TRIP THROUGH THE NATCHESS PASS—[CONTINUED.]
People now traversing what is popularly known as Nisqually Plains, that
is, the stretch of open prairie, interspersed with clumps of timber,
sparkling lakes, and glade lands, from the heavy timber bordering the
Puyallup to a like border of the Nisqually, will hardly realize that
once upon a time these bare gravelly prairies supplied a rich grass
of exceeding fattening quality and of sufficient quantity to support
many thousand head of stock, and not only support but fatten them ready
for the butcher's stall. Nearly half a million acres of this land lie
between the two rivers, from two to four hundred feet above tide level
and beds of the rivers mentioned, undulating and in benches, an ideal
part of shade and open land of rivulets and lakes, of natural roads and
natural scenery of splendor.
So, when our little train emerged from the forests skirting the
Puyallup Valley, and came out on the open at Montgomery's, afterwards
Camp Montgomery, of Indian war times, twelve miles southeasterly of
Fort Steilacoom, the experience was almost as if one had come into a
noonday sun from a dungeon prison, so marked was the contrast. Hundreds
of cattle, sheep and horses were quietly grazing, scattered over the
landscape, so far as one could see, fat and content. It is not to be
wondered that the spirits of the tired party should rise as they saw
this scene of content before them, and thought they could become
participants with those who had come before them, and that for the
moment rest was theirs if that was what they might choose.
Fort Nisqually was about ten miles southwesterly from our camp at
Montgomery's, built, as mentioned elsewhere, by the Hudson Bay Company,
in 1833.
In 1840-41, this company's holdings at Nisqually and Cowlitz were
transferred to the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. This latter
company was organized in London at the instance of Dr. William F.
Tolmie, who visited that city to conduct the negotiations in person
with the directors of the Hudson Bay Company. He returned clothed with
the power to conduct the affairs of the new company, but under the
direction of the Hudson Bay Company, and with the restriction not to
enter into or interfere with the fur trade; he later became the active
agent of both companies at Nisqually.
It was principally the stock of this company that we saw from our camp
and nearby points. At that time, the Agricultural Company had several
farms on these plains, considerable pasture land enclosed, and fourteen
thousand head of stock running at large; sheep cattle and horses.
The United States government actually paid rent to this foreign company
for many years for the site where Fort Steilacoom was located on
account of the shadowy title of the company under the treaty of 1846.
During this lapse of time, from 1833 to the time our camp was
established, many of the company's servants' time had expired and
in almost every case, such had taken to themselves Indian wives and
had squatted on the choice locations for grazing or small farming.
Montgomery himself, near whose premises we were camping, was one of
these. A few miles to the south of this place, ran the small creek
"Muck," on the surface for several miles to empty into the Nisqually.
Along this little creek, others of these discharged servants had
settled, and all taken Indian wives. These were the settlers that
were afterwards denounced by Governor Stevens, and finally arrested
for alleged treason. Each of these had an abundance of stock and
farm produce, and was living in affluence and comfort. One of them,
reputed to be the rightful owner of thirteen cows, one summer raised
thirty-three calves, the handy lasso rope having been brought into play
among the company's herds in secluded places; yet, as the rule, these
people were honorable, upright men, though as a class, not of high
intelligence, or of sober habits.
Added to this class just mentioned, was another; the discharged United
States soldiers. The men then comprising the United States army were
far lower in moral worth and character than now. Many of these men had
also taken Indian wives and settled where they had chosen to select.
Added to these were a goodly number of the previous years' immigrants.
By this recital the reader will be apprised of the motley mess our
little party were destined to settle among, unless they should chose to
go to other parts of the Territory. I did not myself fully realize the
complications to be met until later years.
All this while, as we have said, settlers were crowding into this
district, taking up donation claims until that act expired by
limitation in 1854, and afterward by squatter's rights, which to all
appearances, seemed as good as any. My own donation claim afterwards
was involved in this controversy, in common with many others. Although
our proofs of settlement were made and all requirements of the law
complied with, nevertheless, our patents were held up and our title
questioned for twenty years, and so, after having made the trip across
the Plains, because Uncle Sam had promised to give us all a farm, and
after having made the required improvements and resided on the land for
the four years, then to be crowded off without title did seem a little
rough on the pioneers.
I have before me one of the notices served upon the settlers by the
company's agent which tells the whole story.[8] The then thriving town
of Steilacoom was involved, as likewise part of the lands set apart for
the Indian Reservation, and it did seem as though it would be hard to
get a more thorough mix-up as to titles of the land, than these knotty
questions presented.
All this while, as was natural there should be, there was constant
friction between some settler and the company, and had it not been
for the superior tact of such a man as Dr. Tolmie in charge of the
company's affairs, there would have been serious trouble.
As it was, there finally came a show of arms when the company undertook
to survey the boundary line to inclose the land claimed, although the
acreage was much less than claimed on paper. But the settlers, (or
some of them), rebelled, and six of them went armed to the party of
surveyors at work and finally stopped them. An old-time friend, John
McLeod, was one of the party (mob, the company called it), but the
records do not show whether he read his chapter in the Bible that day,
or whether instead, he took a double portion of whiskey to relieve his
conscience.
