FOURTH ANNUAL REUNION

OF THE

WASHINGTON PIONEER ASSOCIATION.

PORT TOWNSEND, June 2, 1887.

ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES G. SWAN.

Mr. President and Fellow Pioneers, Brothers and Sisters, and your Children: We have met on this, our fourth annual reunion, since the foundation of the Washington Pioneer Association, to review the past history of this Territory and to look forward with prophetic vision upon the future destiny of this great State of the Northwest, so fast unfolding into gigantic proportions.

At each of our previous reunions, the speakers have dwelt more markedly upon a recital of the incidents connected with the early pioneers who reached Oregon, and subsequently Washington Territory, by the tedious and terrible journey across the plains and mountains; a journey, nearly every mile of which was marked by the tablet indicating the grave of a loved one, or often by a portion of the bleached skeleton protruding from the soil. We read of the toils and hardships and sufferings of the Pilgrim Fathers who landed on Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts Bay, but their worst sufferings were but light when compared with the experience of those pilgrims who bravely combatted all danger and came out to this Pacific Coast and founded the three great States of California, Oregon and Washington.

But the whole of the history is not told until we speak of those who came by water as well as those who came by land; of those argonauts who came around Cape Horn or crossed the Isthmus of Panama or Nicaragua; of the Norsemen or Vikings of New England; the early fur

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But this field is so prolific and of such unbounded compass that I must
leave it to a pen more able and to a tongue more eloquent than mine.

A large majority of the leading actors in this pioneer drama have gone
to their long homes. When I compare the Territory of the present day
with what it was thirty years ago; when I consider our present pros-
perity, our freedom from danger, our towns and cities buoyant and bust-
ling with activity, hope and enjoyment; when I see the roads, the bridges,
the railroads already commencing to spread their network over the face
of the country, quickening into intensity the exchange of business and
the intercourse of men; when I see the intellectual and moral growth of
the community, its establishments, its institutions and its social actions,
all under the safe protection of the law, I feel a grief that so many of the
pioneers, the founders of our prosperity, could not have lived to see the
work of their hand and realize the fruition of their early hopes.

But the tale is not all told. Our destiny is not yet fulfilled. We are
only in the very infancy of our days; our resources are but a pittance;

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it, to be distributed among its members and preserved in its
archives, as in my judgment one of the most important steps
that could be taken towards carrying out the main purposes of
the organization. I still adhere to this view, but regret to say
that I cannot yet see the way clear to raise the necessary funds.

The following is a list, so far as I have been enabled to
obtain the same, of members of the Association who have died
since our last meeting.

Elliott Cline died at New Dungeness August 13, 1886.

William N. Horton died at Olympia March 7, 1887.

Mrs. Frances Shelton died at Shelton's Point April 15, 1887.

Mrs. Minda Munks died at Fidalgo March 5, 1887.

FRANCIS HENRY, Secretary.

At each of our previous reunions, the speakers have dwelt more
markedly upon a recital of the incidents connected with the early pio-
neers who reached Oregon, and subsequently Washington Territory, by
the tedious and terrible journey across the plains and mountains; a jour-
ney, nearly every mile of which was marked by the tablet indicating the
grave of a loved one, or often by a portion of the bleached skeleton pro-
truding from the soil. We read of the toils and hardships and sufferings
of the Pilgrim Fathers who landed on Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts
Bay, but their worst sufferings were but light when compared with the
experience of those pilgrims who bravely combatted all danger and came
out to this Pacific Coast and founded the three great States of California,
Oregon and Washington.

But the whole of the history is not told until we speak of those who
came by water as well as those who came by land; of those argonants
who came around Cape Horn or crossed the Isthmus of Panama or Nica-
raugua; of the Norsemen or Vikings of New England; the early fur

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embrace about 600 at the present time. Of these 211 are females and exempt from payment of dues. The number of members charged with dues upon the books of the Association is 330. Deducting from this the number of those who have died, leaves about 319 members subject to the payment of dues. The total receipts of the Association for the last year are as follows:

<table><tbody><tr><td>For admission fees</td><td style="text-align: right;">$ 81 00</td></tr><tr><td>Annual dues</td><td style="text-align: right;">108 00</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td style="text-align: right; border-top: 1px solid black;">$189 00</td></tr><tr><td>Disbursements for same time</td><td style="text-align: right;">$ 17 84</td></tr><tr><td>Secretary's salary</td><td style="text-align: right;">100 00</td></tr><tr><td>Deficit on salary last year</td><td style="text-align: right;">46 70</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td style="text-align: right; border-top: 1px solid black;">$164 54</td></tr><tr><td>This left a balance of $24 90.</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

Of the 330 members charged with annual dues, but 82 have paid up in full, and only this number, under our laws, are entitled to vote or serve on committees. Of the 242 delinquent members, 127 have never paid any dues whatever, and are in arrears to the amount of $3 and upwards each. Judging from my observation of such matters, but few of these will reinstate themselves by paying up in full. In dues for two years 27 are delinquent; 88 are in arrears for the dues of the past year. Most of the latter class will probably pay up before the next meeting.

The above statement, as I have already intimated, does not include members of the King County Pioneer Society, incorporated with ours, for reasons already stated.

It will be seen from this statement of its financial condition that, after payment of the Secretary's salary of $100 and the most necessary contingent expenses, printing and postage, there is now on hand the sum of $24.90. This will undoubtedly be considerably increased by payments of dues and admission fees at the present session.

In my last report I recommended the publication of a pamphlet containing the transactions of the Association, including all the addresses which have been delivered before

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traders from Boston, and the bold whalemen of New Bedford, Nantucket and other New England ports, who plowed the waters of the North Pacific a hundred years ago. But these pioneers were preceded by other pioneers, and of these I will make brief mention, as near as may be, in the order which history assigns to them.

