An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 25

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172

USA > Washington > Skagit County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 25
USA > Washington > Snohomish County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 25

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One of the settlers who came to Guemes island about 1818 was not of the industrious and desirable type, to which practically all the others belonged. He may have been industrious enough, but in a bad cause. This was Larry Kelly, "King of Smug- glers." one of the most notorious characters that ever lived on Puget sound, the principal in many a thrilling adventure, many a battle of wits with custom-house officers. He lived for years in a little cabin on the southwest corner of the island, plying his nefarious vocation. He is now in the toils. having been arrested recently in Seattle for smug- gling.

Although the beginning of permanent settle- ment on the mainland was not till after the first pioneers had established themselves on Fidalgo island, the magnificent valley of the Skagit did not escape notice entirely, while the country to the north and the south was settling up. Indeed there is very good authority for the statement that an at- tempt was made to appropriate a portion of it as early as 1855. The would-be settlers were a party

from Island county, consisting of Winfield Ebey, a brother of the well-known Colonel I. N. Ebey, George Beam and wife, Walter Crockett and Mrs. Mary Wright, a sister of Colonel Ebey, who after- ward became Mrs. Bozarth. All were newcomers to the sound except Crockett. They were looking for a suitable location to run cattle and horses and thought they had found such a place on the north fork just above the spot where the bridge now spans that stream. T. P. Hastie, who was well acquainted with them on Whidby island, says the site of their settlement is known beyond dispute, as a large cedar tree, which is still standing, at one time bore the names or initials of the party. Claims were staked out and preparations begun for the erection of cabins. There is no doubt of the inten- tion of these people to form a permanent settlement, but the execution of their designs was cut short by the Indian difficulties which culminated in the war of 1855-6. The ladies returned to Coupeville in haste after only one night's stay in the valley, being thoroughly frightened by the unfriendly demonstra- tions of the Indians.

No doubt the Skagit river received many visits from prospectors during the Fraser river excite- ment. In an old copy of the Northern Light we find the following notice of one of these gold hunt- ing expeditions : "Major Van Bokkelen, who called upon us Wednesday (the date of the paper is July 17, 1858), informs us that the day before he left Port Townsend. A. S. Buffington, J. K. Tukey and others, old settlers of this territory, returned from the valley of Skagit river. They stated that in the first twelve miles of the river they met with ob- structions consisting of three rafts, after passing which they prospected the bars, and invariably found gold. When the party reached the forks of the river they went up the northern branch to Mount Baker and fell in with several Indian camps." Mr. Hastie says he remembers this party. While they found gold widely distributed, it was not in paying quantities.

It is not easy to determine who was the first to establish a permanent settlement on the mainland of Skagit county. The honor is generally supposed to belong either to Samuel Calhoun or Michael J. Sullivan, but there are those who think that both these men may have been antedated by others. Mr. Calhoun, now a resident of Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick, has very kindly taken great pains to write out for the compilers an account of his settle- ment and pioneer experiences. He says that while working as a shipwright at Utsalady, he was seized with a desire to find out what was across the bay in the gap he saw between the hills ; so, in the spring of 1863. he hired an Indian to go with him on an exploring expedition. The Indian had been dubbed Sam Gallon on account of his having once stolen a gallon of whiskey and swallowed the same in an incredibly short time. They crossed the bay and

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ascended Sullivan slough, following the right-hand branch, to the vicinity of Pleasant Ridge, where, in a beautiful red cedar grove, they encamped for the night. Next morning Mr. Calhoun sent the Indian with his canoe to the mouth of the north fork. while he himself climbed a tall tree on Pleasant Ridge and took a view of the surroundings. "I was fairly delighted with the prospect," he writes. "I thought it the most beautiful sight that I had ever beheld. 'Here,' I said to myself, 'is a country within range of my vision that will support a mill- ion people. Here is my home where I shall spend the remainder of my life.' " He then made his way to the mouth of the river, wading tule swamps and creeks, found his Indian, returned to Utsalady and began preparations for settlement.

The country appealed to Mr. Calhoun as it would to few others from the fact that he was fa- miliar as a boy with marsh land and had seen con- siderable diking done. He failed not to note the apparent richness of the soil, the protection from surf which the islands afforded. the numerous sloughs and creeks offering facilities for water transportation. All in all he considered those Swinomish tide lands the best body of tide marsh he had ever seen.

