Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound

“The following were selected as active pallbearers: William P. Harper, Dexter Horton, D. B. Ward, O. J. Carr, Isaac Parker, M. R. Maddocks. The honorary pallbearers were: Edgar Bryan, Rev. Daniel Bagley, F. M. Guye, Joseph Foster, William Carkeek, Judge Orange Jacobs.

“As illustrative of the regard and esteem in which this pioneer was held by those who knew him best, Dexter Horton, the well known banker and capitalist, who met Mr. Van Asselt in 1852, said last night:

“‘Mr. Van Asselt was a man of sterling character. His word was as good as a government bond. I knew him almost from the beginning of his life here. He was one of the kindliest men I ever met.

“‘For fifteen years after I came to Seattle I conducted a general merchandise store here. There were mighty few of us here in those early times and we were all intimately acquainted. I dare say that when a newcomer had resided on the Sound, anywhere from Olympia to the Strait of Fuca, for thirty days, I became acquainted with him. They dropped in here to trade, traveling in Indian canoes. There never was a man of them that I did not trust to any reasonable extent for goods, and my losses on that account in fifteen years’ dealing with the early settlers were less than $1,000. This is sufficient testimony as to the character and integrity of the men who, like Van Asselt, faced the privations and dangers of the Western Trail to find homes for themselves on the Pacific Coast.

“‘Mr. Van Asselt located on a level farm in the Duwamish valley on his arrival here. He was a man of great energy and thrift, and soon had good and paying crops growing. He used to bring his produce to Seattle, either by Indian canoe, or afterwards, when a trail was cut under the brow of the hill, by teams. This produce was readily disposed of, as we had a large number of men working in the mills and few to supply their necessities.

“‘I remember that after he had lived here for several years he moved to town and established a cabinet maker’s shop. He was an expert in that line of work. I have an ancient curly maple bureau which he made for me, and Mrs. A. A. Denny has another. They are beautifully fashioned, Van Asselt being well skilled in the trade. Doubtless others among the old-timers here have mementos of his handicraft.

“‘Van Asselt was of the type of men who blazed the path for generations that followed them to the Pacific Coast. His integrity was unchallenged, and his charities were numerous and unostentatious. He used to give every worthy newcomer work on his ranch, and many an emigrant in those days got his first start from Henry Van Asselt.’

“Samuel Crawford knew Mr. Van Asselt intimately since 1876. He said last night:

“‘Henry Van Asselt, or Uncle Henry, as we all called him, spent the winter of 1850-1851 with my great-great-grandfather, Robert Moore, at Oregon City, Ore., or more properly speaking, on the west shore of the Willamette, just across from Oregon City. Mr. Van Asselt told me this himself. Moore kept a large place, which was a sort of rendezvous for the immigrants, and many a man found shelter at his ranch. He gave them work enough to keep them going, and Van Asselt found employment with him that winter, making shingles from cedar bolts with a draw knife.

“‘Mr. Van Asselt was one of the best men that ever lived. His word was as good as gold, and he never overlooked a chance to do a friend a favor. While he spoke English with difficulty, on occasion he could make a good speech, and he always took a deep interest in public affairs. There was probably no important public question involving the interests of Seattle and the Puget Sound country but that Mr. Van Asselt had his say. He did not care for public office, however, but preferred to go along in his quiet way, doing all the good that was possible. He firmly believed in the future of Seattle, which he loved dearly, and I remember many years ago of his purchase of two blocks of ground on Renton Hill, in the vicinity of the residence where he passed the last years of his life. This was nearly twenty years ago.’

“Thomas W. Prosch had known Mr. Van Asselt for many years. He, too, paid a tribute to his fine character, and rugged honesty. ‘Six years ago,’ said Mr. Prosch, ‘I went to talk with Mr. Van Asselt regarding his early experiences on the Sound. He told me of his long and arduous trip across the plains in 1850, and of his escapades with the Indians then and afterward. He said himself that he believed he led a charmed life, as the Indians took many a shot at him, but without avail. He was a dead shot himself, and the Indians had great respect for his skill. He was a very determined man, and undoubtedly had a great influence over the savages.

