny, “I went East
over the Great Northern. I was thinking of my
first experience in Montana when I reached that
state, when all of a sudden we rounded a curve
and passed below the falls. I knew them in a
minute, and instantly those old scenes and trying
times came back to me in a way that was
altogether too realistic for comfort. No, I have
not been back since.

“Mr. Prosch, Mr. Ward and myself,” continued
this old pioneer, “had intended to take
our families over to Alki today and hold a sort
of a picnic in honor of what happened fifty years
ago, but of course my sickness has prevented us
from doing so. I don’t suppose we will be here
to celebrate the event at the end of another fifty
years, and I should have liked to have gone to[Pg 226]day.
Instead, I suppose I shall sit here and
think of what I saw and heard at Alki Point
just fifty years ago. I can live it over again, in
memories at least.

“Now, young man,” concluded Mr. Denny,
not unkindly, “please get the names of those
early pioneers and the dates right. A Seattle
paper published a bit of this history a few days
ago, and they got everything all mixed up. This
is the story, and should be written right, because
if it isn’t, the story becomes valueless. I dislike
very much to have the stories and events of those
early days misstated and misrepresented.”

In 1899, Mr. Denny had the arduous task
of personally superintending the improvement
of the old Snoqualmie road around the shore of
Lake Kichelas and on for miles through the
mountains, building and repairing bridges, making
corduroy, blasting out rocks, changing the
route at times; after much patient effort and
endurance of discomfort and hardship, he left
it much improved, for which many a weary way-farer
would be grateful did they but know. In
value the work was far beyond the remuneration
he received.

During the time he was so occupied he had
a narrow escape from death by an accident, the
glancing of a double-bitted ax in the hands of a
too energetic workman; it struck him between
the eyes, inflicting a wound which bled alarmingly,
but finally was successfully closed.

[Pg 227]The next year he camped at Lake Kichelas
in the interests of a mining company, and incidentally
enjoyed some fishing and prospecting.
It was the last time he visited the mountains.

Gradually some maladies which had haunted
him for years increased. As long as he could
he exerted himself in helping his family, especially
in preparing the site for a new home. He
soon after became a great sufferer for several
years, struggling against his infirmities, in all
exhibiting great fortitude and patience.

His mind was clear to the last and he was
able to converse, to read and to give sound and
admirable advice and opinions.

Almost to the last day of his life he took
interest in the progress of the nation and of the
world, following the great movements with absorbing
interest.

He expressed a desire to see his friends
earnest Christians, his own willingness to leave
earthly scenes and his faith in Jesus.

So he lived and thus he died, passing away
on the morning of November 25th, 1903, in the
seventy-second year of his age.

He was a great pioneer, a mighty force,
commercial, moral and religious, in the foundation-building
of the Northwest.

In a set of resolutions presented by the
Pioneer Association of the State of Washington
occur these words: “The record of no citizen
was ever marked more distinctly by acts of[Pg 228]
probity, integrity and general worth than that
of Mr. D. T. Denny, endearing him to all the
people and causing them to regard him with the
utmost esteem and favor.”

On the morning of November 26th, 1903,
there appeared in the Post-Intelligencer, the
following:

“David Thomas Denny, who came to the
site of Seattle in 1851, the first of his name on
Puget Sound, died at his home, a mile north
of Green Lake, at 3:36 yesterday morning. All
the members of his family, including John
Denny, who arrived the day before from Alaska,
were at the bedside. Until half an hour before
he passed away Mr. Denny was conscious, and
engaged those about him in conversation.”

MARRIED IN A CABIN.

The story of the early life of the Denny
brothers tallies very nearly with the history of
Seattle. Mr. and Mrs. David Denny were married
in a cabin on the north end of A. A. Denny’s
claim near the foot of Lenora street, January
23, 1853. The next morning the couple moved
to their own cabin—built by the husband’s hands—at
the foot of what is now Denny Way. The
moving was accomplished in a canoe.

