The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1890-04-12
PUet1 SOUND INDIANS.
How Seattle's sCunning Saved Them
From Destruction.

How Seattle's sCunning Saved The1
From Destruction.
| The last man bearing the nam
of Seattle died few days ago at tn
Old Man House, near Port Madison
John Seattle was the last of oil
Seattle's sons, Angeline, the OLE
chiefs daughter, being now the only
surviving child. 1t has not beer
generally known how Seattle be-
came a chief. S. F. Coombs say.
that while calling on old Seattle al
the Old Man House he learned thu
following regarding that old gen
tleman's early history and why ht
had been chief.
1t seems long before any white
people had settled on Puget sound
and about the time the Hudson Bay
Company were establishing their
posts in the Northwest, the Indians
living on the Upper White river and
the mountain Indians had banded
together to make a fight on the
Puget sound tribes, or those known
as the Old Man House tribe. Word
reached them that force of those
mountain Indians were about to
start in canoes from Upper Green
and White rivers in such numbers
and so we'll armed, that if they
reached Duwamish, now Elliott bay,
the Old Man House tribe would be
wiped out. A council of the old
and wise ones gathered, and Seattle,
then a young man not over 20, vol
unteered and devised a plan to
check the enemy in reaching salt
water. All of the rude instruments
in the shape of axes were called for.
They left Elliott bay by canoes and
by trail, Seattle heading the expe-
dition.
A short distance above the mouth
of Black river, on White river, the
bluffs came SO close together that
fir trees chopped down on one side
would reach the bank on the oppo-
site side. 1t was at this point that
Seattle commenced telling trees. By
dark the trees were stretched across
the river and so arranged that
a canoe could not go under without
first upsetting. Seattle had his men
ambushed on either side, with their
rude implements of warfare, mostly
bows and arrows. Seattle did not
have to wait long after dark before
the mountain Indians came pad
ding down, and before those behind
could know what was the matter in
front some five or six large canoes
with over 100 warriors were strug-
Cling in the water, and many who
reached the shore were soon dis
patched by Seattle's Flatheads. The
remaining canoes that were checked
before getting under the obstruc-
ton were turned back, and the plot
to clean out the Puget sound clam
eaters was frustrated, and young
Seattle was declared chief of the
Old Man House tribe, which then
comprised all the Indians between
Alki point and above Skagit head
on Puget sound.
Old man Seattle never learned
the Chinook jargon. Always when
giving white people information he
had an interpreter. Old Seattle
must have been past 80 at his death.
Mr.. Coombs says that when he
arrived at Port Madison over thirty
years ago the big logs and posts
hey rested on at the Old Man House
we're a great wonder to all. The
ogs reaching across from one post
20 another must have been $50 feet
ong, and many of them three feet
It the butt and about one and a
1alf to two feet at the smaller end.
These logs no doubt were placed in
position without the aid of any
,ear, purchase or machinery. Old
nan Seattle could not inform US
IS to when they were first erected.
lie said the new cedar posts were
eplaced in the ground from time
O time as the old ones became de-
ayed.--Seattle Press.