The first who more particularly interests us is the old Greek pilot, Apostolos Valerianus, commonly called Juan de Fuca, "who in 1592 was sent by the Viceroy of Mexico to discover the Straits of Anian and the passage thereof into the sea which they called the North Sea, which is our Northwest Sea." This I quote from Greenhow's account of the statement of De Fuca's voyage by Michael Lock, of England, in 1596. As much doubt has obscured the credibility of this recital of De Fuca's voyage, which for a long time was considered apocryphal, I will quote from an article published in the *United Service Magazine*, Vol. V, December, 1881, by Commodore Phelps, U. S. N.:

> "De Fuca says that between forty-seven and forty-eight degrees of latitude he found a broad inlet of sea into which he entered, sailing therein more than twenty days, and found that land trending still sometime northwest and northeast and north, and also east and southeastward, and a very much broader sea than was at the said entrance, (the east and southeastern trend is Puget Sound, and the broader sea is the Gulf of Georgia) and that he passed by divers islands in that sailing, and that at the entrance of this said strait there is on the northwest coast thereof a great headland or island with an exceeding high pinnacle or spired rock, like a pillar thereupon." Commodore Phelps says: "By this brief history it appears that Juan de Fuca in twenty days sailed from the Pacific through the straits bearing his name; then by Canal de Haro, through the Gulf of Georgia and Johnson Strait, and finally reached the ocean by the Goletas Channel, when, supposing he had arrived in the Atlantic through the long sought-for passage, and being satisfied with his discovery, he retraced his steps, and during a period of one hundred and ninety-seven years rested under the imputation of having coined the story of his discovery out of his own fertile brain; and it was as late as 1789 before his veracity became established in the rediscovery of the straits by Capt. Kendrick in the American sloop Washington, who passed through the waters named into Queen Charlotte Sound. To the present day doubts exist in the minds of some writers regarding De Fuca's credibility, and much adverse criticism has been indulged in, consequent upon the obscure wording of the paragraph quoted which refers to the great headland or island and the high spired rock like a pillar which has been usually applied to the western entrance of the straits, and the locality is naturally ascribed to a position on the northwest side near Bonilla Point, Vancouver Island, where, to all observers, no such pillar or headland ever existed. All doubt on this subject is at once removed by applying the paragraph in question to the western entrance of Johnson's Strait, or

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rather the Goletas Channel at the northwest end of Galiano Island, a remarkable promontory twelve hundred feet high, we find a solution of the difficulty; and that *at the entrance of said strait*, calling the various bodies of water separating Vancouver's Island from the mainland as one continuous strait, there is, on the northwest coast thereof, a great island or headland, with an exceeding high pinnacle or spired rock like a pillar thereon, which fully answers the description, and reconciles the paragraph with the truth as well as we find it in nature."

I have seen the same promontory which Commodore Phelps describes, and I fully agree with him that De Fuca, in the twenty days he said he was sailing, passed through all the waters separating Vancouver Island from the continent; and when he came to Queen Charlotte Sound and saw the great Pacific Ocean, he supposed he was looking upon the ocean of the north, and at once retraced his steps to report his great discovery.

Recent examinations have served to establish a strong presumption in favor of the authenticity and general correctness of Juan de Fuca so far as he could himself have known; for they show that the geographical descriptions contained in it are as nearly conformable with the truth as those of any other account of a voyage written in the early part of the seventeenth century.

For more than one hundred and sixty years after De Fuca's narrative, Northwest America was the *terra incognitissima*, the favorite scene of extraordinary adventures and Utopian romances. Bacon there placed his Atlantis; and Brodbignag, agreeably to the very precise description of its locality furnished by its discoverer, the accomplished and veracious Captain Lemuel Gulliver, must have been situated somewhere on the Straits of Fuca, presumably at Victoria; and Lilliput near the present site of Port Townsend, where many of the romancing descendants of Captain Gulliver may be found among the ancient mariners, who, to this day, are fond of relating their experience by sea stories quite as thinly varnished with truth as the yarns of their old prototype, Lemuel Gulliver, or Sinbad the sailor.

The first attempt at a settlement on the coast of the Territory was commenced in the summer of 1790, when Captain Francisco Elisa, the Spanish commandant at Nootka, detached Lieutenant Quimper, in the sloop Princess Royal, who cruised eastwardly on the strait about one hundred miles, examining the shores on both sides, and reported on his return to Nootka; and on the 23d of March, 1792, Lieutenant Fidalgo entered Neah Bay and commenced erecting buildings at the mouth of the Brook at Neah village. The Spaniards named the place Port Nunez Gaona; the American traders named it Poverty Cove. Its present name, Neah, or Deeha, as the Makah Indians pronounced it, is derived from Deeart, a great chief, who, with his brother, Odiee, owned all the land around Neah Bay at the time De Fuca first entered the strait. The history of this Spanish attempt at a colony is a confused account. When

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I first visited Neah Bay, in 1859, there were two or three very old Indians there who told me different stories. One was that the Spaniards built a brick house with a shingle roof, and surrounded with palisades; another was that the house was of wood, with a brick chimney; and another that they built no house at all, but simply landed some bricks and other material, and before they could build the house they were driven away by the Indians. But the bricks remained, covered up with the accumulated family rubbish thrown out by the Indians. Many of these bricks I have dug out. They are in form like a tile, about 10 inches long, 5¼ inches wide, and 1¼ to 1½ inches thick, made of adobe clay, and partially burned. An imperfect specimen of one of these tiles I here present to the Association, to be preserved as a memento of the first pioneer building ever attempted on Puget Sound, on our then remotest northwest frontier. But, though this Spanish fort or house at Neah Bay was the first building on Puget Sound of which we have any authentic record, yet the pioneer who first discovered the Columbia River and named it was Captain Robert Gray, of Boston, Mass. During the summer of 1787 some adventurous gentlemen of Boston, Messrs. Barrell, Brown, Bulfinch, Darby, Hatch and Pintard, fitted out the ship Columbia, of two hundred and twenty tons, and the sloop Washington, of ninety tons, for a trading expedition to the northwest coast of North America. Captain John Kendrick commanded the Columbia, and Captain Robert Gray commanded the Washington.

In August, 1788, Gray discovered and attempted to enter the great river, but the sloop grounded on the bar and came near being lost, but she got safely to Nootka, where Gray was transferred to the ship Columbia. During a cruise in 1792, on the 7th day of May, he discovered Gray's Harbor, which he named Bulfinch Harbor, in honor of one of the owners of the ship and his particular friend, who was the grandfather of John T. A. Bulfinch, Esq., now residing at Irondale, on Port Townsend Bay.