It is doubtful whether the old man thought he was doing wrong or
thought anything about it, except that he had a belief that somehow or
other a survey might make against him getting a title to his own claim.
I had a similar experience at a later date with the Indians near the
Muckleshute Reservation, while attempting to extend the sub-divisional
lines of the township near where the reserve was located. I could not
convince the Indians that the survey meant no harm to them.
The case was different in the first instance, as in fact, neither party
was acting within the limits of their legal rights, and for the time
being, the strongest and most belligerent prevailed, but only to be
circumvented at a little later date by a secret completion of the work,
sufficient to platting the whole.
All this while the little party was halting. The father said the island
home would not do, and as he had come two thousand miles to live
neighbors, I must give up my claim and take another near theirs, and
so, abandoning over a year's hard work, I acted upon his request with
the result told elsewhere, of fleeing from our new chosen home, as we
supposed, to save our lives, upon the outbreak of the Indian War in two
years from the time of the camp mentioned.
One can readily see that these surroundings did not promise that
compact, staid settlement of energetic, wide awake pioneers we so
coveted, nevertheless, the promise of money returns was good, and that
served to allay any discontent that would otherwise arise. I remember
the third year we began selling eighteen months' old steers at fifty
dollars each, off the range that had never been fed a morsel. Our
butter sold for fifty cents a pound, and at times, seventy-five cents,
and many other things at like prices. No wonder all hands soon became
contented; did not have time to be otherwise.
It came about though, that we were in considerable part a community
within ourselves, yet, there were many excellent people in the widely
scattered settlements. The conditions to some extent encouraged
lawlessness, and within the class already mentioned, a good deal of
drunkenness and what one might well designate as loose morals, incident
to the surroundings. A case in point:
A true, though one might say a humorous story is told on Doctor Tolmie,
or one of his men, of visiting a settler where they knew one of their
beeves had been slaughtered and appropriated. To get direct evidence he
put himself in the way of an invitation to dinner, where, sure enough,
the fresh, fat beef was smoking on the table. The good old pioneer (I
knew him well) asked a good, old-fashioned Methodist blessing over the
meat, giving thanks for the bountiful supply of the many good things of
the world vouchsafed to him and his neighbors, and thereupon in true
pioneer hospitality, cut a generous sized piece of the roast for his
guest, the real owner of the meat.
This incident occurred just as here related, and although the facts
are as stated, yet we must not be too ready to scoff at our religious
friend and condemn him without a hearing. To me, it would have been
just as direct thieving as any act could have been, and yet, to our
sanctified friend I think it was not, and upon which thereby hangs a
tale.
Many of the settlers looked upon the company as interlopers, pure
and simple, without any rights they were bound to respect. There had
been large numbers of cattle and sheep run on the range and had eaten
the feed down, which they thought was robbing them of their right of
eminent domain for the land they claimed the government had promised to
give them.
The cattle became very wild, in great part on account of the settlers'
actions, but the curious part was they afterwards justified themselves
from the fact that they were wild, and so it happened there came very
near being claim of common property of the company's stock, with not a
few of the settlers.
One lawless act is almost sure to breed another, and there was no
exception to the rule in this strange community, and many is the
settler that can remember the disappearance of stock which could be
accounted for in but one way—gone with the company's herd. In a few
years, though, all this disappeared. The incoming immigrants from
across the plains were a sturdy set as a class, and soon frowned down
such a loose code of morals.
For the moment let us turn to the little camp on the edge of the
prairie, of seven wagons and three tents. There came a time it must
be broken up. No more camp fires, with the fragrant coffee morning
and evening; no more smoking the pipe together over jests, or serious
talk; no more tucks in the dresses of the ladies, compelled first by
the exigencies of daily travel and now to be parted with under the
inexorable law of custom or fashion; no more lumps of butter at night,
churned during the day by the movement of wagon and the can containing
the morning's milk. We must hie us off to prepare shelter from the
coming storms of winter; to the care of the stock; the preparations for
planting; to the beginning of a new life of independence.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] ORIGINAL WARNING TO THOMAS HADLEY.
We hereby certify that a correct copy of the within notice was
presented to T. Hadley by Mr. Wm. Greig this 6th day of April, 1857.
WILLIAM GREIG.
ALFRED MCNEILL.
AMBROSE SKINNER.
Nisqually, W. T., 12th March, 1857.
To Mr. Thomas Hadley.—Sir: I hereby warn you that, in cultivating land
and making other improvements on your present location in or near
the Talentire precinct, Pierce County, Washington Territory, you are
trespassing on the lands confirmed to the Puget's Sound Agricultural
Company by the Boundary Treaty, ratified in July, 1846, between Great
Britain and the United States of America. Very Respectfully,
Your Obed't Servt.,
W. F. TOLMIE,
Agent Puget's Sound Agricultural Company.