Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound
TekstA 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 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.
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 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 before 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 beside 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 confusion, 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 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.”
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, 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, affecting 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 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 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 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 settlement (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 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.”