He will always be known by this name, probably, though on the church
roll his name is written as William House Cook. He is a Clallam Indian,
of Jamestown. His early life was wild and dissipated, he being, like all
the rest of his tribe, addicted to drunkenness. At one time, when he was
living at Port Discovery, he became quite drunk. He was on the opposite
side of the bay from the mill, and, wishing for more whiskey, he started
across in a canoe for it; but he was so drunk that he had not gone far
before he upset his canoe, and had it not been for his wife, who was on
shore and went to his rescue, he would have been drowned.
In his early life he mingled much with the whites. He lived with a good
white family some of the time; worked in a cook-house at a saw-mill for
a time, where he gained his name; and once went to San Francisco in a
ship. Thus he learned to speak English quite well, and he knew more
about civilized ways, and even of religion, than any of the older
Indians at Jamestown. He entered willingly into the plan to buy land,
and soon after the people there first began to hold some kind of
services on the Sabbath, they selected him as the one to pray, hardly
because he was better than all the rest, though he was better than all
with two or three exceptions, but because he had been more with the
whites, and knew better how to pray. Soon after this, and long before he
joined the church, a report, which was probably true, was in circulation
that he had once or twice secretly drank some. Thereupon the chief took
him and talked strongly to him about it. The chief did not wish him to
be minister to his people if he was likely to do in that way, and at
last asked him if he thought he had a strong enough mind to be a
Christian for one year. The reply was, Yes. Then the questions were
successively asked if he was strong enough to last two years, five
years, ten years, all his life, and when he said Yes, he was allowed to
resume his duties as leader of religion.
After this he remained so consistent that he was one of the first two in
Jamestown to unite with the church, in December, 1878, when he was
supposed to be about thirty-three years old. The road supervisor in his
district sent his receipt for road taxes to him one year, addressing it
to Rev. Cook House Billy.
When the church was organized at Jamestown in 1882, he was unanimously
elected as deacon, and he has ever since filled that position.
Once, five or six years ago, when in Seattle, he was asked by a Catholic
Indian of his own tribe, belonging to Port Gamble, to drink some
whiskey, but he declined. When urged time and again to do so he still
refused, giving as his excuse that he belonged to the church. “So do I,”
said his tempter “but we drink, and then we can easily get the priest to
pardon us by paying him a little money.” “That is not the way we do in
our church,” said Billy.
But afterward, two years ago, he was very strongly tempted, and yielded,
while at Seattle. It was known, and soon after his return home he made
his acknowledgement to the church. On my next visit to them in the fall
he was reprimanded, and suspended as deacon for five weeks. He often
spoke of this fall of his, and seemed to be very sincere in his
repentance. In 1883, just before he and nearly all the Indians of his
village were going to Seattle again, either to fish or on their way to
pick hops, he sent me a letter in which was written: “One day I was
talking in meeting to them and said I hoped they would none of them
follow my example last summer about drinking, for I had never got over
it. I feel ashamed and feel bad every time I think about it, and hoped
none of them would have occasion to feel as I did.”
He is of a bright, sunny disposition, always cheerful, and has done more
for school and church than any of the rest of his tribe, unless it may
be the head chief, Balch. Sometimes he has boarded three children free
of cost, so that they might go to school, whose parents, if alive, lived
far away.
In 1881 two of his children died, a fact of which the opponents of
religion made use against Christianity, and he was severely tried, but
he stood firm. In 1883, with two others, he went to Clallam Bay with me
to preach the gospel to those Indians, the first actual missionary work
done by either Indian church. When he left his wife was sick but, as he
had promised to go, she would not keep him back, and he was willing to
trust her with God. When we returned she was well.
His wife is a true helpmeet to him. She did not join the church for a
year and a half after he did; but he afterward said that she was really
ahead of him, and urged him to begin and to stand fast. When I examined
her for reception into the church, I noticed one expression of hers
which I shall always remember. In speaking of her sorrow for her sins,
she said that her “heart cried” about them. An expression was in use,
which I also often used, that our hearts should be sick because of our
sins; but I had never used her expression, which was deeper. She is the
foremost among the women to take part in meeting, often beseeching them
with tears to turn into the Christian path.