Blazing The Way Part 7

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

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

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

And thus the ball opened; a sh.e.l.l was dropped in the neighborhood of "Tom Pepper's house" with the effect to arouse the whole horde of savages, perhaps a thousand, gathered in the woods back of the town.

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

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

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

A terrible day it was for all those who were called upon to endure the anxiety and suspense that hovered within those walls; perhaps the moment that tried them most was when the report was circulated that all would be burned alive as the Indians would shoot arrows carrying fire on the roof of cedar s.h.i.+ngles 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-b.a.l.l.s and sh.e.l.ls 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 sh.e.l.ls 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN CANOES SAILING WITH NORTH WIND]

Leschi, the leader, threatened to return in a month with his bands and annihilate the place. In view of other possible attacks, a second block 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 part.i.tioned 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 s.h.i.+fting 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, b.u.t.tons 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 grat.i.tude, "Your dear little hands have brought me almost everything I have had." Both have pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed through a loop of her hair, below the ear, just beside the white neck.

Her hair was dressed in an old fas.h.i.+oned 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 pa.s.sed 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. c.o.x 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 s.h.i.+ngles 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 pa.s.sing 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 sh.o.r.es 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 s.h.i.+p'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 b.l.o.o.d.y wave of war ran hither and yon until spent and the doom of the pa.s.sing 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.