the current of the Lewis River, and a night standing in a snow and sleet
storm around a camp fire of green wood, Oliver and I found our ardor
cooled a little. Two hours sufficed to take us back home next morning.
Claims we must have, though. That was what we had come to Oregon for. We
were going to be farmers; wife and I had made that bargain before we
closed the other more important contract. We were still of one mind as
to both contracts.
Early in January of 1853 the snow began disappearing rapidly, and the
search for claims became more earnest. Finally, about the twentieth of
January, I drove my stake for a claim. It included the site where the
city of Kalama now stands.
With my mind's eye I can see our first cabin as vividly as on the day
it was finished. It was placed among the trees on a hillside, with the
door in the end facing the beautiful river. The rocky nature of the site
permitted little grading, but it added to the picturesqueness.
The great river, the Columbia, was a mile wide at the point where our
house stood. Once a day at least it seemed to tire from its ceaseless
flow and to take a nooning spell. This was when the tides from the ocean
held back the waters of the river. Immediately in front of our landing
lay a small island of a few acres, covered with heavy timber and
driftwood. This has long since been washed away, and ships now pass over
the place in safety.
The cabin was built of small, straight logs. The ribs projected a few
feet to provide an open front porch--not for ornament, but for storage
of dry wood and kindling. The walls were but a scant five feet high; the
roof was not very steep; and there was a large stone fireplace and a
chimney.
The cabin was not large nor did it contain much in the way of
furnishings; but it was home--our home.
Our home! What a thrill of joy that thought brought to us! It was the
first home we had ever had. We had been married nearly two years, yet
this was really our first abiding place, for all other dwellings had
been merely way stations on our march from Indianapolis to this cabin.
The thought brought not only happiness but health to us. The glow
returned to my wife's cheek, the dimple to the baby's. And such a baby!
In the innocence of our souls we honestly thought we had the smartest,
cutest baby on earth.
Scarcely had we settled in our new home before there came a mighty flood
that covered the waters of the river with wrecks of property. Oliver and
I, with one of our neighbors, began to secure the logs that came
floating down in great numbers. In a very short time we had a raft that
was worth a good sum of money, could we but get it to market.
[Illustration: Our first cabin home.]
Encouraged by this find, we immediately turned our attention to some
fine timber standing close to the bank near by, and began hand-logging
to supplement what we had already secured afloat. This work soon gave us
ample means to buy our winter supplies, even though flour was fifty
dollars a barrel. And yet, because of that same hand-logging work, my
wife came very near becoming a widow one morning before breakfast; but
she did not know of it until long afterwards.
It occurred in this way. We did not then know how to scaffold up above
the tough, swelled bases of the large trees, and this made it very
difficult to chop them down. So we burned through them. We bored two
holes at an angle to meet inside the inner bark, and when we got a fire
started there the heart of the tree would burn through, leaving an outer
shell of bark.
One morning, as usual, I was up early. After lighting the fire in the
stove and putting on the kettle, I hastened to the burning timber to
start the logging fires afresh. As I neared a clump of three giants, two
hundred and fifty feet tall, one began toppling over toward me. In my
confusion I ran across the path where it fell. This tree had scarcely
reached the ground when a second started to fall almost parallel to it,
the two tops barely thirty feet apart and the limbs flying in several
directions. I was between the two trees. If I had not become entangled
in some brush, I should have been crushed by the second falling tree. It
was an escape so marvelous as almost to lead one to think that there is
such a thing as a charmed life.
[Illustration: A narrow escape.]
In rafting our precious accumulations of timber down the Columbia River
to Oak Point, we were carried by the current past the place where we had
expected to sell our logs at six dollars a thousand feet. Following the
raft to the larger waters, we finally reached Astoria, where we sold the
logs for eight dollars a thousand instead of six, thus profiting by our
misfortunes.
But this final success had meant an involuntary plunge off the raft into
the river with my boots on, for me, and three days and nights of
ceaseless toil and watching for all of us. We voted unanimously that we
would have no more such work.