As the site for his home, Mr. Calhoun chose an old Indian encampment close to Sullivan slough, but above the reach of the tides. His claim is now the home of Isaac Dunlap. He was fortunate in finding an excellent garden spot of about three- quarters of an acre, in which he planted potatoes and garden seeds brought from Utsalady. That fall he had all the vegetables he could use and some to give away. After planting the garden, he went to Utsalady to work for three or four weeks and it was upon his return from this trip that he first met Michael J. Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan had settled on a place near by. He might easily have been there when Calhoun first came and escaped notice, for had he been a smuggler and hiding away from custom-house officers he would have been compara- tively safe in the secluded retreat he then occupied. Mr. Sullivan has himself been interviewed regard- ing the time of his settlement, but he is not now very good at remembering dates.

In bringing lumber from Utsalady to build a house, Mr. Calhoun came near being shipwrecked. but notwithstanding the fact that his Indian com- panion became paralyzed with fear and could render no assistance, he managed by heroic exertions to get his boat, his lumber and his Indian safely to shore. Before the close of 1863, he had built a house for himself and assisted Mr. Sullivan to fix up his. The following spring the work of diking began. Calhoun and Sullivan together diked sixty acres on the latter's claim and Mr. Calhoun was engaged in enclosing a forty-acre tract on his own land when the season closed. The white men in the other neighborhoods of the sound were very much

inclined to ridicule these efforts to make a farm on mud flats, where the tides overflowed, but when the first immense crops were harvested they saw their error.

At the time this settlement was made the Swin- omish Indians were in rather bad repute among the whites. It was said that a year or two before a surveyor named llunt, while on his way from Penn's Cove, Island county, to Whatcom, was killed by them, they fearing he might work some evil incan- tation upon them with his instruments. They were also credited with having killed an old and some- what insane man who had built a cabin close to the banks of the Swinomish slough, and stories were rife of persons who were known to have attempted a passage of the slough and were never heard of after. But notwithstanding all these reports, the two settlers were not molested by Indians, though their old chief came to Calhoun after his house was built and wanted to know what he was going to do there. When informed, he said: "You must be a fool. Don't you know that in winter, when the big winds come, the water will be two or three feet high all over the ground?" Mr. Calhoun said he knew it, but that he intended to throw up the earth higher than that and keep out the water. The chief then asked if he did not know the land belonged to the Indians. "No," said Calhoun, "according to the idea of the Bostons the Indians' land is on the reservation." The chief replied that that was the Bostons' cultus wa wa ( bad talk ) and that he could drive out the white men or kill them if he chose. "That is true," replied Calhoun, "but if you should the soldiers would come with fire-ships and kill many of you." The Indian admitted that such would be the probable result. He accepted Mr. Calhoun's proffered hand and the friendship there begun was never broken.

It was long before the Swinomish flats began to settle up with any degree of rapidity. Notwith- standing Mr. Calhoun's glowing picture of them, they were to most people a dreary waste. "Perhaps," writes Miss Linda Jennings, "few pioneers in the history of our country ever attempted to build homes in a more uninviting region. The people of the older settlements of the sound knew of this stretch of marsh and many of them had seen it, but they thought it absurd to try to reclaim such a desolate tide-swept waste. At high tide, the Indians paddled their canoes wherever they wished over what are now the finest farms in Washington. The marsh was ramified by countless sloughs, big and little. many of them long since filled and cultivated over. In the summer, tule, cattail and coarse salt grass flourished and it was the home of many thousands of wild fowls and muskrats-an ideal hunting- ground for Indians. Before any one located here, the settlers of Fidalgo island used to visit the Swin- omish in summer and cut the wild grass for hay. The first settlers were the objects of much ridicule

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from their friends in the neighboring settlements. When we consider the great dikes that must be built around their claims we can understand why it seemed an almost impossible task."

For the first few years Messrs. Sullivan and Calhoun were the only white settlers in their neigh- borhood. The next permanent settlers, Mr. Calhoun says, were John Cornelius, Robert White and James Ilarrison. At an early date two men named Rollins and McCann, natives of New Brunswick, took what afterward became the Dodge place, in Dodge valley. near the month of the north fork of the Skagit. They are said to have diked in a few acres between the site of the present residence on the place and George den's. Thomas P'. Hastie says they bought cattle of him on Whidby island as early as 1869 and gives it as his firm conviction that they antedated both Calhoun and Sullivan in settlement in Skagit county. Shortly after 1869, they disposed of their land to E. T. Dodge and turned their attention to logging, McCann on Camano island and Rollins in Ilumboldt county, California.