“‘Mr. Van Asselt told me that he met Hill Harmon, a well known Oregon settler, in the spring of 1851, and together they crossed the Columbia and came to Olympia. From there they went with two or three others to Nesqually, where they met Luther M. Collins, one of the first settlers in King County. Collins endeavored to persuade them to locate near him, but they wanted a better place. Finally Collins brought them to the Duwamish valley and located them here. One of the party bought Collins’ place at Nesqually, and he came here to locate with Van Asselt and the others. Collins’ family was the first white family to establish a home in King County.’”

CHAPTER VIII.

THOMAS MERCER

Thomas Mercer was born in Harrison county, Ohio, March 11, 1813, the eldest of a large family of children. He remained with his father until he was twenty-one, gaining a common school education and a thorough knowledge of the manufacture of woolen goods. His father was the owner of a well appointed woolen mill. The father, Aaron Mercer, was born in Virginia and was of the same family as General Mercer of revolutionary fame. His mother, Jane Dickerson Mercer, was born in Pennsylvania of an old family of that state.

The family moved to Princeton, Ill., in 1834, a period when buffalo were still occasionally found east of the Mississippi river, and savage Indians annoyed and harassed outlying settlements in that region. A remarkable coincidence is a matter of family tradition. Nancy Brigham, who later became Mr. Mercer’s wife, and her family, were compelled to flee by night from their home near Dixon at the time of the Black Hawk war, and narrowly escaped massacre. In 1856, about twenty years later, her daughters, the youngest only eight years old, also made a midnight escape in Seattle, two thousand miles away from the scene of their mother’s adventure, and they endured the terrors of the attack upon the village a few days later when the shots and shouts of the thousand painted devils rang out in the forest on the hillside from a point near the present gas works to another near where Madison street ends at First Avenue.

CROSSING THE PLAINS

In April, 1852, a train of about twenty wagons, drawn by horses, was organized at Princeton to cross the plains to Oregon. In this train were Thomas Mercer, Aaron Mercer, Dexter Horton, Daniel Bagley, William H. Shoudy, and their families. Some of these still live in or near Seattle and others settled in Oregon. Mr. Mercer was chosen captain of the train and discharged the arduous duties of that position fearlessly and successfully. Danger and disease were on both sides of the long, dreary way, and hundreds of new made graves were often counted along the roadside in a day. But this train seemed to bear a charmed existence. Not a member of the original party died on the way, although many were seriously ill. Only one animal was lost.

As the journey was fairly at an end and western civilization had been reached at The Dalles, Oregon, Mrs. Mercer was taken ill, but managed to keep up until the Cascades were reached. There she grew rapidly worse and soon died. Several members of the expedition went to Salem and wintered there, and in the early spring of 1853 Mercer and Dexter Horton came to Seattle and decided to make it their home. Mr. Horton entered immediately upon a business career, the success of which is known in California, Oregon and Washington, and Mr. Mercer settled upon a donation claim whose eastern end was the meander line of Lake Union and the western end, half way across to the bay. Mercer street is the dividing line between his and D. T. Denny’s claims, and all of these tracts were included within the city limits about fifteen years ago.

Mr. Mercer brought one span of horses and a wagon from the outfit with which he crossed the plains and for some time all the hauling of wood and merchandise was done by him. The wagon was the first one in King county. In 1859 he went to Oregon for the summer and while there married Hester L. Ward, who lived with him nearly forty years, dying last November. During the twenty years succeeding his settlement here he worked hard clearing the farm and carrying on dairying and farming in a small way and doing much work with his team. In 1873 portions of the farm came into demand for homes and his sales soon put him in easy circumstances and in later years made him independent, though the past few years of hard times have left but a small part of the estate.

The old home on the farm that the Indians spared when other buildings in the county not protected by soldiers were burned, is still standing and is the oldest building in the county. Mr. D. T. Denny had a log cabin on his place which was not destroyed – these two alone escaped. The Indians were asked, after the war, why they did not burn Mercer’s house, to which they replied, “Oh, old Mercer might want it again.” Denny and Mercer had always been particularly kind to the natives and just in their dealings, and the savages seem to have felt some little gratitude toward them.

