THE HISTORY OF A HISTORY.
Before giving an account of the adventure incident to marking the
Oregon Trail given in detail in chapters to follow in this volume, I
will write of one more adventure following my return from the Klondike;
that is, of my writing a book. The simple act of writing a book was
in no sense either a venture or an adventure, though it took me over
three years to do it. But when I undertook to have it printed (an
afterthought), then a real venture confronted me. No local works so far
had paid printers' bills and I was admonished by friends that a loss
would undoubtedly occur if I printed the work. But their fears were not
well founded, the work was printed,[20] the sales were made and the
printer paid.
Four years ago today I arrived at the ripe age of three score years and
ten, supposed to be the limit of life. Finding that I possessed more
ambition than strength, and that my disposition for a strenuous life
was greater than my power of physical endurance, I naturally turned
to other fields of work, that condition of life so necessary for the
welfare and happiness of the human race.
Many years before it had been my ambition to write our earlier
experiences of pioneer life on Puget Sound, and not necessarily for the
printer, but because I wanted to, but never could find time; and so
when the change came and my usual occupation was gone, what else would
I be more likely to do than to turn to my long delayed work, the more
particularly being admonished that it must be done soon or not at all.
And so, in a cheerful, happy mood, I entered again into the domain of
pioneer life, and began writing. But this is not history, you will say.
True, but we will come to that by and by.
I had, during the summer of 1853, with an inexperienced companion, in
an open boat—a frail skiff built with our own hands—crossed the path
of Theodore Winthrop, spending more than a month on a cruise from
Olympia to the Straits and return, while that adventurous traveler
and delightful writer had with a crew of Indians made the trip from
Port Townsend to Fort Nisqually in a canoe. I had followed Winthrop a
year later through the Natchess Pass to the Columbia River and beyond,
alone, except a companion pony that carried my sack of hard bread for
food, the saddle blanket for my bed and myself across the turbulent
rivers, and on easy grades. If Winthrop could write such a beautiful
book, "The Canoe and the Saddle," based upon such a trip, with Indians
to paddle his canoe on the Sound, and with an attendant and three
horses through the mountains, why should not my own experience of such
a trip be interesting to my own children and their children's children?
And so I wrote these trips.
Did you ever, when hungry, taste of a dish of fruit, a luscious,
ripe, highly flavored apple for instance, that seemed only to whet
but not satisfy your appetite? I know you have, and so can appreciate
my feelings when these stories were written. I craved more of pioneer
life experience, and so I went back to the earlier scenes, a little
earlier only—to the trip in a flat boat down the Columbia. River from
The Dalles to the first cabin, where Kalama town now stands; to the
pack on our backs from the Columbia to the Sound; to the three times
passing the road to and fro to get the wife and baby to tidewater—what
a charm that word tidewater had for me with a vision of the greatness
of opportunities of the seaboard—and I may say it has never lost its
charm—of the great world opened up before me, and so we were soon again
housed in the little cabin with its puncheon floor, "cat-and-clay"
chimney, and clapboard roof; its surroundings of scenery; of
magnificent forests and of constantly moving life, the Indians with
their happy song and fishing parties.
All this and more, too, I wrote, every now and then getting over to
the Indian question. How could I help it? We had been treated civilly,
and I may say, kindly, by them from the very outset, when we, almost
alone, were their white neighbors. I had been treated generously
by some, and had always found them ready to reciprocate in acts of
kindness, and so we had come to respect our untutored neighbors and to
sympathize with them in their troubles. Deep troubles came to them when
the treaty-making period arrived, and a little later upon all of us,
when war came, to break up all our plans and amicable relations. As I
began to write more about the Indians and their ways, a step further
brought me to the consideration of our Territorial government and the
government officials and their acts. It gradually dawned upon me this
was a more important work than writing of humble individuals; that the
history of our commonwealth was by far a more interesting theme, and
more profitable to the generations to follow than recording of private
achievements of the pioneer. It was but a step further until I realized
that I was fairly launched upon the domain of history, and that I must
need be more painstaking and more certain of my facts, and so then came
a long rest for my pen and a long search of the records, of old musty
letters, of no less old musty books, of forgetful minds of the pioneers
left, and again I was carried away into the almost forgotten past.
An authoress once told me that she never named her book until after
it was written. I could not then understand why, but I now do. While
writing of pioneer life I could think of no other title than something
like this: "Pioneer Life on Puget Sound Fifty Years Ago," a pretty long
title, but that was what the writing treated of. But when I got on the
Indian question and came to realize what a splendid true story was
wrapped up in the darkness of impending oblivion; how the Indians had
been wronged; how they had fought for their homes and won them; how the
chief actors had been sacrificed, but the tribes had profited—I again
became enthusiastic over my theme and over my ready-made heroes, and
before I realized it, lo! a new name took possession of my mind and
rang in it until there was born the title, "The Tragedy of Leschi."
When I come to think of it, that here were tribes that had never shed
white men's blood until grim war came, and that then they refused to
make war on their old neighbors, and that but one non-combatant settler
had lost his life after the first day of frenzy of the Muckleshoot
band at the massacre of White River, that here were men we called
savages, fighting for a cause, but threw themselves on the track of the
military arm of the government and not against helpless settlers. I had
myself been in their power and remained unharmed. I knew other of my
neighbors also that had been exposed and remained unmolested; surely
to tell the truth about such people is no more than justice and I said
to myself, I will write it down and prove what I write by the records
and the best obtainable witnesses alive, and having done so, will
print it, two books in one, two titles, yet but one volume, "Pioneer
Reminiscences of Puget Sound; The Tragedy of Leschi."
It is natural that in the stirring times of early days opinions would
differ; that neighbors, and even members of families, would look upon
events from different points of view, and so out of this maze I have
tried to state exact facts and draw just conclusions. The chapter
of this history begins with the creation of the Territory and ends
with Governor Stevens' official life in the Territory in the period
concerned. During that period, treaties were made with the Indians,
the war with them was fought; massacres horrid to contemplate were
perpetrated by the Indians and whites—by the Indians at the outbreak,
and the whites later—murders were committed; martial law proclaimed,
our courts invaded with armed men, judges dragged from the bench; our
governor in turn brought before the courts, fined and reprieved by
himself, and many other happenings unique in history are related, and
so, when my labor was finished and my pen laid aside, my only regret
was that the work had not been undertaken earlier in life when memory
served more accurately, and my contemporaries were more numerous.
FOOTNOTE:
[20] Pioneer Reminiscences of Puget Sound, The Tragedy of Leschi.