Notwithstanding all the difficulties, the Swin- omish country began to settle up quite rapidly in the late sixties and early seventies, when the feasi- bility of diking it, and its immense fertility began to be demonstrated.

The first trading post on the Swinomish flats was established in May. 186 ;. upon the site of the present city of La Conner. by Alonzo Low. now a resident of Snohomish. Low and Woodbury Sin- clair engaged in the mercantile business at Snoho- mish City in 1861, and opened the Swinomish branch as stated. with Low in charge. The enterprise failed, however, and was abandoned fourteen months after its establishment. Low gave the build- ing to a mulatto named Clark, who lived with an Indian woman, in consideration of Clark moving the goods and a yoke of oxen (taken by Low in payment of a debt) back to Snohomish. This was accomplished by boat.

Thomas Hayes is the next Swinomish trader of whom we have record. The exact time of his appearance is not known, but it must have been very shortly after Low abandoned the region in the summer of 1868. It was during his time that the Swinomish postoffice was established. When J. S. Conner came, succeeding Hayes (or Hays). this postoffice was either abandoned and the La Conner postoffice created. or the name was changed to La Conner.

Laurin L. Andrews, at present cashier of the Bank of La Conner. tells us that when he first visited the place in the fall of 1820, he found at what is now La Conner, J. S. Conner and family, keeping a store and postoffice in their residence building which stood on the spot now occupied by Gaches' brick block : Archibald Seigfried and family. conducting a boarding-house in a building on the site of the Corner saloon : J. J. Conner. a cousin of

J. S., operating a little trading vessel, the True Blue, with headquarters at the village; back on the flats, Michael Sullivan, Samuel Calhoun, E. T. Dodge and family ; Robert White and family, near Sullivan; Harvey Wallace, at Pleasant Ridge ; James William- son in the same locality ; John Cornelius and family at Pleasant Ridge : James Harrison, on what is now the Armstrong place ; and on the reservation, Dr. W. Y. Deere, government farmer in charge of the Swinomish tribe. Deere was not a physician. His title was given him on account of his having at one time served as a hospital steward.

The first white women to settle on the Swinomish flats were Mrs. J. O. Rudene, formerly Mrs. John Cornelius ; Mrs. Edwin T. Dodge, Mrs. Denison. Alrs. Robert White, Mrs. J. S. Conner and Mrs. Archibald Seigfried. The last-named lady was the mother of the first child born on the flats, but un- fortunately it did not live. In May, 18:1, Maggie, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert White, was born. It is thought that she was the first white native of the flats to live, if not the first in the county. Mrs. Charles Hlubbs, sister of Mrs. Rudene. is deserving of mention among the early pioneer women, though her home was on the reservation opposite La Conner, where her husband was serving as telegraph operator.

The year 18:1 brought a number of settlers, among them Isaac Jennings and family. Those settlers Mr. Jennings was able to recall as living on the flats at that time. in addition to the ones already mentioned, were the following: The Man- chester family, south of La Conner ; William Wood- ward, a bachelor north of La Conner ; Edward Bellou. a bachelor in the same locality : a bachelor known as "Pink Man :" the Terrace family, Michael Hintz, James ('Langhlin, Charles Miller, C. A. D'Arcy, G. W. L. . Allen. Isaac Chilberg, a minister named Thompson, who used to preach occasionally at the MeCormick farm, Laurin L. Andrews, a young merchant on the reservation, and Thomas Calhoun. In addition to these there were Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Wallace, on Beaver marsh, near Pleasant Ridge : Albert and Milton Leamer, brothers of Mrs. Wallace, and John Wallace. Mrs. David Leamer, mother of Albert and Milton and of Mrs. Wallace, settled near Pleasant Ridge in October, 1811. and still resides there. Frederick Eyre was also in the country, though not a settler at that time. David Culver came to the flats about 1872; James Gilliland was in charge of the telegraph station at La Conner in 18 ;? and for many years afterward.