The flour sack was nearly empty when I left home. We were expecting to
be absent but one night, and we had been gone a week. There were no
neighbors nearer our cabin than four miles, and no roads--scarcely a
trail. The only communication was by the river. What about the wife and
baby alone in the cabin, with the deep timber at the rear and a heavy
jungle of brush in front? Happily we found them all right upon our
return.
[Illustration: A lesson in the art of clam baking.]
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HUNTING FOR ANOTHER HOME SITE
OUR enjoyment of this first home did not last long. Hardly were we
fairly settled, when news came that unsettled us again.
In April of 1853, the word had begun to pass around that we were to have
a new Territory to embrace the country north of the Columbia River. Its
capital was to be on Puget Sound. Here on the Columbia we should be away
off to one side, out of touch with the people who would shortly become a
great separate commonwealth.
It seemed advisable to look about a little, before making the move; so
leaving the little wife and baby in the cabin home one bright morning in
May, Oliver and I each made a pack of forty pounds and took the trail,
bound for Puget Sound. We camped where night overtook us, sleeping in
the open air without shelter or cover other than that afforded by some
friendly tree with drooping limbs.
Our trail first led us down near the right bank of the Columbia to the
Cowlitz, thence up the latter river thirty miles or more, and then
across the country nearly sixty miles to Olympia.
At this time there might have been, about Puget Sound, two thousand
white people all told, while now there are nearer a million. But these
people were so scattered we did not realize there were even that number,
for the Puget Sound country is a big place--more than two hundred miles
long and seventy-five miles wide--between two mountain ranges, with the
Cascades on the east and the Olympics on the west. The waters of the
Sound, including all the channels and bays and inlets and shores of
forty islands, make more than sixteen hundred miles of shore
line--nearly as many miles as the Oregon Trail is long; that is, almost
as many miles as we had the previous year traversed from the Missouri
River to the Sound.
Our expectations had been raised high by the glowing accounts of Puget
Sound. But a feeling of deep disappointment fell upon us when we could
see in the foreground only bare, dismal mud flats, and beyond these a
channel scarcely twice as wide as that of the great river we had left,
bounded on either side by high, heavily timbered land. We wished
ourselves back at our cabin on the Columbia.
Should we turn around and go back? No; we had never done that since
leaving our Indiana home. But what was the use of stopping here? We
wanted a place to make a farm, and we could not do it on such forbidding
land as this. The dense forest stretching out before us was interesting
enough to the lumberman, and for aught I knew there were channels for
the ships; but I wanted to be neither lumberman nor sailor. My first
camp on Puget Sound was not cheerful.
Olympia at the time contained about one hundred inhabitants. It had
three stores, a hotel, a livery stable, a saloon, and one weekly
newspaper. A glance at the advertising columns of this paper, _The
Columbian_ (the name which was expected to be that of the new
territory), disclosed but a few local advertisers. "Everybody knows
everybody here," a resident remarked to me, "so what's the use of
advertising?"
We could not stay at Olympia. We had pushed on past some good locations
on the Chehalis, and farther south, without locating. Should we now
retrace our steps? Oliver said no, and my better judgment also said no,
though I was sorely pressed with a feeling of homesickness.
The decision was quickly made to see more of this Puget Sound. But how
were we to see these--to us--unexplored waters? I declared that I would
not go in one of those Indian canoes, that we should upset it before we
were out half an hour. I had to admit that the Indians navigated the
whole Sound in these canoes and were safe, but I would not trust myself
in a craft that would tip as easily as a Siwash canoe. When I came to
know the Indians better and saw their performances in these frail craft,
my admiration for the canoes was even greater than my distrust had been.
Neither Oliver nor I had much experience in boating, and we had none in
boat building. However, when we had discarded the idea of taking a
canoe, we set to work with a hearty good will to build us a skiff. We
made it out of light lumber, then easily obtained at Tumwater. We
determined to have the skiff broad enough not to upset easily, and long
enough to carry us and our light cargo of food and bedding.
As in the trip across the Plains, we must provide our own
transportation. Here and there might be a vessel loading piles and
square timber for the San Francisco market, but not a steamer was then
plying on the Sound; there was not even a sailing craft that essayed to
carry passengers.
