TRADITION OF A GREAT INDIAN BATTLE
The Puget Sound Indians have a tradition of a great battle in which the
Quillayutes were almost annihilated:
[Illustration: COPPER AND IRON DAGGERS, MOOSE HIDE SHEATH-SOUND INDIANS]
For many years in the early days of the country, as early as 1869,
residents of what is now Jefferson county were puzzled over the vast
number of human bones, principally skulls, that lay scattered about the
beach not far from the military post that had been established at Port
Townsend. That a great Indian battle had been fought and great slaughter
made by the defeated, was plain but where and by whom was a mystery. The
Indians then resident near the post were mysterious and non-committal on
the subject and their chiefs smoked and were mute. The noted paper chief,
Duke of York, though the heydey of his power was gone, was still an
important personage among the Indians and settlers and from him Mr. J. A.
Kuhn, then residing at Port Townsend, decided to obtain the information
so much desired. Strategy alone could succeed; mild persuasion had been
tried often and by various ones. The great chief of the Clallam tribe
persistently refused to tell and insisted vehemously that he could not
account for the presence of the human relics. However, Mr. Kuhn one day
induced the old chief to accompany him to an island in the Sound to
search for shells, leaving the chief’s two wives, Jenny and Queen, who
were always his traveling companions, at home. While there, Mr. Kuhn
after all endeavors to get the Indian to divulge the story of the battle
had failed, told the chief to call at his home on a certain day and he
would show him a sign from heaven and prove to the Indians that he was
no ordinary being and that if the Duke did not tell him all he knew of
the massacre he would cause the chief and his people great trouble. The
noble old Indian with a large retinue of followers was on hand at Mr.
Kuhn’s house on the day appointed. Mr. Kuhn’s trick was the old one of
bringing on the darkness, and the untutored and savage mind was to be
awed by an eclipse. The white man’s power of foretelling being ascribed
to the supernatural and a direct connection with the spirits that control
all things on the earth and in the sky. It was known to Mr. Kuhn that on
the day set for the appearance at his house of the old Indian there would
be an eclipse of the sun sufficient in importance to overawe the mind of
the chief and compel him to tell the story from fear. When the eclipse
occurred the old chief readily complied and told the story of a great
massacre of the people of the Quillayute tribe whose possessions extended
along the Pacific ocean south of Cape Flattery and joining on the straits
that of the Clallam tribe over which the old Duke reigned on the east.
[Illustration: TWANA WAR CLUBS]
The Clallams claimed all the shore of the country extending from Pysht on
the straits of Fuca to Hood’s canal. The Quillayutes had invaded part of
the ground claimed by the old Indian and his tribe. They hunted in their
woods, fished for their salmon and dug their clams without permission.
Hatred for them soon caused the Duke of York to plot their extermination.
The Clallam tribe not being strong enough of themselves to make war upon
the invaders, the crafty old chief sent emissaries to the Skagit tribe
to induce them to enter with him upon a war. The mission was successful
and a number of their allies prepared to commence the slaughter of the
unsuspecting enemy. The Quillayutes at the time were encamped upon the
beach fishing and merry-making all unconscious of the terrible fate
so soon to overtake them. They were there with all their ictas, their
papooses scampering about the white sands, or scudding through the woods
in the rear while the death-dealing Duke of York was planning their
destruction. The Skagit Indians brought on the attack by appearing in
front of the peaceful Quillayute camp in canoes, yelling and hooting to
attract the attention of the enemy and bring them all out and down to
the beach. The old Duke of York and his warriors, who were hidden in the
woods in the rear, rushed out of their hiding places and the slaughter
began. The Skagit warriors landed and the battle was soon raging
fiercely. The attacking parties were too strong and the Quillayutes were
soon at their mercy. The battle lasted but a short time and soon there
was not a Quillayute brave left. There is nothing to mark the site of the
great slaughter at this day save a few ghastly skulls whose wide eyeless
sockets stare up at the passerby from their bed of gravel on the beach.
Picnics are now held on the old battle ground and it sometimes happens
while some young lady and her lover stroll about the shaded paths, or
seated on some mystic seat their tete-a-tete is interrupted by a sudden
view of one of these mementoes of the once numerous tribe of Quillayutes.
[Illustration: A QUINIAULT HUT]
Another account which seems to cover much the same similar occurrence at
the same place gives it that the tribe of the Duke of York were massacred
with the exception of a very few. This took place, so it is related, when
the old Duke was a small Indian about 14 years of age. The assailants
were Sitkas, T’Klinkit or some other band of Alaska Indians who came by
the way of Oak bay, near Ludlow, across the spit to the present site of
Hadlock, caught the Clallams asleep and killed some 600 of them. It is
claimed that the remains are still discoverable at that point. As the
Duke was about 80 when he died some years ago, this must have taken place
between 1820 and 1825.
The first raid affecting the white population of the Sound was when a
crowd of T’Klinkits (or in this case probably some more southerly tribe)
came to Whidby island in 1855 and murdered Colonel Ebey, then collector
of customs for the Puget Sound district. They not only murdered him, but
beheaded him. Several of his posterity are now living and can give full
facts in this case.