At daybreak, May 11, Gray resumed his voyage, and shortly after discovered the entrance to his desired port and boldly steered for it, with all sails set, and at 1 o'clock P. M. anchored in a large river of fresh water, to which he gave the name of his ship, and it has retained the name of the Columbia to this day. It is reserved for some one to achieve great results for their country's good through the peaceful paths of commerce, and Robert Gray's discovery has added an empire to the American Union, which, if it had been gained by a costly war, would have been remembered by a statue or monument to the conqueror's name. But yet, to the shame of the people of Oregon and Washington Territory, not even the poor compliment of a wooden tablet in this great timber country has ever been set up as a memento of the great discoverer. It seems to me that the present generation, who are enjoying the peaceful benefits secured to us by this brave old navigator, should erect a lasting monument of granite on Scarboro Head, at Chinook Point, Columbia River, where every vessel

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entering that noble stream could enable those on board to see that we
respect the gallant deeds of Robert Gray, and will ever keep his memory
green and fresh, for the grateful remembrance of our children's children.

After Gray's discovery of the Columbia, in 1792, the Boston merchants sent out vessels every year to trade on the northwest coast, which made their general rendezvous at Nootka, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, trading north as far as Alaska and south to the Columbia River, and thence to Canton, stopping at the Sandwich Islands.

In 1806 an uncle of mine, (my mother's brother) Mr. William Tufts, of Medford, Mass., was supercargo on the ship Guatimozin, of Boston, Captain Glanville, and was on the coast from 1806 to 1810, wintering at Millbank Sound and at Masset Inlet, Queen Charlotte Islands. During the month of July, 1807, the ship was in the Columbia River trading, and the account my uncle gave me of the Chinook Indians, at the mouth of the Columbia, with Comcomoly, their one-eyed Chief, and his recital of incidents among the Haidah's and other northern tribes, are among my earliest recollections; and when, in 1852, I arrived in Shoalwater Bay and met old Carcimum, a sister of Comcomoly, and Elewa, her son, himself an old man, and heard them tell about the advent of the white men in the Columbia, it made me feel as much at home on this wild northwest coast as if I had been born on its soil—a soil and country I have made my home for more than the third of a century.

The first trading establishment or house ever built on the Columbia
River was constructed by Captain Nathan Winship, who arrived at the
Columbia on the 25th day of May, 1810, and entered the river on the 26th.
Captain Winship had with him a letter of advice and instruction from
his brother, Captain Jonathan Winship, who commanded the ship O'Kane,
belonging to the same expedition, the Albatross and O'Kane being owned
in Boston by Abiel, Jonathan and Nathan Winship, and Benjamin P.
Homer.

On the 25th of August, 1867, I wrote to my old and valued friend, the venerable Timothy Dodd, of Boston, Mass., fur dealer, formerly of the firm of Parker & Dodd, who fitted out the Columbia and Washington for Kendrick and Gray's famous cruise. He gave me the following information, derived from his own journals and records, and from a description by Joseph T. Buckingham, published in the *Boston Courier*, December 31, 1845, and from a letter from John S. Tyler, of Boston, who married a daughter of Abiel Winship. General Tyler wrote to Mr. Dodd, in response to my inquiries, under date of Boston, November 1, 1867, as follows:

"In response to the inquiries of Mr. Swan, in his letter to you of 25th
August, I am able to say that the ship Albatross was owned by my
father-in-law, Abiel Winship, and his brothers Jonathan and Nathan, and
Benjamin P. Homer. She sailed from Boston July 17, 1809, and arrived
at the Sandwich Islands in March, 1810. Nathan Winship was master
and William Smith was first mate. From the Sandwich Islands she sailed

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for the northwest coast, and arrived off the mouth of the Columbia on the
29th day of May, 1810. Captain Winship had a letter from his brother
Captain Jonathan, contemplating the establishment of a trading station
on the river. She remained in the Columbia River until July 19th, when
she sailed for California, and, after cruising about for several months, up
and down the coast, arrived in Drake's Bay November 29th, where she
met the ship O'Kane, with Captain Jonathan Winship in command."

Buckingham, in the Boston *Courier*, says, "The log book of the ship describes her cruise up the river as one of great difficulty through strong currents, shallows in some parts of the river, and ignorance of the channel." After cruising up the river ten days, a place was selected for a settlement, and preparations were made for the erection of a large trading and dwelling house; land was cleared for cultivation, and some seeds were sown, when a rise in the river put a stop to their operations. The land was overflowed, and the house, which was nearly finished, was filled with water to the depth of eighteen inches, and the spot was abandoned. At this time Capt. Jonathan Winship, in the O'Kane, was at Sir Francis Drake's Bay, California, and his brother determined to join and consult with him before attempting another location. The settlement was temporarily abandoned. The ships O'Kane and Albatross continued trading on the coast but did not return to the Columbia, as Mr. Astor's projected settlement had become known; and as he had sent out force and material for the large establishment of Astoria, it was considered useless for a rival company so much inferior in strength to attempt to compete with him. The expedition, however, was not finally given up until the breaking out of the war of 1812, when all thought of renewing it was abandoned. Captain Nathan Winship was the first American settler upon the banks of the Columbia. His settlement was anterior to all others. Unfortunate circumstances in location, and the occurrence of war, put a stop to the enterprising project; but he was the first among the pioneers of civilization who planted seed in the earth and laid the foundation of a settlement on the Columbia which has grown to the mighty State of Oregon and the great Territory of Washington.

Here are two Boston merchant captains who are especially to be
remembered in our history. Captain Robert Gray, who discovered the
great river and named it after his ship, Columbia, and Captain Nathan
Winship, of the Albatross, who built the first house and planted the first
seed in the virgin soil. At that time the entire trade of the northwest
coast was controlled by the Americans and English. All the American
vessels hailed from Boston, and the Indians of the coast to this day call
all Americans "Bostons," and all English persons "King George" people;
King George the IVth being the then reigning monarch of Great Britain.