As the tide drew us off on the placid waters of the bay at Olympia, with
just a breath of air stirring, our little eighteen-foot craft behaved
splendidly. The slight ripples jostling against the bow brought dreams
of a pleasure trip, to make amends for the tiresome pack across the
country.
[Illustration: A Siwash Indian in his canoe.]
We floated lazily with the tide, sometimes taking a few strokes with the
oars, and at other times whistling for the wind. The little town of
Olympia to the south became dimmed by distance. But we were no sooner
fairly out of sight of the little village than the question came up
which way to go. What channel should we take?
"Let the tide decide; that will carry us out toward the ocean."
"No, we are drifting into another bay; that cannot be where we want to
go."
"Why, we are drifting right back almost in the same direction from which
we came, but into another bay! We'll pull this way to that point to the
northeast."
"But there seems a greater opening of water to the northwest."
"Yes, but I do not see any way out there."
So we talked and pulled and puzzled, until finally it dawned upon us
that the tide had turned and we were being carried back into South Bay,
to almost the very spot whence we had come.
"The best thing we can do is to camp," said Oliver.
I readily assented. So our first night's camp was scarcely twelve miles
from where we had started in the morning. It was a fine camping place. A
beautiful pebbly beach extended almost to the water's edge even at low
tide. There was a grassy level spit, a background of evergreen giant-fir
timber, and clear, cool water gushing out from the bank near by. And
such fuel for the camp fire!--broken limbs with just enough pitch to
make a cheerful blaze and yet body enough to last well. We felt so happy
that we were almost glad the journey had been interrupted.
Oliver was the carpenter of the party, the tent-builder, wood-getter,
and general roustabout, while I, the junior, was "chief cook and
bottle-washer."
An encampment of Indians being near, a party of them soon visited our
camp and began making signs for trade.
"_Mika tik eh_[1] clams?" said one of the matrons of the party.
"What does she say, Oliver?"
"I'm blessed if I know, but it looks as if she wanted to sell some
clams."
After considerable dickering, with signs and gestures and words many
times repeated, we were able to impart the information that we wanted a
lesson in cookery. If she would show us how to cook the clams, we would
buy some. This brought some merriment in the camp. The idea that there
lived a person who did not know how to cook clams! Without saying by
your leave or anything else, the motherly looking native woman began
tearing down our camp fire.
[Illustration: _Edward S. Curtis_
Indians gathering clams on the beach.]
"Let her alone, and see what she's up to," said Oliver, noticing that I
was disturbed at such interference with my well-laid plans for
bread-baking.
She covered the hot pebbles and sand where the fire had been with a
lighter layer of pebbles. Upon these the clams were deposited. They were
covered with fine twigs, and upon the twigs earth was placed.
"_Kloshe_,"[2] she said.
"_Hyas kloshe_,"[3] said her husband, who squatted near by, watching the
proceedings with evident approval.
"What did they say?" I asked.
"I know what they said, but I don't know what they meant," responded
Oliver, "unless it was she had done a good job; and I think she has."
Thus began and ended our first lesson in the Chinook jargon, and our
first experience with a clam bake.
This first clam bake gave us great encouragement. We soon learned that
the bivalves were to be found in almost unlimited quantity and were
widely distributed. The harvest was ready twice a day, when the tide was
out, and we need have no fear of a famine even if cast away in some
unfrequented place.
"_Ya-ka kloshe al-ta_,"[4] said the Indian woman, uncovering the
steaming mass and placing the clams on a sliver found near by. "_De-late
kloshe muck a muck alta._"[5]
Without understanding her words, but knowing well what she meant, we
fell to disposing of this, our first clam dinner. We divided with the
Indians the bread that had been baked and some potatoes that had been
boiled. The natives soon withdrew to their own camp.
Before retiring for the night, we repaid the visit. To see the little
fellows of the camp scud behind their mother when the strangers entered,
and shyly peep out from their retreat, while the mother lovingly
reassured them with kind and affectionate caresses, and finally coaxed
them out from under cover, revealed something of the character of the
natives that neither of us had realized before. We had been in Indian
country for nearly a year, but with guns by our side, if not in our
hands, during nearly half the time. We had not stopped to study the
Indian character. We took it for granted that the Indians were our
enemies and watched them suspiciously; but here seemed to be a
disposition to be neighborly and helpful.
