CRUISE ON PUGET SOUND.
"Keep to the right, as the law directs," is an old western adage that
governs travelers on the road, but we kept to the right because we
wanted to follow the shore as we thought it safer, and besides, why
not go that way as well as any other,—it was all new to us. So, on
the second morning, as we rounded Johnson's Point and saw no channel
opening in any direction; saw only water in the foreground and timber
beyond, we concluded to skirt the coast line and see what the day
would bring forth. This led us a southeasterly course and in part
doubling back with that traveled the previous day, and past what
became the historical grounds of the Medicine Creek Treaty Council,
or, rather leaving this two miles to our right as the Nisqually flats
were encountered. Here we were crowded to a northerly course, leaving
the Nisqually House on the beach to the east without stopping for
investigation.
According to Finlayson's journal, as I afterwards ascertained, this had
been built twenty-three years before. At least, some house had been
built on this spot at that time (1829 or 1830), though the fort by that
name one-fourth mile back from the water was not constructed until the
summer of 1833, just twenty years previous to our visit.
This fort mentioned must not be confounded with the Nisqually fort
built some three years later (1836) a mile farther east and convenient
to the waters of Segwalitchew Creek, which there runs near the surface
of the surrounding country. All remains of the old fort have long since
vanished, but the nearly filled trenches where the stockade timbers
stood can yet be traced, showing that a space 250 feet square had been
enclosed. Another visible sign was an apple tree yet alive near the
spot, grown from seed planted in 1833, but now, when I visited the
place in June, 1903, overshadowed by a lusty fir that is sapping the
life of the only living, though mute, witness (except it may be the
Indian, Steilacoom) we have of those early days, when the first fort
was built by the intrepid employes of the Hudson Bay Company.
An interesting feature of the intervening space between the old and
the newer fort is the dense growth of fir timber averaging nearly two
feet in diameter and in some cases fully three, and over a hundred feet
high on what was prairie when the early fort builders began work. The
land upon which this timber is growing still shows unmistakable signs
of the furrow marks that can be traced through the forest. Verily, this
is a most wonderful country where forest product will grow, if properly
protected, more rapidly than the hand of man will destroy.
As the tide and wind favored us we did not stop, but had not proceeded
far before we came in sight of a fleet of seven vessels lying at anchor
in a large bay of several miles in extent.
Upon the eastern slope of the shores of this bay lay the two towns,
Port Steilacoom, established January 23d, 1851, by Captain Lafayette
Balch, and Steilacoom City, upon an adjoining land claim taken by John
B. Chapman, August 23d, of same year and later held by his son, John
M. Chapman. These two rival towns were built as far apart as possible
on the frontage lands of the claim owners (about one mile apart) and
became known locally as Upper and Lower Steilacoom, the latter name
being applied to Balch's town.
We found the stocks of goods carried by the merchants of these two
towns exceeded those held by the Olympia merchants, and that at Fort
Nisqually, six miles distant, the merchandise carried by the Puget
Sound Agricultural Company would probably equal that of all three
of the towns combined, possibly, in the aggregate, over one hundred
thousand dollars for the whole district under review.
Evidently a far larger trade centered on Steilacoom Bay and vicinity
than at any other point we had seen and, as we found afterwards, than
any other point on Puget Sound. Naturally we would here call a halt
to examine the country and to make ourselves acquainted with the
surroundings that made this early center of trade.
One mile and a half back from the shore and east of lower Steilacoom
we found what was by courtesy called Fort Steilacoom but which was
simply a camp of a company of United States soldiers in wooden shells
of houses and log cabins. This camp or fort had been established by
Captain Bennett H. Hill with Company M, 1st Artillery, August 27th,
1849, following the attempted robbery of Fort Nisqually the previous
May by Pat Kanim and his followers, the Snoqualmie Indians.
Dr. Tolmie, Chief Factor of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company at
Fort Nisqually, quickly seized the opportunity to demand rent from the
United States for the occupancy of the site of Fort Steilacoom, of six
hundred dollars a year, and actually received it for fifteen years and
until the final award was made extinguishing the claims of his company.
We found the plains alive with this company's stock (many thousand
head) running at large and fattened upon the scant but nutritious grass
growing upon the adjacent prairie and glade lands.
Balch and Webber were doing a thriving trade in their store at the
little town of Steilacoom, besides their shipping trade of piles and
square timber, shingles, lumber, cord wood, hides, furs, fish, and
other odds and ends. Just across the street from their store stood
the main hotel of the place with the unique history of being the only
building erected on Puget Sound from lumber shipped from the eastern
seaboard. Captain Balch brought the building with him from Maine, ready
to set up. At the upper town Philip Keach was merchandising while Abner
Martin kept a hotel. Intense rivalry ran between the two towns in the
early days when we were at Steilacoom.
Thomas M. Chambers, father of the prominent members of the Olympia
community of that name, had built a saw-mill on Steilacoom creek, two
miles from the town, and a grist mill where farmers oftentimes came
with pebbles in their wheat to dull the burrs.
We are wont now to speak of this place as "poor old Steilacoom,"
with its tumbled-down houses, rotting sidewalks and decayed wharves;
the last vestige of the latter of which has disappeared; but then
everything was new, with an air of business bustle that made one feel
here was a center of trade. 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 as were quietly lying at anchor
in front of the embryo city. Curiously enough, here was the very
identical vessel we had first seen on the Willamette River, the bark
"Mary Melville," with her gruff mate and big hearted master, Capt.
