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

CHAPTER IX.

DR. HENRY A. SMITH, THE BRILLIANT WRITER

This well known pioneer joined the “mighty nation moving west” in 1852. From Portland, the wayside inn of weary travelers, he pushed on to Puget Sound, settling in 1853 on Elliott Bay, at a place known for many years as Smith’s Cove.

Being a gifted writer he has made numerous contributions to northwestern literature, both in prose and poetry.

In a rarely entertaining set of papers entitled “Early Reminiscences,” he brings vividly to the minds of his readers the “good old times” on Elliott Bay, as he describes the manner of life, personal adventure, odd characters and striking environment of the first decade of settlement. In them he relates that after the White River massacre, he conveyed his mother to a place of safety, by night, in a boat with muffled oars.

To quote his own words: “Early the next morning I persuaded James Broad and Charley Williamson, a couple of harum-scarum run-away sailors, to accompany me to my ranch in the cove, where we remained two weeks securing crops. We always kept our rifles near us while working in the field, so as to be ready for emergencies, and brave as they seemed their faces several times blanched white as they sprang for their guns on hearing brush crack near them, usually caused by deer. One morning on going to the field where we were digging potatoes, we found fresh moccasin tracks, and judged from the difference in the size of the tracks that at least half a dozen savages had paid the field a visit during the night. As nothing had been disturbed we concluded that they were waiting in ambush for us and accordingly we retired to the side of the field farthest from the woods and began work, keeping a sharp lookout the while. Soon we heard a cracking in the brush and a noise that sounded like the snapping of a flintlock. We grabbed our rifles and rushed into the woods where we heard the noise, so as to have the trees for shelter, and if possible to draw a bead on the enemy. On reaching shelter, the crackling sound receded toward Salmon Bay. But fearing a surprise if we followed the sound of retreat, we concluded to reach the Bay by way of a trail that led to it, but higher up; we reached the water just in time to see five redskins land in a canoe, on the opposite side of the Bay where the Crooks’ barn now stands. After that I had hard work to keep the runaways until the crop was secured, and did so only by keeping one of them secreted in the nearest brush constantly on guard. At night we barred the doors and slept in the attic, hauling the ladder up after us. Sometimes, when the boys told blood-curdling stories until they became panicky by their own eloquence, we slept in the woods, but that was not often.

“In this way the crops were all saved, cellared and stacked, only to be destroyed afterward by the torch of the common enemy.

“Twice the house was fired before it was finally consumed, and each time I happened to arrive in time to extinguish the flames, the incendiaries evidently having taken to their heels as soon as the torch was applied.”

While yet new to the country he met with an adventure not uncommon to the earliest settlers in the great forest, recorded as follows:

“I once had a little experience, but a very amusing one, of being ‘lost.’ In the summer of 1854, I concluded to make a trail to Seattle. Up to that time I had ridden to the city in a ‘Chinook buggy.’ One bright morning I took a compass and started for Seattle on as nearly a straight line as possible. After an hour’s travel the sun was hid by clouds and the compass had to be entirely relied upon for the right course. This was tedious business, for the woods had never been burned, and the old fallen timber was almost impassable. About noon I noticed to my utter astonishment, that the compass had reversed its poles. I knew that beds of mineral would sometimes cause a variation of the needle and was delighted at the thought of discovering a valuable iron mine so near salt water. A good deal of time was spent in breaking bushes and thoroughly marking the spot so that there would be no difficulty in finding it again, and from that on I broke bushes as I walked, so as to be able to easily retrace my steps. From that place I followed the compass reversed, calculating, as I walked, the number of ships that would load annually at Seattle with pig-iron, and the amount of ground that would be eventually covered at the cove with furnaces, rolling mills, foundries, tool manufacturing establishments, etc.