Though they professed a great respect for
David Denny, the Indians were numerous and
never very reliable. In a year or two, therefore,
the family moved up nearer the sawmill and[Pg 229]
little settlement which had grown up near the
foot of Cherry street. D. T. Denny had meanwhile
staked out a very large portion of what
is now North Seattle—a plat of three hundred
and twenty acres. Later he made seven additions
to the city of Seattle from this claim. In
1857 it was a wilderness of thick brush, but the
pioneer moved his family to his farm on the
present site of Recreation park in that year.
The Indian war had occurred the winter before
and the red men were quiet, having received a
lesson from the blue jackets which were landed
from the United States gunboat Decatur.

Three or four years later the family moved
to a cottage at the corner of Second avenue and
Seneca street. In the early ’70s they moved to
the large home at the corner of Dexter and Republican
streets, where the children grew up.
In 1890 the family took possession of the large
house standing on Queen Anne avenue, known
as the Denny home, which was occupied by the
family until a few years ago, when they moved
to Fremont and later to the house where Mr.
Denny died, in Licton Park, some distance
north of Green Lake.

Until about ten years ago David T. Denny
was considered the wealthiest man in Seattle.
His large property in the north end of the city
had been the source of more and more revenue
as the town grew. When the needs of the town
became those of a big city he hastened to supply[Pg 230]
them with energy and money. His mill on the
shores of Lake Union was the largest in the
city, when Seattle was first known as a milling
town. The establishment of an electric light
plant and a water supply to a part of the city
were among the enterprises which he headed.

The cable and horse car roads were consolidated
into a company headed by D. T. Denny
more than a decade ago. In the effort to supply
the company with the necessary funds Mr. Denny
attempted to convert much of his property
into cash. At that time an estimate of his resources
was made by a close personal friend,
who yesterday said that the amount was considerably
over three million dollars, which included
his valuable stock in the traction companies.
In the hard times of ’93 Mr. Denny was
unable to realize the apparent value of his property,
and a considerable reduction of his fortune
was a result. Since then he has been to a great
extent engaged in mining in the Cascade mountains,
and for the past three years has been
closely confined to his home by a serious illness.

Among the gifts of D. T. Denny to the city
of Seattle is Denny Park. Denny Way, the
Denny school and other public places in Seattle
bear his name. D. T. Denny was a liberal Republican
always. He was at one time a member
of the board of regents of the territorial university,
the first treasurer of King county, probate
judge for two years and for twelve years a school[Pg 231]
director of District No. 1, comprising the city
of Seattle.

Several of those who were associated with
David T. Denny during the time when he was
in active business and a strong factor in local
affairs have offered estimates of his character
and of the part he took in the founding and
building of the city. Said Col. William T.
Prosser:

“It is sad to think that David T. Denny
will no more be seen upon the streets of the city
he assisted in founding more than fifty years
ago. During all that time he was closely identified
with its varying periods of danger, delayed
hopes and bitter disappointments, as well as
those of marvelous growth, activity and prosperity.
The changing features of the city were
reflected in his own personal history. The waves
of prosperity and adversity both swept over him,
yet throughout his entire career he always maintained
his integrity and through it all he bore
himself as an energetic and patriotic citizen and
as a Christian gentleman.”

Judge Thomas Burke:

“D. T. Denny had great faith in Seattle,
and his salient characteristic was his readiness
in pushing forward its welfare. I remember
him having an irreproachable character—honest,
just in all his dealings and strong in his spirit.
In illustration of his strong feeling on the temperance
question I remember that he embodied[Pg 232]
a clause in the early deeds of the property which
he sold to the effect that no intoxicating liquors
were to be sold upon the premises. Yes, he was
a good citizen.”

Charles A. Prosch:

“Although Mr. Denny’s later years were
clouded by financial troubles, reverses did not
soil his spirit nor change his integrity. He was
progressive to the last and one of the most upright
men I know.”

