It is not difficult for those who have traveled the Sound in all kinds of weather to realize the aptness of the expression of the Chinese cook of a camping party who were moving in a large canoe; when the waves began to rise, he exclaimed in agitation, “Too littlee boat for too muchee big waters.” It is well to bear in mind that the “Sound” is a great inland sea. A tenderfoot’s description of the water over which he floated, the timorous occupant of a canoe, testifies that it looked to him to be “Two hundred feet deep, as clear as a kitten’s eye and as cold as death.”
All the different sorts of canoes of which I shall speak in another chapter look “wobbly” and uncertain, yet the Indians make long voyages of hundreds of miles by carefully observing the wind and tide.
A large canoe will easily carry ten persons and one thousand pounds of baggage. One of these commodious travelers, with a load of natives and their “ictas” (baggage) landed on a stormy day at Alki and the occupants spent several hours ashore. While engaged with their meal one of them exclaimed, “Nannitch!” (look) at the same time pointing at the smoke of the campfire curling steadily straight upward. Without another word they tumbled themselves and belongings aboard and paddled off in silent satisfaction.
The ascending column of smoke was their barometer which read “Fair weather, no wind.”
The white people, unacquainted with the shores, tides and winds of the great Inland Sea, did well to listen to their Indian canoemen; sometimes their unwillingness to do so exposed them to great danger and even loss of life.
The Indians living on Elliott Bay were chiefly the indigenous tribe of D’wampsh or Duwampsh, changed by white people into “Duwamish.”
They gave abundant evidence of possessing human feeling beneath their rough exterior.
One of the white women at Alki, prepared some food for a sick Indian child which finally recovered. The child’s father, “Old Alki John,” was a very “hard case,” but his heart was tender toward his child, and to show his gratitude he brought and offered as a present to the kind white “slanna” (woman) a bright, new tin pail, a very precious thing to the Indian mind. Of course she readily accepted his thanks but persuaded him to keep the pail.
Savages though they were, or so appeared, the Indians of Elliott Bay were correctly described in these words:
“We found a race, though rude and wild,
Still tender toward friend or child,
For dark eyes laughed or shone with tears
As joy or sorrow filled the years.
Their black-eyed babes the red men kissed
And captive brothers sorely missed;
With broken hearts brown mothers wept
When babes away by death were swept.”
But there were amusing as well as pathetic experiences. The Indians were like untaught children in many things. Their curiosity over-came them and their innocent impertinence sometimes required reproof.
In a cabin at Alki one morning, a white woman was frying fish. Warming by the fire stood “Duwampsh Curley;” the odor of the fish was doubtless appetizing; Curley was moved with a wish to partake of it and reached out a dark and doubtful-looking hand to pick out a piece. The white woman had a knife in her hand to turn the pieces and raised it to strike the imprudent hand which was quickly and sheepishly withdrawn.
Had he been as haughty and ill-natured as some savages the result might have been disastrous, but he took the reproof meekly and mended his manners instead of retaliating.
Now and then the settlers were spectators in dramas of Indian romance.
“Old Alki John” had a wife whose history became interesting. For some unknown reason she ran away from Puyallup to Alki. Her husband followed her, armed with a Hudson Bay musket and a frame of mind that boded no good. While A. A. Denny, D. T. Denny and Alki John were standing together on the bank one day Old John’s observing eye caught sight of a strange Indian ascending the bank, carrying his gun muzzle foremost, a suggestive position not indicative of peaceful intentions. “Nannitch” (look) he said quietly; the stranger advanced boldly, but Old John’s calm manner must have had a soothing effect upon the bloodthirsty savage, as he concluded to “wa-wa” (talk) a little before fighting.
So the gutturals and polysyllables of the native tongue fairly flew about until evidently, as Mr. D. T. Denny relates, some sort of compromise was effected. Not then understanding the language, he could not determine just the nature of the arrangement, but has always thought it was amicably settled by the payment of money by “Old Alki John” to her former husband. This Indian woman was young and fair, literally so, as her skin was very white, she being the whitest squaw ever seen among them; her head was not flattened, she was slender and of good figure. Possibly she had white blood in her veins; her Indian name was “Si-a-ye.”
Being left a widow, she was not left to pine alone very long; another claimed her hand and she became Mrs. Yeow-de-pump. When this one joined his brethren in the happy hunting ground, she remained a widow for some time, but is now the wife of the Indian Zacuse, mentioned in another place.
There were women cabin builders. Each married woman was given half the donation claim by patent from the government; improvement on her part of the claim was therefore necessary.
On a fine, fair morning in the early spring of 1852, two women set forth from the settlement at Alki, to cross Elliott Bay in a fishing canoe, with Indians to paddle and a large dog to protect them from possible wild animals in the forest, for in that wild time, bears, cougars and wolves roamed the shores of Puget Sound.
Landed on the opposite shore, the present site of Seattle, they made their way slowly and with difficulty through the dense undergrowth of the heavy forest, there being not so much as a trail, over a long distance. Arrived at the chosen spot, they cut with their own hands some small fir logs and laid the foundation of a cabin. While thus employed the weather underwent a change and on the return was rather threatening. The wind and waves were boisterous, the canine passenger was frightened and uneasy, thus adding to the danger. The water washed into the canoe and the human occupants suffered no little anxiety until they reached the beach at home.
One of the conditions of safe travel in a canoe is a quiet and careful demeanor, the most approved plan being to sit down in the bottom of the craft and stay there.
To have a large, heavy animal squirming about, getting up and lying down frequently, must have tried their nerve severely and it must have taken good management to prevent a serious catastrophe. The Bell family were camped at that time on their claim in a rude shelter of Indian boards and mats.
The handful of white men at Alki spent their time and energy in getting out piles for the San Francisco market. At first they had very few appliances for handling the timber. The first vessel to load was the brig Leonesa, which took a cargo of piles, cut, rolled and hauled by hand, as there were no cattle at the settlement.
There were also no roads and Lee Terry went to Puyallup for a yoke of oxen, which he drove down on the beach to Alki. Never were dumb brutes better appreciated than these useful creatures.
But the winter, or rather rainy season, wore away; as spring approached the settlers explored the shores of the Sound far and near and it became apparent that Alki must wait till “by and by,” as the eastern shore of Elliott Bay was found more desirable and the pioneers prepared to move again by locating donation claims on a portion of the land now covered by a widespread city, which will bring us to the next chapter, “The Founding of Seattle and Indian War.”
The following is a brief recapitulation of the first days on Puget Sound; in these later years we see the rapid and skillful construction of elegant mansions, charming cottages and stately business houses, all in sight of the spot where stood the first little cabin of the pioneer. The builders of this cabin were D. T. Denny, J. N. Low and Lee Terry, assisted by the Indians, the only tools, an ax and a hammer, the place Alki Point, the time, the fall of 1851.
They baked