In the early ’40s Mr. Mercer and Rev. Daniel Bagley were co-workers in the anti-slavery cause with Owen Lovejoy, of Princeton, who was known to all men of that period in the great Middle West. Later Mr. Mercer joined the Republican party and has been an ardent supporter of its men and measures down to the present. He served ten years as probate judge of King county, and at the end of that period declined a renomination.

In early life he joined the Methodist Protestant church and has ever been a consistent member of that body. Rev. Daniel Bagley was his pastor fifty-two years ago at Princeton, and continued to hold that relation to him in Seattle from 1860 until 1885, when he resigned his Seattle pastorate.

To Mr. Mercer belongs the honor of naming the lakes adjacent to and almost surrounding the city. At a social gathering or picnic in 1855 he made a short address and proposed the adoption of “Union” for the small lake between the bay and the large lake, and “Washington” for the other body of water. This proposition was received with favor and at once adopted. In the early days of the county and city he was always active in all public enterprises, ready alike with individual effort and with his purse, according to his ability, and no one of the city’s thousands has taken a keener interest or greater pride than he in the recent development of the city’s greatness, although he could no longer share actively in its accomplishment. He was exceedingly anxious to see the canal completed between salt water and the lakes.

His oldest daughter, Mrs. Henry Parsons, lives near Olympia, and is a confirmed invalid. The second daughter was the first wife of Walter Graham, of this place, but died in 1862. The next younger daughters, Mrs. David Graham and Mrs. C. B. Bagley, lived near him and cared for him entirely since the death of Mrs. Mercer last November. In all the collateral branches the aged patriarch leaves behind him here in King county fully half a hundred of relatives of greater or lesser degrees of kinship.

His generosity and benevolence have ever been proverbial. The churches, Y. M. C. A., orphanages and other objects of public benevolence and private charity have good cause to remember his liberality. In a period of five years he gave away at least $20,000 in public and private donations.

Judge Mercer was a charter member of the Pioneers’ Association, and took great interest in its affairs. He always made a special effort to attend the annual meeting, until the last two years, when his health would not permit.

Another of the band of hardy pioneers who laid the foundation of the great commonwealth bounded by California on the south, British Columbia on the north, the Rocky Mountains on the east and the illimitable Pacific toward the setting sun, has gone to rest.

“Judge Thomas Mercer died yesterday morning, May 25th, at 5:15 o’clock, after a brief illness, at his home in North Seattle, within a stone’s throw of the old homestead where he and his four motherless daughters, all mere children, settled in the somber and unbroken forest two score and five years ago, when the Seattle of today consisted of a sawmill, a trading post and less than a half hundred white people.” – (From Post-Intelligencer of May 26th, 1898.)

For many years we looked across the valley to see the smoke from the fire on the Mercer hearthstone winding skyward, for they were our only neighbors. Even for this, we were not so solitary, nor quite so lonely as we must have been with no human habitation in our view. And then we felt the kindly presence, sympathy we knew we could always claim, the cheerful greetings and friendly visits.

When his aged pastor, Rev. Daniel Bagley, with snowy locks, stood above his bier and a troop of silver-haired pioneers in tearful silence harkened, he told of fifty years of friendship; how they crossed the plains together, and of the quiet, steady, Christian life of Thomas Mercer.

He said, “Whatever other reasons may have been given, that he understood some Indians to say the reason they did not burn Mercer’s house during the war, was that Mercer was ‘klosh tum-tum,’ (kind, friendly, literally a good heart), and ‘he wawa-ed Sahale Tyee’ (prayed to the Heavenly Chief or Great Spirit). Thus did he let his light shine; even the savages beheld it.”

In closing a touching, suggestive and affectionate tribute, he quoted these lines:

“O what hath Jesus bought for me!Before my ravish’d eyesRivers of life divine I see,And trees of Paradise;I see a world of spirits bright,Who taste the pleasures there;They all are robed in spotless white,And conqu’ring palms they bear.”HESTER L. MERCER

When a child I often visited this good pioneer woman – so faithful, cheerful, kind, self-forgetful.