“As night came on I became satisfied that I had traveled too far to the east, and had passed Seattle, and the prospect of spending a night in the woods knocked my iron calculations into pi. Soon, however, I was delighted to see a clearing ahead, and a shake-built shanty that I concluded must be the ranch that Mr. Nagle had commenced improving some time before, and which, I had understood, lay between Seattle and Lake Washington. When I reached the fence surrounding the improvements, I seated myself on one of the top rails for a seat and to ponder the advisability of remaining with my new neighbor over night, or going on to town. While sitting thus, I could not help contrasting his improvements with my own. The size of the clearing was the same, the house was a good deal like mine, the only seeming difference was that the front of his faced the west, whereas the front of mine faced the east. While puzzling over this strange coincidence, my own mother came out of the house to feed the poultry that had commenced going to roost, in a rookery for all the world like my own, only facing the wrong way. ‘In the name of all that’s wonderful!’ I thought, ‘what is she doing here? and how did she get here ahead of me?’ Just then the world took a spin around, my ranch wheeled into line, and, lo! I was sitting on my own fence, and had been looking at my own improvements without knowing them.” And from this he draws a moral and adorns the tale with the philosophic conclusion that people cannot see and think alike owing to their point of view, and we therefore must be charitable.

Until accustomed to it and schooled in wood-craft, the mighty and amazing forest was bewildering and mysterious to the adventurous settler; however, they soon learned how not to lose themselves in its labyrinthine depths.

Dr. Smith is a past master in description, as will be seen by this word-picture of a fire in a vast pitchy and resinous mass of combustible material. I have witnessed many, each a magnificent display.

“Washington beats the world for variety and magnificence of awe inspiring mountains and other scenery. I have seen old ocean in her wildest moods, have beheld the western prairie on fire by night, when the long, waving lines of flame flared and flashed their red light against the low, fleecy clouds till they blossomed into roseate beauty, looking like vast spectral flower gardens, majestically sweeping through the heavens; have been in the valley of the river Platte, when all the windows of the sky and a good many doors opened at once and the cloud-masked batteries of the invisible hosts of the air volleyed and thundered till the earth fairly reeled beneath the terrific cannonade that tore its quivering bosom with red-hot bombs until awe-stricken humanity shriveled into utter nothingness in the presence of the mad fury of the mightiest forces of nature. But for magnificence of sublime imagery and awe-inspiring grandeur a forest fire raging among the gigantic firs and towering cedars that mantle the shores of Puget Sound, surpasses anything I have ever beheld, and absolutely baffles all attempts at description. It has to be seen to be comprehended. The grandest display of forest pyrotechnics is witnessed when an extensive tract that has been partly cleared by logging is purposely or accidentally fired. When thus partly cleared, all the tops of the fir, cedar, spruce, pine and hemlock trees felled for their lumber remain on the ground, their boughs fairly reeking with balsam. All inferior trees are left standing, and in early days when only the very choicest logs would be accepted by the mills, about one-third would be left untouched, and then the trees would stand thicker, mightier, taller than in the average forest of the eastern and middle states.

“I once witnessed the firing of a two thousand acre tract thus logged over. It was noon in the month of August, and not a breath of air moved the most delicate ferns on the hillsides. The birds had hushed their songs for their midday siesta, and the babbling brook at our feet had grown less garrulous, as if in sympathy with the rest of nature, when the torch was applied. A dozen or more neighbors had come together to witness the exhibition of the unchained element about to hold high carnival in the amphitheater of the hills, and each one posted himself, rifle in hand, in some conspicuous place at least a quarter of a mile from the slashing in order to get a shot at any wild animal fleeing from the ‘wrath to come.’

“The tract was fired simultaneously on all sides by siwashes, who rapidly circled it with long brands, followed closely by rivers of flame in hot pursuit.

“As soon as the fire worked its way to the massive winrows of dry brush, piled in making roads in every direction, a circular wall of solid flame rose half way to the tops of the tall trees. Soon the rising of the heated air caused strong currents of cooler air to set in from every side. The air currents soon increased to cyclones. Then began a race of the towering, billowy, surging walls of fire for the center. Driven furiously on by these ever-increasing, eddying, and fiercely contending tornadoes, the flames lolled and rolled and swayed and leaped, rising higher and higher, until one vast, circular tidal wave of liquid fire rolled in and met at the center with the whirl and roar of pandemoniac thunder and shot up in a spiral and rapidly revolving red-hot cone, a thousand feet in mid-air, out of whose flaring and crater-like apex poured dense volumes of tarry smoke, spreading out on every side, like unfolding curtains of night, till the sun was darkened and the moon was turned to blood and the stars seemed literally raining from heaven, as glowing firebrands that had been carried up by the fierce tornado of swirling flame and carried to immense distances by upper air currents, fell back in showers to the ground. The vast tract, but a few moments before as quiet as a sleeping infant in its cradle, was now one vast arena of seething, roaring, raging flame. The long, lithe limbs of the tall cedars were tossing wildly about, while the strong limbs of the sturdier firs and hemlocks were freely gyrating like the sinewy arms of mighty giant athletes engaged in mortal combat. Ever and anon their lower, pitch-dripping branches would ignite from the fervent heat below, when the flames would rush to the very tops with the roar of contending thunders and shoot upward in bright silvery volumes from five to seven hundred feet, or double the height of the trees themselves. Hundreds of these fire-volumes flaring and flaming in quick succession and sometimes many of them simultaneously, in conjunction with the weird eclipse-like darkness that veiled the heavens, rendered the scene one of awful grandeur never to be forgotten.