The Swinomish settlement was not without some of the conveniences of civilized life in the late sixties and early seventies. Already two of the sound steamers were contending for their trade, the fifty- ton side wheeler. Mary Woodruff, John Cosgrove, captain, and the J. B. Libby, John A. Suffern, captain. They plied between Seattle and Whatcom,

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via the inside route as it was called-Swinomish slough-making the round trip every week. At this time the freight was three dollars and a half a ton, but there were instances when the fierce competition between the two forced it down to a dollar or even less. The service, however, was not very satisfac- tory. E. A. Sisson says the Libby often got stuck on the flats at Hole in the Wall near La Conner or at the upper end of Swinomish slough and would lie there contentedly for two or three days, charging the passengers a good rate for their board. In the spring of 1868, Mr. Calhoun finished a small, flat- bottom schooner, named the Shoo-Fly, suited to transferring logging camp outfits, lumber, etc., in shallow water.

Another of the conveniences of this early period was a telegraph wire to the reservation. Mr. Cal- houn says that after the trans- Atlantic cable had twice broken, people began to think it a failure, and a telegraph company commenced to run a line along the coast through Washington territory to British Columbia and Alaska to Behring straits, expecting to cross to Asia and thence to Europe. The subse- quent success of the Atlantic cable put an end to this scheme, but the Swinomish people nevertheless had telegraphic connections which they would not otherwise have enjoyed for several years. AAbout the middle sixties, a postoffice was established on the reservation, making it no longer necessary for the pioneers to go to Utsalady for mail. Still later one was secured on the site of La Conner (it was named Swinomish postoffice) with Thomas Hayes as its first postmaster.

The value of the country as a grain-raising district began to be realized very soon after diking commenced in 1864. Mrs. Rudene, then Mrs. John Cornelius, is quoted as saying that when she came from Whidby island in 1868, Mr. Sullivan showed her a splendid field of oats, which he claimed were the first grown on the Swinomish flats. In the fall of 1869, three men had considerable crops of grain to be threshed, Michael Sullivan, Samuel Calhoun and E. T. Dodge. There was no threshing machine on the mainland, so Mr. Calhoun went to Whidby island and brought men, horses and machine. Sul- livan's crop was threshed first, then Calhoun's, then Dodge's. Calhoun got twelve hundred bushels of barley from twenty-one acres, and both the other gentlemen realized much better returns than they had expected, so the scoffers at those establishing farms on the muid flats were effectually silenced. In 1816 Mr. Calhoun brought a steam thresher to the flats, the first that was ever imported into western Washington, and 1812 Whitney, Sisson & Company imported the second machine.

The north end of Swinomish flats was not much behind the La Conner country in settlement. The first settler in the vicinity of Padilla bay was James McClellan, a bachelor from California, who located about the year 1869 on the place now known as the

Smith ranch, but which he named Virgin Cove. For months his only neighbors were a family of Indians, who regarded him as an intruder on their lands, for they claimed by right of inheritance all the country between Indian slough and the Samish river. Several times Mr. McClellan thought these Indians were plotting to harm him but he put on a bold front, showed no fear and was not molested. It is almost certain that no white family would have been so patient with one whom they regarded a tres- passer.

McClellan's first white neighbor was Jacob High- barger, who came about 18:0 with his Indian wife and family. Next year Mcclellan's former partner in the stock business in California, M. D. Smith, rejoined him. The partnership was renewed. They diked a portion of their marsh land, but unfor- tunately in building the dike struck a laver of sand which permitted the salt water to leach through, so that good crops could not be raised until an outer dike was built. In the fall of 1870, William H. Trimble took a claim for himself and one for G. W. L. Allen adjoining the farm of Smith & McClellan. A year or so later Allen built a fine house on an elevated site and brought his family to live in it. In 1872, Samuel MeNutt and Albert Jennings took claims which were later purchased by John Ball. (liked by him and made into a fine large farm. Jen- nings was a railway engineer, employed in Oregon. so the burden of holding residence upon this prop- erty fell upon his wife and little boy.

Some time about 18:0 or 18:1, Michael Sullivan sold for one thousand six hundred dollars at the river bank the crop of barley raised on forty acres of diked land. The story went clear to Pennsyl- vania. R. E. Whitney, E. A. Sisson and others heard it and soon began planning to migrate to the sound basin. Whitney arrived at Padilla in August, 18:2, bought the right of a man named White, filed a preemption, and with Mrs. Whitney began resi- (lence in a pioneer shack. For many years after he was one of the leading men in the great work of tide land reclamation, one whose faith never wavered, who knew no discouragement. In Dec- ember following his arrival, he was joined by two cousins, E. A. Sisson and A. G. Tillinghast, whom he took into partnership, forming the firm of Whit- ney, Sisson & Company. This partnership was finally dissolved in 1822, not, however, until it had expended much money, labor and effort in diking land. The work was discouraging enough at first. The company, together with Trimble, Highbarger and Allen, constructed three miles of dike and several expensive dams across sloughs, using seventy thousand feet of lumber and paying forty dollars a month and board for men. During the winter of 18:3-1 four of these costly dams went out, the salt water was let in and cultivation was delayed another year. They were rebuilt in 1824, and in 1815 the first crop. twenty acres of oats, was produced. The