With busy hands she toiled from morning to night, scarcely sitting down without some house-wifely task to occupy her while she chatted.

Of a very lively disposition, her laugh was frequent and merry.

A more generous, frank and warm-hearted nature was hard to find, the demands made upon it were many and such as to exhaust a shallow one. Her experiences were varied and thrilling, as the following account from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer of November 13th, 1897, will show:

“There is something in the life of this pioneer woman that makes a lasting impression upon the minds of those who consider it. Mrs. Mercer’s general life differed somewhat from the lives of many pioneer women in that she was always a pioneer. Many had given up an existence in the thickly settled portions of the east to accept the burdensome, half-civilized life of the west. They had at least once known the joys of civilization. It was not so with Mrs. Mercer. She was a pioneer from the time she was ushered into the world.

“She was born in Kentucky. Go back 75 years in the life of that state and you will get something of its early history. Those who lived there that long ago were pioneers. Her father and mother were Jesse and Elizabeth Ward. They were of that staunch, sturdy people that struggled to obtain a home and accumulate a little fortune in the southern country. Jesse Ward at the age of 18 joined a regiment of Kentucky volunteers which was a part of Jackson’s army at the defense of New Orleans in 1814.

“Mrs. Mercer was born in Hartford, the county seat of Ohio county, Kentucky. She was but a little tot when her mother died.

“Her father married again, and children, issues of the second marriage, had been born before Mr. Ward and his family said good-bye to old Kentucky or in reality, young Kentucky, and moved to Arkansas. That was in 1845. There they lived until 1853 and Hester Mercer had a chance of proving her true womanhood. The family had settled near Batesville, Independence county. At that time the county had much virgin soil and it was not a hard matter to figure up the population of the state. Mrs. Mercer seemed to be the head of the family. While the male members of the family were at work clearing land and establishing what they thought would be a permanent home, she was busily occupied in making clothes for herself and others of the family. And what a task it was in those days to make clothes. Crude machinery, in the settled states of the east, turned out with what was considered wonderful rapidity, cloth for garments. But the common people of the West knew nothing of the details of such luxuries.

“Mrs. Mercer, then Hester Ward, took the wool from the sheep, cleaned it, wove it, dyed the cloth, cut and made it into clothing for her father and brothers. When she wanted a gown she could have it, that is, after she had gone into the fields, picked the necessary cotton, developed it into dress goods and turned the goods into a garment.

“Mr. D. B. Ward, a half brother of Mrs. Mercer, has in his possession pieces of the goods out of which she made her gowns when a girl.

“In 1853, Mr. Ward, having heard so much of the great opportunities that were offered to the pioneer who would accept life in the far West, started with his family and a party of other pioneers across the great Western plains. Stories without end could be told of the adventures and incidents, the results of that long journey. There were nine children of Mr. Ward in his party. The start was made March 9, 1853, and on September 30, Waldo Hills, near Salem, Oregon, was reached.

“The Indians, of course, figured in the life of the Wards while they were crossing the plains, just as they seemed to come into the life of every other band of pioneers that undertook the journey. When about eight miles, by the emigrant route, east of the North Platte, Mr. Ward’s party encountered a big band of Arapahoes. Every one was a warrior. They were in full war regalia and dangling from their belts were dozens of scalps. They had been in battle with their enemies, the Blackfeet and Snake River Indians the day before. Crowned with victory, they were on their way home to celebrate.

“The Ward party had been resting in the woods and were about breaking camp to continue their journey when the Indian braves made their appearance. They insisted that they were friendly, but their behavior was not wholly consistent. They crowded in and about the wagons, wanted this and that and finally became impudent because their requests were denied.

“The Ward party had an old bugler with them; when he placed his lips to the bugle something that bordered on music came from the instrument. While the Indians were making their presence known the old bugler grabbed up his bugle and let out several blasts, which echoed and re-echoed around. The leaves trembled, the trees seemed to shake and the Indian braves, who did not fear an encounter with a thousand Blackfeet, were dumbfounded. Their heads went up in the air, the ears of their horses shot forward. The leader of the braves murmured a few words in his native tongue and then like the wind those 400 braves were gone. If the Great White Father had appeared, as they probably expected he would, he would have had to travel many miles to find the Arapahoes.