The expedition fitted out at New York by John Jacob Astor, before
alluded to, consisted of the ship Tonquin, Captain Jonathan Thorne,
which sailed from New York for the Columbia River in September, 1810,

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and the ship Beaver, Captain Sowles, which left New York in October, 1811. The Tonquin arrived on the 24th of March, 1811, and in a few days the company commenced building a fort and other houses at Point George, so named by Broughton in 1792, and called Fort George by Captain Thorne, which afterward was changed to Astoria, which name is retained to the present time. As the history of Astoria is fully given in the history of Oregon, I will not further allude to it, but pass to the early history of the lower portion of Puget Sound and of the counties of Western Washington which have not been particularly mentioned by writers. After the discovery of Fuca Strait, in 1592, it was rediscovered by Captain John Kendrick, in the American sloop Washington, who, in June, 1789, passed through all the waters separating Vancouver Island from the mainland, and visited Queen Charlotte Islands, which he named previously named the group in 1787, while in his vessel, the Queen Charlotte, which he commanded at the time he discovered and named those islands. Kendrick was the first person belonging to a civilized nation who sailed through the Strait of Fuca after its discovery by the Greek pilot in 1592.

In January, 1791, Captain George Vancouver sailed from England in the ship Discovery, accompanied by the brig Chatham, under the command of Lieutenant Robert Broughton, for the northwest coast of North America as a commissioner sent by the British Government to explore the coasts of America, and receive possession of lands and buildings agreeably to the convention with Spain.

After calling at the Sandwich Islands the two vessels reached the American coast a little south of Cape Mendocino in April, 1792, and on the first of May they commenced the exploration of Fuca Strait and the adjacent waters, and made careful surveys. From these surveys we have the excellent admiralty charts, and the names of Port Discovery, Port Townsend, Admiralty Inlet, Hood's Canal, Puget Sound, Possession of which remain with us to the present day. Mount Rainier is some-tain. Mount Baker is called by the Clallams P'kowitz, from Puk'h, (white) and h'kowitz (mountain). Rainier was first discovered by Van-honor of his friend, Rear Admiral Rainier, R. N.*

Indian names for places and things are very simple and descriptive, and have none of the poetic meaning which the imaginative writers give them. There is a lake five or six miles inland from Hosett village at the Sun." The Makah name is Ka'houk, meaning a large body of fresh

* Vancouver, Vol. 1, p. 235.

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water, or simply lake. The sun part is imagination. Water is ch'ouck, and in Chinook jargon chuck.

In 1841 the American Exploring Expedition, under Captain Wilkes, made an extensive survey of the whole of the waters commercially known as Puget Sound, and the charts of that survey, though difficult to be procured, are among the most accurate and best executed charts ever published of our harbors.

After the attempted settlement by the Spaniards at Neah Bay in 1792, there appears to have been nothing done until 1830, when the Hudson Bay Company established a trading post at Nesqually, which for several years was their principal headquarters north of the Columbia River.

In 1845 Colonel Michael T. Simmons, with his family, settled at the mouth of the Deschutes River, now called Tumwater, and this marks the commencement of American settlement of what we now call Western Washington Territory. Colonel Simmons has a right to the distinction of being entitled the pioneer settler of Puget Sound. He has been styled the Daniel Boone of Washington Territory—frank, brave, generous-hearted, and a true friend. Those of us pioneers who personally knew him can remember with pleasure his jovial, mirthful nature, and his kind-hearted genial hospitality, that always helped a friend and never turned the stranger from his door. He and his firm friend, Judge Sidney S. Ford, were true types of noble pioneers of the early days. But, as honorable mention has been made of the pioneers of the upper portion of the Sound country, in the eloquent address of our President, Hon. H. G. Struve, at our reunion last year at Seattle, I will briefly allude to the prominent first settlers of the lower Sound country, whose names are already recorded on the pages of our history, and speak of names who, although not mentioned by the speakers who have preceded me in our annual addresses, have never been forgotten by their brother pioneers.

On the 24th day of April, 1851, Alfred A. Plummer, Sr., and Charles Batchelder arrived in Port Townsend Bay on the brig Emory, Captain Balch, from San Francisco, and took up claims on the present site of Port Townsend. In October of the same year Francis W. Pettygrove, Sr., and L. B. Hastings, Sr., came to Port Townsend from Portland to select a location, and returned for their families, who they brought around from the Columbia River in the schooner Mary Taylor, which arrived on February 19, 1852. On the Mary Taylor were Messrs. Hastings and Pettygrove and their families, and Benjamin Ross and family, for Port Townsend; T. Tallentire and family, for Steilacoom; John Alexander and family, who settled on Whidby Island, and David Shelton and family, for Olympia. The next trip of the Mary Taylor brought the families of Judge Briggs and J. G. Clinger. Judge Briggs himself came down the Sound on a scow, bringing his stock with him, which he brought through the bay between the Marrowstone Islands, and the name Scow Bay has ever since been given it. In the fall of 1852 Mr. Thomas M. Hammond

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and family arrived, on the bark Powhattan, and located on the beautiful grounds where the picnic is to be, between Judge Briggs's claim and that of Henry Wilson, who was an Inspector of Customs under Simpson P. Moses, the first Collector of the Puget Sound Customs District. Quincy A. Brooks, the present Collector of Customs, was also an Inspector under Collector Moses, and was here on duty when the Mary Taylor arrived. The custom house was at that time at Olympia.

Subsequently Mr. Hammond sold his claim to Captain E. S. Fowler, who sold it to the late Marshal Blinn. Mr. Hammond has raised a family of sons and daughters, and he and his wife and children are among our most respected citizens. On the 28th day of November, 1852, I arrived at Shoalwater bay on the brig Oriental, Captain James M. Hill, and remained there till 1856, an account of which I wrote in a volume entitled "The Northwest Coast," published by Harper Bros. in 1857.