D. B. Ward:

“I first met David Denny in 1859 and I
have known him more or less intimately ever
since. I know him to have possessed strict integrity,
unswerving purpose and cordial hospitality.
My first dinner in Seattle was eaten at
his home—where a baked salmon fresh from
the Sound was an oddity to me. His financial
troubles some years ago grew out of his undaunted
public spirit. He was president of the first
consolidated street car system here, and in his
efforts to support it most of his property was
confiscated. I knew him for a strong, able
man.”

Judge Orange Jacobs:

“Mr. Denny was a quiet man, but he carried
the stamp of truth. He was extremely generous,
and as I remember, he possessed a fine
mind. In his death I feel a personal, poignant
grief.”

Rev. W. S. Harrington:

[Pg 233]

“D. T. Denny was a man of much more than
average ability. He thought much and deeply
on all questions which affected the welfare of
man. He was retiring and his strength was
known to few. But his integrity was thorough
and transparent and his purpose inflexible.
Even though he suffered, his spirit was never
bitter toward his fellows, and his benefactions
were numerous. Above all, he was a Christian
and believed in a religion which he sought to
live, not to exhibit. His long illness was borne
with a patience and a sweetness which commanded
my deep respect and admiration.”

Samuel L. Crawford:

“A man with the courage to fight for his
convictions of right and with a marvelous capacity
for honest work—such is the splendid heritage
David T. Denny has left to his sorrowing
family. When but 19 years of age he walked
from the Columbia river to Puget Sound, driving
a small band of stock ahead of him through
the brush.

“No sooner had his party settled and the log
cabin been completed than David commenced
looking for more work, and, like all others who
seek diligently, he was successful, for early in
December of that year the brig Leonesa, Capt.
Daniel S. Howard, stopped at Alki Point, seeking
a cargo of piling for San Francisco. David
T. Denny, William N. Bell, C. D. Boren, C. C.
Terry, J. N. Low, A. A. Denny and Lee Terry[Pg 234]
took the contract of cutting the piling and loading
the vessel, which they accomplished in about
two weeks, a remarkably short time, when the
weather and the lack of teams and other facilities
are taken into consideration.

“Other vessels came for cargo and Mr.
Denny became an expert woodsman, helping to
supply them with piling from the shores. In
1852 Mr. Denny, in company with his brother
Arthur and some others, came over to Elliott Bay
and laid the foundation of Seattle, the great city
of the future. Mr. Denny, being a bachelor, took
the most northerly claim, adjoining that of W.
N. Bell, and built a cabin near the shore, at the
foot of what is now Denny Way. The Indians
being troublesome, he moved into a small house
beside that of his brother on the site of the present
Stevens Hotel.

“In the meantime he married a sister of C.
D. Boren, and a small family commenced to
spring up around him, thus requiring larger
quarters. In 1871 Mr. Denny built a large frame
house on the southwest shore of Lake Union, on
a beautiful knoll. He cleared up a large portion
of his claim, and for many years engaged in
farming and stock-raising. He afterward built
a palatial home on his property at the foot of
Queen Anne Hill, midway between Lake Union
and the Sound, but this he occupied only a short
time. In 1852, in company with his brother
Arthur, Mr. Denny discovered Salmon Bay.

[Pg 235]“Mr. Denny was a just man and always
dealt fairly with the Indians. For this reason
the Indians learned to love and respect him, and
for many years they have gone to him to settle
their disputes and help them out of their difficulties
with the whites and among themselves.

“As Seattle grew, David Denny platted
much of his claim and sold it off in town lots.
He built the Western mill at the south end of
Lake Union and engaged extensively in the
building and promotion of street railways. He
had too many irons in the fire, and when the
panic came in 1892-3 it crippled him financially,
but he gave up his property, the accumulation of
a lifetime of struggle and work, to satisfy his
creditors, and went manfully to work in the
mountains of Washington to regain his lost fortune.
His heroic efforts were rapidly being
crowned with success, as he is known to have
secured a number of mines of great promise, on
which he has done a large amount of development
work during the past few years.