Barston, with whom the reader has been made acquainted in a previous
chapter. I took no special note of the names of these vessels other
than this one, but from the columns of the Columbian I am able to glean
the names of twenty-two vessels, brigs, barks, and schooners, then
plying between Puget Sound and San Francisco, which are as follows:
Brig Cyclops, Perkins; Bark Delegate, ——; Brig Tarquina, ——; Bark John
Adams, McKelmer; Brig G. W. Kendall, Gove; Brig Merchantman, Bolton;
Brig Kingsbury, Cook; Schooner Cynosure, Fowler; Brig George Emery,
Diggs; Bark Mary Melville, Barston; Bark Brontes, Blinn; Bark Sarah
Warren, Gove; Ship Persia, Brown; Brig I. C. Cabot, Dryden; Brig Jane,
Willett; Ship Rowena, ——; Brig Willingsly, Gibbs; Brig Mary Dare,
Mowatt; Brig John Davis, Pray; Bark Carib, Plummer; Brig Leonesa,
Howard, and Schooner Franklin, Leary. There were probably more, but I
do not recall them, but these were enough to keep every man busy that
could swing an axe, drag a saw or handle that instrument of torture,
the goad stick, and who was willing to work.
All this activity came from the shipment of piles, square timbers,
cordwood, shingles, with small quantities of lumber—all that was
obtainable, which was not very much, to the San Francisco market. The
descent of timber on the roll-ways sounded like distant thunder, and
could be heard almost all hours of the day, even where no camps were in
sight, but lay hidden up some secluded bay or inlet.
We were sorely tempted to accept the flattering offer of $4.00 each day
for common labor in a timber camp, but soon concluded not to be swerved
from the course we had outlined.
It was here, and I think at this time, I saw the Indian "Steilacoom,"
who still lives. I saw him recently at his camp in the Nisqually
bottom, and judge he is bordering on ninety years. Steilacoom helped
to build old Fort Nisqually in 1833, and was a married man at that
time. People called him chief because he happened to bear the name
adopted for the town and creek, but he was not a man of much force of
character and not much of a chief. I think this is a remarkable case
of longevity for an Indian. As a race, they are short lived. It was
here, and during this visit, we began seeing Indians in considerable
numbers. Off the mouth of the Nisqually and several places along the
beach and floating on the bay we saw several hundred in the aggregate
of all ages and kind. There seemed to be a perfect abandon as to
care or thought for the future, or even as to the immediate present,
literally floating with the tide. In those days, the Indians seemed to
work or play by spurts and spells. Here and there that day a family
might be seen industriously pursuing some object, but as a class there
seemed to be but little life in them, and we concluded they were the
laziest set on earth. I afterwards materially modified that opinion,
as I became better acquainted with their habits, for I have found just
as industrious Indians, both men and women, and as reliable workers,
as among the whites, though this class, it may be said, is exceptional
with the men. The women are all industrious.
Shall we camp here and spy out the land, or shall we go forward and see
what lay before us? Here were the ideals, that had enticed us so far
from our old home, where "ships went down into the sea," with the trade
of the whole world before us. We waxed eloquent, catching inspiration
from people of the town. After a second sober thought we found we had
nothing to trade but labor, and we had not come this far to be laborers
for hire. We had come to look up a place to make a farm and a farm we
were going to have. We, therefore, set about searching for claims, and
the more we searched the less we liked the looks of things.
The gravelly plains near Steilacoom would not do: neither the heavy fir
timber lands skirting the waters of the Sound, and we were nonplused
and almost ready to condemn the country. 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. The senior soon dropped into a
comfortable afternoon nap, leaving me in full command. As the sun shone
nice and warm and the tide was taking us rapidly in the direction we
wanted to go, why not join, even if we did lose the sight seeing for
which the journey was made.
I was shortly after aroused by the senior exclaiming, "What is that?"
and then answering half to himself and half to me, "Why, as I live,
it's a deer swimming way out here in the bay." Answering, half asleep
and half awake, that that could not be, the senior said: "Well, that's
what it is." We gave chase and soon succeeded in getting a rope over
its horns. We had by this time drifted into the Narrows, and soon found
that we had something more important to look after than towing a deer
among the tide-rips of the Sound, and turning him loose pulled for dear
life for the shore, and found shelter in an eddy. A perpendicular bluff
rose from the high water mark, leaving no place for a 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 real genuine, live tide-rip, that seemed
to harry the waters as if boiling in a veritable caldron, swelling up
here and there in centers to whirl in dizzy velocity and at times break
into a foam, and, where a light breeze prevailed, into spray. Then in
some areas it would seem the waters in solid volume would leap up in
conical, or pointed shape—small waves broken into short sections, that
would make it quite difficult for a flat bottom boat like our little
skiff to float very long. We congratulated ourselves upon the escape,
while belittling our careless imitation of the natives of floating with
the tide. Just then some Indian canoes passed 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 here came two well manned canoes creeping
along shore against the tide. I have said well-manned, but in fact,
half the paddles were wielded by women, and the post of honor, or that
where most dexterity was required, was occupied by a woman. In shore,
short eddies would favor the party, to be ended by a severe tug against
the stiff current.
"Me-si-ka-kwass kopa s'kookum chuck," said the maiden in the bow of the
first canoe, as it drew along side our boat, in which we were sitting.
Since our evening's experience at the clam bake camp, we had been
industriously studying language, and pretty well mastered the Chinook,
and so we with little difficulty understood her to ask if we were
afraid of the rough waters, to which we responded, part in English and
part in Chinook, that we were, and besides that it was impossible for
us to proceed against the strong current.
"Ne-si-ka mit-lite," that is to say, she said they were going to camp
with us and wait for the turn of the tide, and accordingly landed near
by, and so we must wait for the remainder of this story in chapters to
follow.