Among the pioneers who were at Shoalwater Bay in 1852 to 1856 were Samuel Hadlock, of Hadlock, Captain Thomas Coupe, late of Whidby Island, and Captain S. D. Libby, the veteran steamboat captain, so long in command of the Goliah, who was there in 1854. On the 14th day of February, 1859, I arrived at Port Townsend, on the ship Dashaway, Bay in 1852, and I have made Port Townsend my headquarters and almost constant residence ever since. Among the pioneers whom I found here on my arrival, besides those mentioned, were R. S. Robinson, Edward Strand, William Bishop, William Eldridge, Captain Bryer, L. P. Huff, Jack Harris, Dick Sheridan, Charles Williams and others of Chimakum, Captain J. K. Thorndike, William T. Sayward, Arthur Phinney, Captain C. O. Whitmore, James Seavey, George W. Harris, Billy Dickson, Charles Hawkins, Jared S. Hurd, of Port Ludlow; J. J. H. Van Bokkelen, Dr. L. B. Kuhn, George H. Gerrish, Thomas Hannah, Morris H. Frost, Dr. P. M. O'Brien, Travers Daniel, Nat. Bartlett, James Smith, Dr. Samuel McCurdy, H. L. Tibbals, William H. Taylor, E. S. Dyer, Enoch S. H. H. McNear, Newell Gerrish, John Cornish, James Delgardno, William Captain R. C. Fay, Captain John Gibbs, Mrs. Mary Caines, Captain Frank Tucker, Sam Brooks, Jack Slater, John A. Tucker, Jack Flint, R. S. Buffington, J. G. Sterming, D. C. H. Rothschild, Captain John Morris, John H. Woodley, John P. Peterson, George Barthrop, H. Z. Wheeler, R. Brunn, Captain Harry Taylor, Captain William Webster and James Furlong, of Port Townsend. Major (now Colonel) G. O. Haller was in command at Fort Townsend.

John E. Burns, Henry Webber, James Keymes, John H. Tukey, Pan Tucker, Thomas Borger, Thomas Bracken, R. W. Travers, William Roberts, William Barker, Andy Weymouth, James H. Woodman, E. B.

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Mastick, Charles E. Wood, A. I. Smith, George W. Downs and Ben Gibbs, of Port Discovery.

At Bellingham Bay were R. B. Peabody, Henry Roeder, who settled in December, 1853; Edward Eldridge, W. R. Paddle, John Thomas, W. Utter, James G. Hedges, Ellis Barnes, John Barnes, E. C. Fitzhugh, John Bennett, George W. Allen, John Tennant, and others.

On San Juan and other islands of the Archipelago de Haro were Colonel Enoch May, E. D. Warbass, R. Fraser, Peter Lawrie, Charles Brown, James Nelson, Charles Hutchinson, J. M. Ball, Arthur Barlow, Charles McKay, Charles J. Griffin and others.

On Whidby Island were Captain R. B. Holbrook, Captain Hathaway, the Ebey and Crockett families, Captain Thomas Coupe, Captain Wm. Robertson, N. D. Hill, Robert C. Hill, John Gillespie, Captain H. E. Morgan, Captain Osborn Morgan, Sargeant McCrohan, Edward Barring- ton, Martin Taftson, Robert Hathaway, Charles C. Phillips, William Engle, Charles Terry, Samuel Hancock, Dr. Kellogg, Samuel D. Howe, Captain J. H. Swift, Captain George W. Morse, R. S. Bailey, Isaac B. Power, Major Daniel Show, J. H. Hinebaugh, Samuel Libbey, John Condra, Henry Mariott and John Kineth.

Captain J. H. Swift was one of the Pilot Commissioners of Puget Sound from the passage of the law in 1868 to its repeal in 1881. Captain Swift is one of the most experienced navigators ever on the Arctic Ocean. He commanded the whole ship George, of Fairhaven, in 1838, 1841 and 1844; the ship Cortes, of New Bedford, in 1846; bark Anadir, of New Bedford, in 1849, and ship Brutus, of New Bedford, in 1853; and, having successfully plowed the ocean all those years, he retired to Whidby Island, where he has successfully plowed the land until he has furled his sails and come to anchor in the snug harbor of his pleasant home, where his many friends hope to see him yet remain for many years, with renewed health and vigor.

During the time of the continuance of the pilot law not a single vessel was wrecked on Puget Sound while in charge of a branch pilot. Strangers coming here who require the services of a pilot should be able to find experienced and reliable men, properly licensed, who can perform the duties of a pilot. It is true, the waters of Puget Sound are deep and free from hidden dangers, but it is necessary to understand the tides and currents, especially in times of fog, as the deep water prevents anchorage and the currents and prevailing winds of winter set vessels on the lee shores of Vancouver Island, where so many have been lost the past year. An intelligent pilot law is imperatively needed to empower commissioners to examine and license skilled pilots for vessels requiring their services. The first Pilot Commissioners for Puget Sound were Captain E. S. Fowler, Captain J. H. Swift and James G. Swan, from 1868 to 1872; then E. S. Fowler, J. H. Swift and Henry E. Morgan to 1875; then Henry E. Morgan, J. H. Swift and J. L. Butler to 1878; then H. E. Morgan, J. H. Swift and

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C. C. Bartlett to 1880; then C. C. Bartlett, J. H. Swift and Benjamin S. Hoxie to 1881. James G. Swan was secretary to the board for the entire period of thirteen years.

The first settler at Port Angeles, then called False Dungeness, was Angus Johnson, who took up a claim in 1857 and now resides at Nanaimo, B. C.; then, Alexander Sampson, Rufus Holmes and William Winsor; John Dunn, Gay Morse, Marcus Huntoon, Judge Nicholas Meagher, Peter Fisher, Sol Thompson and other hunters; John Sutherland at Fresh Water Bay; Owen O'Conner, Crescent Bay.

At Dungeness were B. J. Madison, who settled on the Groveland farm in 1852; Daniel F. Brownfield, E. H. McAlmond, John Thornton, Elliott Cline, Charles M. Bradshaw, S. S. Irwin, John W. Donnell, John Bell, Thomas Abernethy, John Weir, William Sissoks, George Gypson, and later, William Law, Joseph E. Laighton and William Webster.

At Neah Bay Mr. Samuel Hancock had started a trading post about 1854, which he abandoned, and the next settlement was in August, 1857, when Charles L. Strong, Henry A. Webster, Charles Winsor, Ed Jenkins and others made a settlement at Baadah Point, Neah Bay. They were all pioneers from California. Soon after John S. Maggs and Thomas Stratton came. Mr. Webster was subsequently Indian Agent and resided at Neah Bay till 1869, when he was relieved by Captain Hays, U. S. A., who has been succeeded by Agents Hill, Parker, Gibson, Huntington, Willoughby, Wood and the present Agent, Captain W. L. Powell. Mr. Webster was widely known for his generous hospitality in relieving shipwrecked and distressed persons, and in his cordial welcome to every one, and for the great interest he took in the Indians. In 1862 I was appointed teacher on the Makah reservation, under Mr. Webster, and remained until 1866. During that period some of the most eventful incidents took place, which are now matters of interesting history.