We took a lesson in Chinook, and by signs and words held conversation
until a late hour. When we were ready to leave they gave us a slice of
venison, enough for several meals. Upon offering to pay for it we were
met with a shake of the head, and with the words, "_Wake, wake, kul-tus
pot-latch_," which we understood by their actions to mean they made us a
present of it.
We had made the Indians a present first, it is true; but we did not
expect any return, except perhaps goodwill. From that time on during the
trip,--I may say, for all time since,--I found the Indians of Puget
Sound always ready to reciprocate acts of kindness. They hold in high
esteem a favor granted, if it is not accompanied by acts showing it to
be designed simply to gain an advantage.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] You want.
[2] Good.
[3] Very good.
[4] Good now; ready to serve now.
[5] Exceedingly good to eat.
[Illustration: A fleet of Siwash canoes.]
CHAPTER TWELVE
CRUISING ABOUT ON PUGET SOUND
OUR second day's cruise about the Sound took us past historic grounds.
We went by old Fort Nisqually, one of the earliest posts of the Hudson's
Bay Company on Puget Sound. Some houses had been built on the spot in
1829 or 1830, though the fort, one fourth of a mile back from water, was
not constructed until 1833, just twenty years before our visit.
As the tide and wind favored us, we did not stop. Soon we came in sight
of a fleet of seven vessels lying at anchor in a large bay, several
miles in extent. The sight of those seven vessels lying in the offing
made a profound impression upon our minds. We had never before seen so
many ships at one place. Curiously enough, among them was the good bark
_Mary Melville_, with her gruff mate and big-hearted master, Captain
Barston.
Upon the eastern slope of the shores of this bay lay the two towns, Port
Steilacoom, and Steilacoom City, both established in 1851. A far larger
trade centered here than at any other point on Puget Sound, and we
decided on a halt to make ourselves acquainted with the surroundings. A
mile and a half from the shore we found also Fort Steilacoom. It was
simply the camp of a company of United States soldiers, quartered in
wooden shells of houses and log cabins.
Intense rivalry ran between the two towns, upper and lower Steilacoom,
at this time. As a result things were booming. We were sorely tempted to
accept the flattering offer of four dollars a day for common labor in a
timber camp, but concluded not to be swerved from the search for a new
homesite.
During this visit we began seeing Indians in considerable numbers. They
seemed to be a listless lot, with no thought for the future, or even for
the immediate present. The Indians in those days seemed to work or play
by spurts and spells. Here and there we saw a family industriously
pursuing some object; but as a class they seemed to me the laziest set
of people on earth.
That opinion was materially modified later, as I became better
acquainted with their habits. I have found just as industrious people,
both men and women, among the Indians as among the whites. The workers,
it may be said, are less numerous among the men; the women are all
industrious.
Should we camp here and spy out the land, or should we go forward and
see what lay before us? After a sober second thought, we realized that
we had nothing to trade but labor; and we had not come as far as this to
be laborers for hire. We had come to find a place to make a farm, and a
farm we were going to have. Again we set about searching for claims, and
the more we searched the less we liked the look of things.
Finally, on the fourth day, after a long, wearisome tramp, we cast off
at high tide, and in a dead calm, to continue our cruise. Oliver soon
dropped into a comfortable afternoon nap, leaving me in full command. As
the sun shone warm and the tide was taking us rapidly in the direction
we wanted to go, why shouldn't I doze a little too, even if we did miss
some of the sightseeing?
I was aroused from my nap by Oliver's exclaiming, "What is that?" Then,
half to himself, "As I live, it's a deer swimming out here in the bay!"
"It surely can't be," I responded, three quarters asleep.
"That's what it is!" he asserted.
We were wide awake now and gave chase. Very soon we caught up with the
animal and succeeded in throwing a rope over its horns. By this time we
had drifted into the Narrows, and we soon found we had something more
important to do than to tow a deer.
