FORT DECATUR. JANUARY 26, 1856

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

Copyright 1899
By
EMILY INEZ DENNY
Published 1909

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

A star stood large and white awest, Then Time uprose and testified; They push’d the mailed wood aside, They toss’d the forest like a toy, That great forgotten race of men, The boldest band that yet has been Together since the siege of Troy, And followed it and found their rest.
—Miller

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.

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.

INDEX

SYNOPSIS OF INCIDENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS

BLAZING THE WAY

PART I.—THE GREAT MARCH

CHAPTER I
CROSSING THE PLAINS.

With Faith’s clear eye we saw afar In western sky our empire’s star, And strong of heart and brave of soul, We marched and marched to reach the goal. Unrolled a scroll, the great, gray plains, And traced thereon our wagon trains; Our blazing campfires marked the road As night succeeding night they glowed.

—Song of the Pioneers.

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 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.

“A mighty nation moving west, With all its steely sinews set Against the living forests. Hear The shouts, the shots of pioneers! The rended forests, rolling wheels, As if some half-checked army reels, Recoils, redoubles, comes again, Loud-sounding like a hurricane.”

—Joaquin Miller.

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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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

“I came to the place Where the white pilgrim lay, And pensively stood by his tomb, When in a low whisper I heard something say, ‘How sweetly I sleep here alone.’”

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 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.

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 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 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; 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 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 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 simplicity. 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.

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 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 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 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, “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 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.

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.

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 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.

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. 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 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 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 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 squirrels 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.

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 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.

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 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 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.

“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 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.

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:

“We found a race, though rude and wild, Still tender toward friend or child, For dark eyes laughed or shone with tears As joy or sorrow filled the years. Their black-eyed babes the red men kissed And captive brothers sorely missed; With broken hearts brown mothers wept When babes away by death were swept.”

—Song of the Pioneers.

But there were amusing as well as pathetic experiences. The Indians were like untaught children in many things. Their curiosity over-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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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.

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 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 disagreeable 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 cutting 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.

[A] Ruffed grouse.

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 menacingly 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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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. At this time there were about three hundred white inhabitants.