We commenced work July 1, 1862. The place was in its primeval wildness, and the Indians, the wildest and most independent tribe on the coast, had never been punished for their many lawless acts. Their war chiefs—Kobetsi, Tarahowtl, Sekowtl and Kichook—were well known and dreaded by mariners who were so unfortunate as to be wrecked on the coasts of this tribe. Old Flattery Jack, the terror of early navigators, was dead, but he left able adjutants in villainy in the old chiefs I have named, who hated a white man and would gladly have driven us away, but their cupidity induced them to be friendly, with the hope of gain.

I had a lively time with old Kobetsi, the war chief, whose name was Kobetsibis, which, in the Makah, means frost. I had been directed by Agent Webster to make a survey of the reservation as far south as the Tsooess River, where Kobetsi lived and claimed exclusive ownership to the cranberry meadows along the bank of that river. He was then at his summer residence on Tatoosh Island. The Makah Indians had seen and understood something of the mariner's compass, but a surveyor's

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compass was a riddle to them. A slave of Kobetsi, who had seen me at work on the cranberry meadows, hurried to Tatoosh Island and reported that I was working a tomanawas, or magic, by which I could collect all the cranberries in one pile, and that Peter had sold me the land. This enraged the old ruffian, and he came up to Neah Bay with sixteen braves, with their faces painted black, their long hair tied in a knot on top of their heads with spruce twigs, their regular war paint, and all whooping and yelling. The old fellow declared he would have my head. Peter and the others laughed at him, and I explained to him what I had been about. He was pacified with me, but on his return to Tatoosh Island he shot the slave dead for making a fool of his chief.

On the 24th of May, 1864, I had rather a comical experience. The United States steamer Shubrick arrived, having on board Dr. Gunn, Collector of Customs at Port Angeles, and Mr. Floyd, a new keeper for Cape Flattery lighthouse, to relieve Mr. Smith, father of Victor Smith, who was keeper of the light at that time. Some months previous old Tahahowtl, one of the war chiefs, had a difficulty on the island and threatened to shoot one of the keepers. The matter had been fully investigated by Agent Webster, who decided to punish Tahahowtl by imprisonment at Fort Steilacoom, and a requisition had been made for the services of the revenue cutter to assist. But there was no cutter on the station till the Shubrick arrived on the Sound under command of Captain Scammon. She was on a war footing, heavily armed, with a long thirty-two swivel gun forward and nine howitzers. There were eighty persons on board, all told, and the crew were armed with rifles and drilled in the infantry practice. On her arrival at Neah Bay Mr. Webster was absent and had left me in charge, with a copy of the requisition on the cutter, and a written order to proceed on her to Tatoosh Island, arrest Tahahowtl and send him to Steilacoom. This was very easily and quietly accomplished, and after the exchange of keepers for the lighthouse had been effected we went on board the Shubrick for Neah Bay.

Captain Scammon asked me if I did not think it would have a good effect on the Indians to make a display of the force of the Shubrick. I told him it would, as they had never seen any display of the power of American armed vessels, and thought the English were the only nation that had war ships. Captain Scammon, therefore, ordered a discharge of the steamer's entire battery. The shot and shells flew and rattled among the rocks of the island, to the astonishment of the Indians, and we steamed off to Neah Bay, where I was landed, and the eighty men with their prisoner proceeded to Fort Steilacoom. Soon after there appeared an article in the San Francisco *Alta California*, describing the gallant and meritorious action of the officers and crew of the United States steamer Shubrick in attacking two hundred Indians entrenched on Tatoosh Island, and capturing the war chief and taking him prisoner to Fort Steilacoom. No mention was made of the light keepers left on

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Tatoosh Island, or of the four employees left at Neah Bay in charge of eight hundred savages. But such was life in the far Northwest in those early days.

The presence of the Shubrick and the noise of her guns did effect considerable good, as I learned after she had left that a party of six Quilleute Indians, who were on Tatoosh Island when we arrested Taha-howtl, had come for the purpose of inducing the Makahs to burn the government buildings and kill all of us white men, as the Quinault Indian Agent, George A. Paige, had threatened to seize and hang three of their chiefs for murdering a settler at Pyscht. These Quilleutes said that if the Makahs would join them they would kill all the white men between Cape Flattery and Elwha, and burn all the buildings. But they were thoroughly scared with the warlike appearance of the Shubrick. I sent for them to have a talk. They said the Indians charged with killing the white man lived at Shugwart village, half way between the coast and Pyscht, and soldiers could not find them. I replied that the Shubrick could lay off the mouth of their river and, with the long cannon which they had seen, (the thirty-two pound swivel) could throw a shell clear into the Shugwart village, where it would explode and blow them to atoms. Whether they believed me or not, they went home and advised their friends to be peaceful, and they kept very quiet.

There was scarcely a week passed that there was not an alarm or a row between the Makahs and the Indians of Vancouver Island, but nothing of a serious nature occurred until April, 1866, when Peter, the present Chief of Police, murdered an Elwha Indian at Crescent Bay, and, having committed a variety of grave offenses, was seized by Agent Webster and put on board the schooner A. J. Wester to be taken to Fort Steilacoom, but he succeeded in making his escape and for a week he defied the agent every day, and we were all kept prisoners in the bay. Word, however, had been sent to General McKenny, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, by the parties on board the A. J. Wester, and on the 17th of April the steamer Cyrus Walker, with a detachment of thirty-three United States soldiers from Fort Steilacoom, under Lieutenant Kistler, arrived at Neah Bay, and, under direction of Agent Webster, the steamer proceeded to the village of Kiddecubbut, where the shells from the howitzer brought the Indians to terms. Fifteen prisoners were taken, the principal one being Tyee Peter, and conveyed to Fort Steilacoom, where Peter was kept as a prisoner a year, and, as he says, experienced a change of heart. The soldiers remained at Neah Bay a month, and during that time Agent Webster and Lieutenant Kistler went to Quilleute with seven soldiers and arrested the Pyscht murderers and brought them to Neah Bay, where they were tried and sentenced to imprisonment at Fort Steilacoom, and, on the 22d of May, the soldiers all left for Steilacoom, with the Indian prisoners, who remained there till they got tired and then quietly escaped.