We were among the tide rips of the Sound. Turning the deer loose, we
pulled our best for the shore, and found shelter in an eddy. A
perpendicular bluff rose from the highwater mark, leaving no place for
camp fire or bed.
The tide seemed to roll in waves and with contending forces of currents
and counter currents, yet all moving in a general direction. It was our
first introduction to a genuine tide rip. The waters boiled as if in a
veritable caldron, swelling up here and there in centers and whirling
with dizzy velocity. A flat-bottomed boat like our little skiff, we
thought, could not stay afloat there very long.
Just then some Indian canoes came along, moving with the tide. We
expected to see them swamped as they encountered the troubled waters;
but to our astonishment they passed right through without taking a drop
of water Then there came two well-manned canoes creeping alongshore
against the tide. I have said well-manned, but half the paddles, in
fact, were wielded by women, and the post of honor, or that where most
dexterity was required, was occupied by a woman.
[Illustration: _Edward S. Curtis_
Sunset on the Pacific.]
"_Me-si-ka-kwass kopa s'kookum chuck?_"[6] said the maiden in the bow of
the first canoe, as it drew alongside our boat, in which we were
sitting.
Since our evening's experience at the clambake camp, we had been
industriously studying the Chinook language, and we could understand
that she was asking if we were afraid of the rough waters. We responded,
partly in English and partly in Chinook, that we were, and besides that
it was impossible for us to proceed against the strong current.
"_Ne-si-ka mit-lite_,"[7] she replied; that is to say, she told us that
the Indians were going to camp with us and wait for the turn of the
tide, and accordingly they landed near by.
[Illustration: _Asahel Curtis_
Mt. Rainier.]
By the time the tide had turned, night had come. We hardly knew
whether to camp in our boat or to start out on unknown waters in the
dark. Our Indian visitors made preparations to proceed on their journey,
and assured us it was all right ahead. They offered to show us to good
camping grounds in a big bay where the current was not strong.
Sure enough, a short pull with a favorable current brought us to the
Narrows and into Commencement Bay, in sight of numerous camp fires in
the distance. I remember that camp quite vividly; though I cannot locate
it exactly, I know that it was on the water front within the present
limits of the large and thriving city of Tacoma.
I well remember our supper of fresh salmon. Of all the delicious fish
known, give me the salmon caught by trolling in early summer in the deep
waters of Puget Sound, the fish so fat that the excess of oil must be
turned out of the pan while cooking. We had scarcely got our camp fire
started before a salmon was offered us; I cannot recall what we paid,
but I know it was not a high price, else we could not have purchased.
The following day we could see Mt. Rainier, with its reflection in the
placid waters of the bay. Theodore Winthrop, the observant traveler who
came into these same waters a few months later and wrote of it as Mt.
Tacoma, described it as "a giant mountain dome of snow, seeming to fill
the aerial spaces as the image displaced the blue deeps of tranquil
water." A wondrous sight it was and is, whatever the name.
Next day we entered the mouth of the Puyallup River. We had not
proceeded far up this stream before we were interrupted by a solid drift
of monster trees and logs, extending from bank to bank up the river for
a quarter of a mile or more. The Indians told us that there were two
other like obstructions a few miles farther up the river, and that the
current was very strong.
We secured the services of an Indian and his canoe to help us up the
river, and left our boat at the Indians' camp near the mouth. It took a
tugging of two days to go six miles. We had to unload our outfit three
times to pack it over cut-off trails, and drag our canoe around the
drifts. It was a story of constant toil with consequent discouragement,
not ending until we camped on the bank of the river within the present
limits of the thriving little city of Puyallup.
The Puyallup valley at that time was a solitude. No white settlers were
found, though it was known that two men had staked claims and had made
some slight improvements. An Indian trail led up the river from
Commencement Bay, and another led westward to the Nisqually plains. Over
these pack animals could pass, but wagon roads there were none; and
whether a feasible route for one could be found, only time and labor
could determine.
We retraced our steps, and in the evening landed again at the mouth of
the river after a severe day's toil. We were in no cheerful mood. Oliver
did not sing as usual while preparing for camp. Neither did I have much
to say; but I fell to work, mechanically preparing the much-needed meal.
We ate in silence and then went to sleep.