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destruction of the dikes was so discouraging to Messrs. Tillinghast and Sisson, that they offered to donate a year's work to be allowed to withdraw from the company neither owing nor owning a cent, but Whitney would not listen to any such propo- sition. He insisted that all go ahead, which they finally decided to do.

In 1873, Whitney, Sisson & Company built the old "White House" on Bay View Ridge, and as showing some of the conditions of life in those days it may be related that the lumber was brought from Utsalady by the steamer Linnie, which dumped it out in the bay two miles from land. The captain did not know the bay nearer shore and would not go in, but he did not forget to charge two dollars and fifty cents a thousand for such service as he was willing to render. The men rafted the lumber and poled it to shore. On March 13, 1873, the house was raised, the entire neighborhood being present and taking part. It still stands, a landmark of the early days, reminder of many a pioncer gathering and festive occasion.

The land around the head of Padilla bay con- tained more peat and hence was more difficult to bring into cultivation than that contiguous to La Conner. Some of it was so soft that, besides under- draining, it required years of time in which to settle so that it would bear up teams in the spring and threshing machines in the fall. As comparatively little of the flats was diked in the early seventies, there was no communication, except by water, with La Conner. For the double purpose of avoiding danger in times of rough weather and of shortening the distance, a canal a half mile long was dug, con- necting Indian and Telegraph sloughs.

While the initial attempts at the development of the beautiful archipelago now constituting the western portion of Skagit county, together with that of the tide flats on the Swinomish, were in progress, enterprising adventurers and fortune hunters were beginning to realize the possibilities of the great Skagit valley above the region of the tide flats. Families soon followed. The first white women to reach the region lying back of the flats, were Mrs. William Gage and her two daughters, now Mrs. Keen and Mrs. Narl ; Mrs. Brice, Mrs. Jasper Gates, Mrs. D. E. Kimble and Mrs. M. J. Kimble, soon followed by Mrs. Charles Washburn, Mrs. August Hartson and Mrs. Isaac Lanning. It is interesting to recall that these ladies were the first to come to that portion of what is now Skagit county on a steamboat. The little steamer Linnie, on which they came, was the first to reach the big jam near Mount Vernon, arriving late in 1870.

The first religious service ever held in that com- munity was conducted by Charles Washburn and D. E. Kimble in a house now owned by Mr. Tink- ham. The first baptism occurred near Peter Vander Kuyl's house in a little slough on the north fork of the Skagit, Rev. B. N. L. Davis performing the

ceremony, and the recipients of it being Mrs. Malala Washburn, who later became Mrs. C. C. Hansen, now deceased, and Mrs. Somers, now Mrs. James Gaches.

The first house to be built in the Skagit valley was erected in 1863 on the claim of W. H. Sart- well, now owned by Magnus Anderson, about five miles below Mount Vernon. Among the first settlers in that same general region were the following upon the south fork of the river: Joseph Lisk, William Kayton, George Wilson, John Wilbur, E. McAlpine, L. Sweet, A. G. Kelley, R. I. Kelley, J. Wilson and Joseph Wilson ; and on the north fork: John Guinea, William Hayes, William Houghton, Joseph Mad- dox, William Brown, H. A. Wright, Peter Vander Kuyl, Franklyn Buck and Magnus Anderson. J. V. Abbott, now dead, located May 5, 1865, and soon after came David Anderson, who located on what afterward became known as the old McAlpine place, upon which Skagit City grew. It is said by some that Mr. Underwood was the first settler on the north fork locating in or before 1865 on the place afterward taken up by Peter Vander Kuyl. We find also some conflicting statements as to who is entitled to the honor of being the first white child born on the Skagit. Some claim it for the child of Charles Washburn, while others claim that Oliver C. Ting- ley, son of S. S. Tingley, born June 6, 18:0, is entitled to that distinction. The first man already a pater familias is said to have been Thomas R. Jones, whose claim was near that of Mr. Tingley on the north fork of the river.

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An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 25

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.) Publication date: 1906 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1172

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172