Toward the close of the war we were occasionally stirred up with

reports that the Shenandoah, which had been destroying our whale ships in the Arctic, was coming to destroy the government buildings at Cape Flattery and Neah Bay, and burn up the mills and towns on Puget Sound. On one occasion, seeing a war steamer in the offing and thinking it the Shenandoah, the farmer, George Jones, nailed our flag to the masthead, because we would not lower it to a rebel. The steamer proved to be the British man-of-war Devastation, Captain Fox, who came ashore and complimented us, although he was much amused at our display. The cessation of hostilities, however, sent the Shenandoah in another direction and we saw nothing of her. But all through the war we were in charge of and protecting government property on the extreme Northwestern frontier, and preserving quiet among the Indians; and although our names are not enrolled on the roster of the Grand Army of the Republic, we feel that we performed a better service for the country than did those camp followers and bounty jumpers who never were in actual conflict, but are loud in their claims for pensions.

In 1867 I was called upon to perform another act of public service in settling a grave difficulty among Indians. On the 21st day of September, 1867, a party of twenty-six Clallam Indians attacked a number of Chimsean Indians, who were quietly asleep in their camp on the spit near Dungeness lighthouse, and killed seventeen men, women and children. Only one of the party of eighteen persons escaped, a woman, who was badly wounded and left for dead, but recovered. As soon as I heard of the affair I notified General T. I. McKenny, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs, at Olympia, who dispatched Agent Charles King, of the Skokomish reservation, to Port Townsend to confer with me about the arrest of the murderers, whose names I had learned by the assistance of the Duke of York, head chief of the Clallam tribe. I went with Agent King to Port Discovery, as interpreter, and there we found ten of the persons implicated, who were taken by Mr. King to the reservation. At his request I went to Dungeness and arrested eleven more, and went with them to Skokomish and delivered them to Agent King, and on my return succeeded in securing five more at Dungeness, making twenty-six in all, who were placed in irons on the reservation and kept at hard labor. The Chimsean woman, who recovered, was cared for by the wife of Benjamin Ranie, of Dungeness, who was a native Chimsean, and when she was able to be moved I sent her to Victoria, by instructions from General McKenny, where she was placed on board the Hudson Bay Company's steamer Otter, Captain Lewis, and taken home to Fort Simpson, together with all the things I had recovered from the massacre, and a lot of presents sent by the Indian department to *mamoke klose tumtums* between the Chimseans and Clallams. The Indians were all satisfied, and when, in 1875, while on the United States revenue steamer Wolcott, as commissioner to purchase articles of Indian manufacture for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, I visited Fort Simpson, the Indians there, in the presence of their

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missionary, Rev. Mr. Hall, and the officers of the Wolcott, publicly thanked me for what I had done, and made me many presents in token of their good will.

In this work of arresting the Clallams I used no force; everything was brought about quietly and by moral suasion. The Clallams knew that I was their friend, and they went readily to the reservation, by my advice, and gave themselves up. The Chimseans knew that I was the friend of the Indians, and that they could rely on me to settle the trouble in a better manner than their ancient style of coming from the north in a mass and exterminating the Clallam tribe, which they easily could have done, as their numbers and courage greatly exceeded the flatheads of the Sound. But my object is not to recount my own experience on this frontier since my first coming in 1852, because, like every other pioneer, I have had more of interest than can be described in a single address, but to call the attention of the other pioneers to the value and the necessity of each one having the interesting incidents of his or her pioneer life written down for the use of the future historian. The children and grandchildren of the pioneers all over the Territory could do a great work for history if they would take an interest now, while their relatives survive, and note down from their own lips the tales of the hardships and trials of their early life in this country, which every pioneer has experienced. Such notes would be invaluable in the archives of this society, and would be more reliable for future reference than any oral statement, which, by the lapse of time and frequent repetition, is very apt to get distorted from the plain simple truth. The history of the lower portion of the Sound and of Western Washington is one rich with interesting narrative. Not a county or a town but has its own local history, which would be intensely interesting if preserved and published.

I have made no mention of our Indian war in 1855, or of the San Juan difficulty in 1859, because Bancroft, in his history of the Pacific States, has given a full and detailed account of every occurrence of public importance, and every one who can afford the purchase should secure a full set of these incomparable books, without which a library in Washington Territory would be incomplete. There you can read of the gallant acts of the great captain, our first Governor, Isaac I. Stevens; a name which, when sounded in the ear of every true pioneer, will make his blood circulate more briskly and his heart to beat with honest pride, that in him he knew a true man; and when he shook the brave, generous hand, he knew and felt that it was the hand of a thoroughly honest man which he held in his grasp. Governor Stevens was my friend, faithful and just to me, and I should be wanting in the attributes of a man if I did not lift up my voice on an occasion like this to praise the memory of my friend—who was the friend of every pioneer and the more than friend of Washington Territory; and when, on the field of Chantilly, in 1862, his noble life was offered up as a sacrifice for the salvation of his country and his

country's flag, he proved that this Territory, as well as the older States, had men willing to die in the defense of the glorious old Union.

In Bancroft's history of this Territory you may also read of another of my old friends, Joseph Cushman, who was so enthusiastic to introduce food fishes from the East into our waters, and who was ridiculed by the thoughtless as a visionary. Had Mr. Cushman lived to the present time he would have seen his dreams proved a reality, and the shad, and carp, and lobsters of the East, which the Fish Commissioners of the United States have introduced into the waters of the Pacific, living witnesses of his wisdom, foresight and sagacity, and that those who were so persistent in their ridicule were but blatant proclaimers of their own ignorance and fatuity.