“The Ward party was soon out of the woods, when they met another band. The old chief was with them. He was mounted on a white mule and produced a copy of a treaty with the government to show that his people loved the white men.

“Down in the valley through which the pioneers were compelled to travel they saw many little tents. Other Indians were camped there. The old chief and his party accompanied the emigrants. Every Indian showed an ugly disposition. The emigrants were compelled to stop in the midst of the tents in the valley. The old chief explained through an interpreter that his people had just come back from a great battle. They were hungry, he said, and wanted food and the emigrants would have to give it to them, for were not these whites, he said, passing through the sacred land of the Indian?

“The Ward party was a small one, it could muster but 22 men. Each man was well armed, but the Indians were mixing up with them and it would have been impossible to get together for united action. It was necessary to submit to the wishes of the Indians. Bacon, sugar, flour and crackers were given up and the old chief divided them among his people.

“While this division was being made young braves were busying themselves by annoying the members of the party. Among the white people was a young woman who had charge of two horses attached to a light covered wagon. Several of the braves took a fancy to her. They gave the whites to understand that any woman who could drive horses was all right and must not go any farther. Mr. Ward and his men had a hard time keeping the Indians from stealing the girl. Once they crowded about her and for a time it was thought she would be taken by force. The white men and several of the women went to her rescue. Mrs. Mercer was in the rescue party. She shoved the Indians right and left and in the end the girl was rescued and smuggled into a closed wagon, where she remained concealed for some hours.

“Another young woman in the party had beautiful auburn hair. An Indian warrior took a fancy to her, thought she was the finest woman he had ever seen, and said that his people would compromise if she were given to him for a wife. Again there was trouble and the girl had to be hidden in a closed wagon.

“The Indians kept up their annoyance of the party for some time, but finally their hunger got the better of them and they sat down to eat the food which the Ward party had under compulsion given them.

“The Indian chief consented that the white people should take their departure. They were quick to do so and were soon some distance from the Indian camp.

“After the Wards reached Oregon, Hester settled down to pioneer life with the other members of the family, but in the fall of 1859, Thomas Mercer, then probate judge of King county, Washington Territory, wooed and won her and they were married. The wedding was one of the important affairs of early days. Rev. Daniel Bagley, of this city, performed the ceremony. After Mr. and Mrs. Mercer came to Seattle they took up their residence in a little house on First Avenue, near Washington Street. The Mercer home at present occupies a block of the old donation claim. The home is on Lombard Street between Prospect and Villard Avenues.

“When Mr. and Mrs. Mercer came to Seattle, John Denny and wife and James Campbell and wife accompanied them. The three families swelled the population to thirteen families.

“D. B. Ward, a half brother of Mrs. Mercer, also came with them.

“‘Seattle was not a very big city in those days,’ said Mr. Ward recently in discussing the matter. ‘I remember that soon after my arrival I thought I would take a walk up in the woods. I went to the church, which stood where at present is the Boston National Bank building. I found windows filled with little holes. It was a great mystery to me. I went down town and made inquiry about it and was told that every hole represented a bullet fired by the Indians during the fight three years before.’

“Mrs. Mercer was a woman of many grand qualities; she never permitted any suffering to go on about her if she were in a position to relieve it. She was a good friend of the poor and did many kind acts of which the world knew but little.”

In the latter years of her life she was a patient, uncomplaining invalid, and finally entered into rest on the 12th of November, 1897, having lived in Seattle for thirty-nine years. She was buried with honor and affection; the pallbearers were old pioneers averaging a forty years’ residence in the same place; D. T. Denny, the longest, being one of the founders, for forty-five years; they were Dexter Horton, T. D. Hinckley, D. T. Denny, Edgar Bryan, David Kellogg and Hans Nelson.

Mr. Mercer, at the age of 84 (in 1897), still survives her, passing a peaceful old age in the midst of relatives and friends.