“So absorbed were we all in the preternatural war of the fiercely contending elements that we forgot our guns, our game and ourselves.

“The burnt district, after darkness set in, was wild and weird in the extreme. The dry bark to the very tops of the tall trees was on fire and constantly falling off in large flakes, and the air was filled ever and anon with dense showers of golden stars, while the trees in the environs seemed to move about through the fitful shadows like grim brobdignags clad in sheeny armor.”

Having witnessed many similar conflagrations I am able to say that the subject could scarcely be better treated.

Through the courtesy of the author, Dr. H. A. Smith, I have been permitted to insert the following poem, which has no doubt caused many a grim chuckle and scowl of sympathy, too, from the old pioneers of the Northwest:

"THE MORTGAGE“The man who holds a mortgage on my farmAnd sells me out to gratify his greed,Is shielded by our shyster laws from harm,And ever laud for the dastard deed!Though morally the man is really worseThan if he knocked me down and took my purse;The last would mean, at most, a moment’s strife,The first would mean the struggle of a life,And homeless children wailing in the cold,A prey to want and miseries manifold;Then if I loot him of his mangy pupThe guardians of the law will lock me up,And jaundiced justice fly into a rageWhile pampered Piety askance my rags will scan,And Shylock shout, ‘Behold a dangerous man!’But notwithstanding want to Heaven cries,And villains masquerade in virtue’s guise,And Liberty is moribund or dead —Except for men who corporations head —One little consolation still remains,The human race will one day rend its chains.”

In transcribing Indian myths and religious beliefs, Dr. Smith displays much ability. After having had considerable acquaintance with the native races, he concludes that “Many persons are honestly of the opinion that Indians have no ideas above catching and eating salmon, but if they will lay aside prejudice and converse freely with the more intelligent natives, they will soon find that they reason just as well on all subjects that attract their attention as we do, and being free from pre-conceived opinions, they go directly to the heart of theories and reason both inductively and deductively with surprising clearness and force.”

Dr. Smith exhibits in his writings a broadly charitable mind which sees even in the worst, still some lingering or smothered good.

Dr. Smith is one of a family of patriots; his great-grandfather, Copelton Smith, who came from Germany to America in 1760 and settled in or near Philadelphia, Pa., fought for liberty in the war of the Revolution under General Washington. His father, Nicholas Smith, a native of Pennsylvania, fought for the Stars and Stripes in 1812. Two brothers fought for Old Glory in the war of the Rebellion, and he himself was one of the volunteers who fought for their firesides in the State, then Territory of Washington.

“A family of fighters,” as he says, “famous for their peaceful proclivities when let alone.”

The varied experiences of life in the Northwest have developed in him a sane and sweet philosophy, perhaps nowhere better set forth in his writings than in his poem “Pacific’s Pioneers,” read at a reunion of the founders of the state a few years ago, and with which I close this brief and inadequate sketch:

“PACIFIC’S PIONEERS“A greeting to Pacific’s Pioneers,Whose peaceful lives are drawing to a close,Whose patient toil, for lo these many years,Has made the forest blossom as the rose.“And bright-browed women, bonny, brave and true,And laughing lasses, sound of heart and head,Who home and kindred bade a last adieuTo follow love where fortune led.“I do not dedicate these lines aloneTo men who live to bless the world today,But I include the nameless and unknownThe pioneers who perished by the way.“Not for the recreant do my numbers ring,The men who spent their lives in sport and spree,Nor for the barnacles that always clingTo every craft that cruises Freedom’s sea.“But nearly all were noble, brave and kind,And little cared for fame or fashion’s gyves;And though they left their Sunday suits behindThey practiced pure religion all their lives.“Their love of peace no people could excel,Their dash in war the poet’s pen awaits;Their sterling loyalty made possiblePacific’s golden galaxy of states.“They had no time to bother much aboutContending creeds that vex the nation’s Hub,But then they left their leather latches outTo every wandering Arab short of grub.“Cut off from all courts, man’s earthly shield from harm,They looked for help to Him whose court’s above,And learned to lean on labor’s honest arm,And live the higher law, the law of love.“Not one but ought to wear a crown of gold,If crowns were made for men who do their bestAmid privations cast and manifoldThat unborn generations may be blest.“Among these rugged pioneers the ruleWas equal rights, and all took special prideIn ’tending Mother Nature’s matchless school,And on her lessons lovingly relied.“And this is doubtless why they are in touchWith Nature’s noblemen neath other skies;And though of books they may not know as muchTheir wisdom lasts, as Nature never lies.“And trusting God and His unerring planAs only altruistic natures couldTheir faith extended to their fellow man,The image of the Author of all good.“Since Nature here has done her best to pleaseBy making everything in beauty’s mold,Loads down with balm of flowers every breeze,And runs her rivers over reefs of gold,“It seems but natural that men who yearnFor native skies, and visit scenes of yore,Are seldom satisfied till they returnTo roam the Gardens of the Gods once more!“And since they fell in love with nature hereHow fitting they should wish to fall asleepWhere sparkling mountain spires soar and spearThe stainless azure of the upper deep.“And yet we’re saddened when the papers sayAnother pioneer has passed away!And memory recalls when first, forsooth,We saw him in the glorious flush of youth.“How plain the simple truth when seen appears,No wonder that faded leaves we fall!This is the winter of the pioneersThat blows a wreath of wrinkles to us all!“A few more mounds for faltering feet to seek,When, somewhere in this lovely sunset-landLike some weird, wintry, weather-beaten peakSome rare old Roman all alone will stand.“But not for long, for ere the rosy dawnOf many golden days has come and gone,Our pine-embowered bells will shout to every shore"Pacific’s Pioneers are now no more!"“But lovely still the glorious stars will glowAnd glitter in God’s upper deep like pearlsAnd mountains too will wear their robes of snowJust as they did when we were boys and girls.“Ah well, it may be best, and is, no doubt,As death is quite as natural as birthAnd since no storms can blow the sweet stars out,Why should one wish to always stay on earth?“Especially as God can never change,And man’s the object of His constant careAnd though beyond the Pleiades we rangeHis boundless love and mercy must be there.”

CHAPTER X.

FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEFS

Sealth or “Old Seattle,” a peaceable son of the forest, was of a line of chieftains, his father, Schweabe, or Schweahub, a chief before him of the Suquampsh tribe inhabiting a portion of the west shore of Puget Sound, his mother, a Duwampsh of Elliott Bay, whose name was Wood-sho-lit-sa.

Sealth’s birthplace was the famous Oleman House, near the site of which he is now buried. Oleman House was an immense timber structure, long ago inhabited by many Indians; scarcely a vestige of it now remains. It was built by Sealth’s father. Chief Sealth was twice married and had three sons and five daughters, the last of whom, Angeline, or Ka-ki-is-il-ma, passed away on May 31, 1896. In an interview she informed me that her grandfather, Schweabe, was a tall, slim man, while Sealth was rather heavy as well as tall. Sealth was a hunter, she said, but not a great warrior. In the time of her youth there were herds of elk near Oleman House which Sealth hunted with the bow or gun.

The elk, now limited to the fastnesses of the Olympic Mountains, were also hunted in the cove south of West Seattle, by Englishmen, Sealth’s cousin, Tsetseguis, helping, with other Indians, to carry out the game.

Angeline further said that her father, “Old Seattle,” as the white people called him, inherited the chiefship when a little boy. As he grew up he became more important, married, obtained slaves, of whom he had eight when the Dennys came, and acquired wealth. Of his slaves, Yutestid is living (1899) and when reminded of him she laughed and repeated his name several times, saying, “Yutestid! Yutestid! How was it possible for me to forget him? Why, we grew up together!” Yutestid was a slave by descent, as also were five others; the remaining two he had purchased. It is said that he bought them out of pity from another who treated them cruelly.