“In the death of David T. Denny, Seattle
loses an upright, generous worker, who has always
contributed of his brain, brawn and cash
for the upbuilding of the city of which he was
one of the most important founders.”

DEXTER HORTON’S TRIBUTE.

[Pg 236]

“‘I have known Mr. Denny for fifty years.
A mighty tree has fallen. He was one of the best
men, of highest character and principle, this city
ever claimed as a citizen. That is enough.’

“By Father F. X. Prefontaine, of the
Church of Our Lady of Good Help: ‘I have
known Mr. Denny about thirty-six or thirty-seven
years. I always liked him, though I was
more intimately acquainted with his brother,
Hon. A. A. Denny, and his venerable father,
John Denny. His father in his time impressed
me as a fine gentleman, a great American. He
was a man who was always called upon at public
meetings for a speech and he was a deeply
earnest man, so much so that tears often showed
in his eyes while he was addressing the people.’

“Hon. Boyd J. Tallman, judge of the Superior
Court: ‘I have only known Mr. Denny
since 1889, and I always entertained the highest
regard for him. He was a man of firm conviction
and principle and was always ready to uphold
them. Though coming here to help found
the town, he was always ready to advocate and
stand for the principle of prohibition and temperance
on all occasions. While there were
many who could not agree with him in these
things, every manly man felt bound to accord
to Mr. Denny honesty of purpose and respect for
the sincerity of his opinion. I believe that in
his death a good man has gone and this community
has suffered a great loss.’”

[Pg 237]

C. B. BAGLEY TALKS.

“Clarence B. Bagley, who as a boy and
man has known Mr. Denny for almost the full
number of years the latter lived at Seattle, was
visibly overcome at the news of his death. Mr.
Bagley would gladly have submitted a more extended
estimate than he did of Mr. Denny’s life
and character, but he was just hurrying into
court to take his place as a juryman.

“‘Mr. Denny was one of the best men Seattle
ever had. He was a liberal man, ever ready
to embark his means in enterprises calculated to
upbuild and aid in the progress of Seattle. He
was a man of strong convictions, strong almost
to obstinacy in upholding and maintaining
cherished principles he fully believed.

“‘Mr. Denny suffered reverses through his
willingness to establish enterprises for the good
of the whole city. He built the Western Mill at
Lake Union when the location was away in the
woods, and eventually lost a great deal of money
in it during the duller periods of the city’s life.
He also lost a great deal of money in giving this
city a modern street railway system. His character
as an honorable man and Christian always
stood out boldly, his integrity of purpose never
questioned.’

“Lawrence J. Colman, son of J. M. Colman,
the pioneer, said: ‘Our family has known Mr.
Denny for thirty-one years, ever since coming to
Seattle. We regarded him as an absolutely up[Pg 238]right,
conscientious and Christian man, notwithstanding
the reverses that came to him, in whom
our confidence was supreme, and one who did
not require his character to be upheld, for it
shone brightly at all times by its own lustre.’”

SAMUEL COOMBS TALKS.

“S. F. Coombs, the well-known pioneer, had
known Mr. Denny since 1859, about forty-five
years. ‘It was to Mr. Denny,’ said Mr. Coombs,
‘that the Indians who lived here and knew him
always went for advice and comfort and to have
their disputes settled. Their high estimate of
the man was shown in many ways, where the
whites were under consideration. Mr. Denny
was a man whom I always admired and greatly
respected. He afforded me much information
of the resident Indians here and around Salmon
Bay, as he was intimately acquainted with them
all.