That history tells of another friend and pioneer who has left us since our last reunion, Dr. William Fraser Tolmie. He arrived at Vancouver as physician and surgeon in the Hudson Bay Company's service, in the spring of 1833, and remained in this Territory, most of the time at Nesqually, until 1859, when he removed to Victoria, B. C., where he died in his mansion at Cloverdale, on the 8th of December, 1886. As a literary and scientific man, Dr. Tolmie had few equals in British Columbia. He was specially devoted to ethnology and linguistics of the native tribes, and was high authority on all matters pertaining to the Indians of the Northwest coast. He was a devoted friend of science and an advanced thinker and writer, and a firm believer in American institutions, and the only man I have met on the Northwest coast who thoroughly understood the matters most of interest to me and for whom I felt an entire affinity. In the last letter I received from him, written but a short time before his last sickness, he mentioned this meeting of Pioneers and said: "I trust I shall be with you in the flesh." He is with us in the spirit, I fully believe, as are all our other brother Pioneers who felt an interest in us while with us on earth.

Let us now briefly consider the future of Western Washington, a country bounded on the north by Fuca Strait, on the south by the Columbia River, on the east by the Cascade Mountains, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean, an area nearly as large as the six New England States, and, at the present time, with but very few exceptions, as wild and unsettled as was Massachusetts when the Pilgrim fathers landed on Plymouth Rock. The growth of this Territory has been on the eastern side of Puget Sound and in Eastern Washington. That was but the natural order of growth, to develop the rich agricultural region east of the Cascade range, and the vast deposits of coal, iron, silver, gold and other products on the western slope. Added to this we were told by geologists that Western Washington contained nothing worth looking for; hence the Olympic Range, in Western Washington, which is now known to be rich with mineral wealth, has never even been prospected, and our people would go seven or eight hundred miles and more to

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Carribou, Cassiar and Takou, and leave these mountains, almost at our door, entirely unexplored except by a few hunters or persons inexperienced in mining. But these Olympic mountains will yet be intelligently examined, and it will be found that they are rich with silver, copper, gold, iron, antimony, plumbago, coal and other valuable products, especially timber, which, in Western Washington, is unsurpassed in quantity and quality by any other portion of our Territory, and the great mill companies of Gamble, Blakeley, Tacoma and others are beginning to utilize it by extensive railroads which eventually will be a means of developing the country by enabling emigrants to find farms and homes in portions of this region hitherto difficult and impracticable for the settler to approach. There is land enough in Western Washington to furnish homes for a population large enough to form a State. The tide of emigration has begun to set towards this northwest corner of the United States, and new settlements and new towns will spring up in every available portion of the lower Sound district. I look with great interest to the new colony at Port Angeles. They have started in the proper manner to insure success, and so long as they keep together as a co-operative body, governed by wise and salutary laws and regulations, they will be successful, and I look forward with a confident hope that a prosperous town may be the result of their united endeavors. But should the plan by any unforeseen casualty prove a failure, which I do not anticipate, the colony will have effected much good by having been the means of introducing among us a class of citizens who we are all glad to welcome, and who we hope have come to stay and make their homes on Puget Sound. So, too, of the colony at Bellingham Bay. Whatcom, like Port Angeles, had a start some years ago, and both for the time proved failures. Now, however, both places start afresh, with new people, new ideas and new capital, and both will succeed.

I am not one of those who wish to build up one town and decry all others. I feel a pleasure and an honest pride to see Seattle assuming the proportions of a city and taking to herself the title of the Queen. I feel a pleasure when I see Tacoma advancing with beautiful growth to add another city to the Sound, because I know that the growth of those two cities will benefit the growth of every other town. I feel an interest and a pleasure in the growth of Port Townsend. Slow indeed has been that growth, but it has been sure and solid; it has been a growth like the oak, or one of her own fir trees, very gradual, and not like that of cow parsnips and summer weeds, rapidly attaining ephemeral proportions and then quickly passing away. But Port Townsend's time of rapid growth is near at hand. Two railroads are now looking to the peninsula between Port Townsend and Port Discovery Bays for a terminal point within the lines of the proposed fortifications at Point Wilson. Admiralty Head and Marrowstone Bluff. When Charles Francis Adams was here, two summers since, he said to me in my office: "We are coming with the Union Pacific

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to Port Townsend Bay," and to my question when they were coming, he said: "We have certain preliminaries to arrange first; but when you see the Union Pacific in Portland, the time will not be long before you see us in Port Townsend Bay." I believed what Mr. Adams told me, and I have seen that everything he did tell me in that conversation has come to pass, and the Union Pacific is in Portland. Its next move will be towards Port Townsend Bay. So, too, of the Southern Pacific from San Francisco to Portland and now completed in its entire length, with the exception of twenty miles through the Siskiyou Mountains, which will be completed before Christmas. When that road is completed to Portland, its next move will be with the Union along the west side of Hood's Canal to Port Townsend Bay. I speak thus confidently of these two roads because I believe the time of their advent is close at hand, nearer than many who now hear me may imagine. But, as a prophet gets but little honor among his own people, I do not look for ready credence to my statement, but am content to let time prove the truth of my assertions.

I cannot find better language in which to close this address than the eloquent words of President Struve in his last year's address before this Association. This field is so prolific and of such unbounded compass that I must leave it to a pen more able and to a tongue more eloquent than mine. When I compare the Territory of the present to what it was thirty-five years ago, when I first landed at Shoalwater Bay; when I consider our present prosperity, our freedom from danger, our towns and cities bustling with activity, hope and enjoyment; when I see the roads, the bridges, the railroads already commencing to spread their network over the face of the country, quickening into intensity the exchange of business and the intercourse of men; when I see the intellectual and moral growth of the community, and its establishments, its institutions and its social actions, all under the safe protection of the law. I feel a grief that so many of the pioneers, the founders of our prosperity, should have passed from among us before they could have seen the work of their hands and have realized the fruition of their hopes. A large majority of the actors in this pioneer drama have gone to their long homes. We, the surviving pioneers, enjoying the pleasures of this reunion, will, before many years, be gathered to our fathers and be succeeded by endless generations advancing to take our places as we fall. While yet upon the scene of action let us pioneers, by precept and example, impart to our neighbors, and our children and our children's children, abiding lessons of zeal, enterprise, patience, virtue and patriotism, and be thankful to Him who holds the nations in the hollow of His hand and yet marks the sparrow's fall.