The cabin was unfinished when the famous landing was made, November 13th, 1851, because J. N. Low returned to Portland, having been on the Sound but a few days, then Lee Terry boarded Collins’ scow on its return trip up Sound leaving D. T. Denny alone for about three weeks, during most of which time he was ill. This was Low’s cabin; after the landing of Bell, Boren and A. A. Denny and the others of the party, among whom were Low and C. C. Terry, a roof was put on the unfinished cabin and they next built A. A. Denny’s and then two cabins of split cedar for Bell and Boren and their families.
When they moved to the east side of Elliott Bay, Bell’s was the first one built. W. N. Bell and D. T. Denny built A. A. Denny’s on the east side, as he was sick. D. T. Denny had served an apprenticeship in cabin building, young as he was, nineteen years of age, before he came to Puget Sound.
The first of D. T. Denny’s cabins he built himself with the aid of three Indians. There was not a stick or piece of sawed stuff in it.
However, by the August following his marriage, which took place January 23rd, 1853, he bought of H. L. Yesler lumber from his sawmill at about $25.00 per M. to put up a little board house, sixteen by twenty feet near the salt water, between Madison and Marion streets, Seattle.
This little home was my birthplace, the first child of the first white family established at Elliott Bay. Mr. and Mrs. D. T. Denny had been threatened by Indians and their cabin robbed, so thought it best to move into the settlement.
CHAPTER IV
FOUNDING OF SEATTLE AND INDIAN WAR
The most astonishing change wrought in the aspect of nature by the building of a city on Puget Sound is not the city itself but the destruction of the primeval forest.
By the removal of the thick timber the country becomes unrecognizable; replaced by thousands of buildings of brick, wood and stone, graded streets, telephone and electric light systems, steam, electric and cable railways and all the paraphernalia of modern civilization, the contrast is very great. The same amount of energy and money expended in a treeless, level country would probably have built a city three times as large as Seattle.
In February, 1852, Bell, Boren and the Dennys located claims on the east side of Elliott Bay. Others followed, but it was not until May, 1853, that C. D. Boren and A. A. Denny filed the first plat of the town, named for the noted chief, “Seattle.” The second plat was filed shortly after by D. S. Maynard. Maynard was a physician who did not at first depend on the practice of his profession; perhaps the settlers were too vigorous to require pills, powders and potions, at any rate he proposed to engage in the business of packing salmon.
The settlers at Alki moved over to their claims in the spring of 1852, some of them camping until they could build log cabins.
Finally all were well established and then began the hand to hand conflict for possession of the ground. The mighty forest must yield to fire and the ax; then from the deep bosom of the earth what bounty arose!
The Indians proved efficient helpers, guides and workers in many ways. One of the pioneers had three Indians to help him build his cabin.
To speak more particularly of the original architecture of the country, the cabins, built usually of round logs of the Douglas fir, about six inches in diameter, were picturesque, substantial and well suited to the needs of the pioneer. A great feature of the Seattle cabin was the door made of thick boards hewed out of the timber as there was no sawmill on the bay until H. L. Yesler built the first steam sawmill erected on the Sound. This substantial door was cut across in the middle with a diagonal joint; the lower half was secured by a stout wooden pin, in order that the upper half might be opened and the “wa-wa” (talk) proceed with the native visitor, who might or might not be friendly, while he stood on the outside of the door and looked in with eager curiosity, on the strange ways of the “Bostons.”
The style of these log cabins was certainly admirable, adapted as they were to the situation of the settler. They were inexpensive as the material was plentiful and near at hand, and required only energy and muscle to construct them; there were no plumber’s, gas or electric light bills coming in every month, no taxes for improvements and a man could build a lean-to or hay-shed without a building permit. The interiors were generally neat, tasteful and home-like, made so by the versatile pioneer women who occupied them.
These primitive habitations were necessarily scattered as it was imperative that they should be placed so as to perfect the titles of the donation claims. Sometimes two settlers were able to live near each other when they held adjoining claims, others were obliged to live several miles away from the main settlement and far from a neighbor, in lonely, unprotected places.
What thoughts of the homes and friends they had left many weary leagues behind, visited these lonely cabin dwellers!
The husband was engaged in clearing, slashing and burning log heaps, cutting timber, hunting for game to supply the larder, or away on some errand to the solitary neighbor’s or distant settlement. Often, during the livelong day the wife was alone, occupied with domestic toil, all of which had to be performed by one pair of hands, with only primitive and rude appliances; but there were no incompetent servants to annoy, social obligations were few, fashion was remote and its tyranny unknown, in short, many disagreeable things were lacking. The sense of isolation was intensified by frequently recurring incidents in which the dangers of pioneer life became manifest. The dark, mysterious forest might send forth from its depths at any moment the menace of savage beast or relentless man.
The big, grey, timber wolf still roamed the woods, although it soon disappeared before the oncoming wave of invading settlers. Generally quite shy, they required some unusual attraction to induce them to display their voices.
On a dark winter night in 1853, the lonely cabin of D. T. and Louisa Denny was visited by a pair of these voracious beasts, met to discuss the remains of a cow, belonging to W. N. Bell, which had stuck fast among some tree roots and died in the edge of the clearing. How they did snarl and howl, making the woods and waters resound with their cries as they greedily devoured the carcass. The pioneer couple who occupied the cabin entered no objection and were very glad of the protection of the solid walls of their primitive domicile. The next day, Mr. Denny, with dog and gun, went out to hunt them but they had departed to some remote region.
On another occasion the young wife lay sick and alone in the cabin above mentioned and a good neighbor, Mrs. Sarah Bell, from her home a mile away, came to see her, bringing some wild1 pheasant’s eggs the men had found while cutting spars. While the women chatted, an Indian came and stood idly looking in over the half-door and his companion lurked in the brush near by.
John Kanem, a brother of the chief, Pat Kanem, afterward told the occupants of the cabin that these Indians had divulged their intention of murdering them in order to rob their dwelling, but abandoned the project, giving as a reason that a “haluimi kloochman” (another or unknown woman) was there and the man was away.
Surely a kind Providence watched over these unprotected ones that they might in after years fulfill their destiny.
During the summer of 1855, before the Indian war, Mr. and Mrs. D. T. Denny were living in a log cabin in the swale, an opening in the midst of a heavy forest, on their donation claim, to which they had moved from their first cabin on Elliott Bay.
Dr. Choush, an Indian medicine man, came along one day in a state of ill-suppressed fury. He had just returned from a Government “potlatch” at the Tulalip agency. In relating how they were cheated he said that the Indians were presented with strips of blankets which had been torn into narrow pieces about six or eight inches wide, and a little bit of thread and a needle or two. The Indians thereupon traded among themselves and pieced the strips together.
He was naturally angry and said menacingly that the white people were few, their doors were thin and the Indians could easily break them in and kill all the “Bostons.”
All this could not have been very reassuring to the inmates of the cabin; however they