Sealth, Keokuk, William and others, with quite a band of Duwampsh and Suquampsh Indians, once attacked the Chimacums, surrounded their large house or rancheree at night; at some distance away they joined hands forming a circle and gradually crept up along the ground until quite near, when they sprang up and fired upon them; the terrified occupants ran out and were killed by their enemies. On entering they found one of the wounded crawling around crying “Ah! A-ah!” whom they quickly dispatched with an ax.

A band of Indians visited Alki in 1851, who told the story to the white settlers, imitating their movements as the attacking party and evidently much enjoying the performance.

About the year 1841, Sealth set himself to avenge the death of his nephew, Almos, who was killed by Owhi. With five canoe loads of his warriors, among whom was Curley, he ascended White River and attacked a large camp, killed more than ten men and carried the women and children away into captivity.

At one time in Olympia some renegades who had planned to assassinate him, fired a shot through his tent but he escaped unhurt. Dr. Maynard, who visited him shortly after, saw that while he talked as coolly as if nothing unusual had occurred, he toyed with his bow and arrow as if he felt his power to deal death to the plotters, but nothing was ever known of their punishment.

Sealth was of a type of Puget Sound Indian whose physique was not by any means contemptible. Tall, broad shouldered, muscular, even brawny, straight and strong, they made formidable enemies, and on the warpath were sufficiently alarming to satisfy the most exacting tenderfoot whose contempt for the “bowlegged siwash” is by no means concealed. Many of the old grizzly-haired Indians were of large frame and would, if living, have made a towering contrast to their little “runts” of critics.

Neither were their minds dwarfed, for evidently not narrowed by running in the grooves of other men’s thoughts, they were free to nourish themselves upon nature and from their magnificent environment they drew many striking comparisons.

Not versed in the set phrases of speech, time-worn and hackneyed, their thoughts were naive, fresh, crude and angular as the frost-rended rocks on the mountain side. A number of these Indians were naturally gifted as orators; with great, mellow voices, expressive gestures, flaming earnestness, piteous pathos and scorching sarcasm, they told their wrongs, commemorated their dead and declared their friendship or hatred in a voluminous, polysyllabic language no more like Chinook than American is like pigeon English.

The following is a fragment valuable for the intimation it gives of their power as orators, as well as a true description of the appearance of Sealth, written by Dr. H. A. Smith, a well known pioneer, and published in the Seattle Sunday Star of October 29, 1877:

“Old Chief Seattle was the largest Indian I ever saw, and by far the noblest looking. He stood nearly six feet in his moccasins, was broad-shouldered, deep-chested and finely proportioned. His eyes were large, intelligent, expressive and friendly when in repose, and faithfully mirrored the varying moods of the great soul that looked through them. He was usually solemn, silent and dignified, but on great occasions moved among assembled multitudes like a Titan among Lilliputians, and his lightest word was law.

“When rising to speak in council or to tender advice, all eyes were turned upon him, and deep-toned, sonorous and eloquent sentences rolled from his lips like the ceaseless thunders of cataracts flowing from exhaustless fountains, and his magnificent bearing was as noble as that of the most civilized military chieftain in command of the force of a continent. Neither his eloquence, his dignity nor his grace was acquired. They were as native to his manhood as leaves and blossoms are to a flowering almond.

“His influence was marvelous. He might have been an emperor but all his instincts were democratic, and he ruled his subjects with kindness and paternal benignity.

“He was always flattered by marked attentions from white men, and never so much as when seated at their tables, and on such occasions he manifested more than anywhere else his genuine instincts of a gentleman.

“When Governor Stevens first arrived in Seattle and told the natives that he had been appointed commissioner of Indian affairs for Washington Territory, they gave him a demonstrative reception in front of Dr. Maynard’s office near the water front on Main Street. The bay swarmed with canoes and the shore was lined with a living mass of swaying, writhing, dusky humanity, until Old Chief Seattle’s trumpet-toned voice rolled over the immense multitude like the reveille of a bass drum, when silence became as instantaneous and perfect as that which follows a clap of thunder from a clear sky.