“‘At one time Mr. Denny was reckoned as
Seattle’s wealthiest citizen. When acting as
deputy assessor for Andrew Chilberg, the city
lying north of Mill Street, now Yesler Way, was
my district to assess. Denny’s holdings, D. T.
Denny’s plats, had the year previous been assessed
by the acre. The law was explicit, and to
have made up the assessment by the acre would
have been illegal. Mr. Denny’s assessed value
the year before was fifty thousand dollars. The
best I could do was to make the assessment by[Pg 239]
the lot and block. For the year I assessed two
hundred and fifty thousand. Recourse was had
to the county commissioners, but the assessment
remained about the same. Just before his purchase
of the Seattle street car system he was the
wealthiest man in King County, worth more than
five hundred thousand dollars.

“‘Of Mr. Denny it may be said that if
others had applied the Golden Rule as he did, he
would have been living in his old home in great
comfort in this city today.’”

LIFE OF DAVID DENNY.

“Fifty-two years and two months ago David
Thomas Denny came to Seattle, to the spot where
Seattle now stands enthroned upon her seven
hills. Mr. Denny, the last but one of the little
band of pioneers—some half dozen men first to
make this spot their home—has been gathered to
his fathers; ‘has wrapped the mantle of his
shroud about him and laid down to pleasant
dreams.’ Gone is a man and citizen who perhaps
loved Seattle best of all those who ever
made Seattle their home. This is attested by the
fact that from the time that Mr. Denny first came
to Elliott Bay it has been his constant home.
Never but once or twice during that long period
of time did he go far away, and then for but a
very short time. Once he went as far away as
New York—and that proved a sad trip—and
once, in recent years, to California. Both trips[Pg 240]
were comparatively brief, and he who first conquered
the primeval forest that crowned the
hills around returned home full of intense longing
to get back and full of love for the old home.

“Mr. Denny lived a rugged, honorable, upright
life—the life of a patriarch. He bore patiently
a long period of intense suffering manfully
and without murmur, and when the end
approached he calmly awaited the summons and
died as if falling away into a quiet sleep. So he
lived, so he died.

“Few indeed who can comprehend the extent
of his devotion to Seattle. Living in Seattle
for the last two years, yet for that period he
never looked once upon the city which he helped
to build. About that long ago he moved from his
home which he had maintained for some years at
Fremont, to the place where he died, Licton
Springs, about a mile north of Green Lake. Said
Mr. Denny as he went from the door of the old
home he was giving up for the new: ‘This will
be the last time I will ever look upon Seattle,’
and Mr. Denny’s words were true. He never was
able to leave again the little sylvan home his family—his
wife, sister and children—had raised
for him in the woods. There, dearly loved, he
was watched over and cared for by the children
and by the wife who had shared with him for two-score-and-ten
years the joys and sorrows, the
ups and downs that characterized his life in a
more marked degree than was the experience of[Pg 241]
any other of the pioneers who first reached this
rugged bay.

“Mr. Denny was once, not so very long ago,
a wealthy man—some say the wealthiest in the
city—but he died poor, very poor; but he paid
his debts to the full. Once the owner in fee simple
of land upon which are now a thousand beautiful
Seattle homes, he passed on to his account
a stranger in a strange land, and without title to
his own domicile. When the crisis and the crash
came that wrecked his fortune he went stoutly
to work, and if he ever repined it was not known
outside of the family and small circle of chosen
friends. That was about fourteen years ago, and
up to two years ago Mr. Denny toiled in an humble
way, perhaps never expecting, never hoping
to regain his lost fortune. Those last years of
labor were spent, for the most part, at the Denny
Mine on Gold Creek, a mine, too, in which he had
no direct interest or ownership, or in directing
work upon the Snoqualmie Pass road. He came
down from the hills to his sick bed and to his
death.

“Mr. Denny’s life for half a century is the
history of the town. Without the Dennys there
might have been no Seattle. Of all the band that
came here in the fall of 1851, they seemed to have
taken deepest root and to have left the stamp of
their name and individuality which is keen and
patent to this day.”