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 87

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 87
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 87

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In the olden days the canoe was all in all to the Indians of Puget sound and its tributaries. As a child it was his first, if not his only, toy. The greater portion of his boyhood was spent in mastering its mysteries and learning its tricks, and the secret of compelling it to become his will- ing servant. In manhood it was the means by which he obtained shelter, support, covering and nourishment for his family, for seldom was an excursion made, pedatory or otherwise, except through the agency of the inevitable canoe, Ont- side of it the aborigine was a fish out of water, ungainly, awkward and ill at ease. Inside of it he was master of all he surveyed. Small wonder, indeed, that among these tribes the art of canoe building, in the days of long ago, was carried to a remarkable degree of perfection for a so-called savage race and in spite of the crudeness of the implements afforded the barbaric artisan.

As the Indian lived in his craft in life, so also he dwelt in it in death, for canoe burial was the common, and indeed the universal, custom among the fisher folk of the Pacific Northwest. When a man went down to death in those days, after

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wrapping the body in blankets or rush mats, it was placed in the largest canoe belonging to the deceased warrior. A smaller canoe was placed bottom upward inside of the first, and served as a covering and protective for the body, and then the whole was left in the locality devoted to the dead, either upon a light scaffolding, or else hauled high in the tree tops, where the dead and departed brave was left, literally and meta- phorically unable to "paddle his own canoe. "

What an impressive sight is such a flotilla of , perpetual lullaby, for the sea is tender to her the dead bound upon that last and spectral jour- 'own.

ney to the dark beyond. Here, with gentle motion, they sway in the tree-tops as though in their native element, and one might almost think that they do not bear the departed in their last, eternal and dreamless sleep. Over them the swaying trees murmur runic requiems of eld. Afar off, from below, is wafted the sound of the crooning of the surf, as it sends its streamers of salty spume to die on high upon the sands of the beach. Even the breakers are moaning a

CHAPTER V

REMINISCENCES AND POETICAL SELECTIONS

REMINISCENCE OF TWENTY- FIVE YEARS AGO

ELIZA VAN FLEET

On the third day of May, 18SO, I, with my husband and little three-year-old daughter, bade adieu to every familiar face and scene in our native home of Fleetville, Lackawanna county, Pennsylvania, and started West to make us a home in the forest somewhere in the Puget sound country. I shall never forget that sad morning. Several kind friends and neighbors had called to say goodbye, but I could not say one word. As my husband helped me to get my wraps on and half carried me out to the wagon more than one suppressed sob reached my ear. A brisk drive to the station and we had started West. The lovely morning and beautiful scenery soon drove away all feeling of homesickness. As neither of the three northern lines were then built we came via the Central Pacific to San Francisco. There we took passage on the ocean steamer Oregon for Portland. After stopping there a day or two we went back down the Columbia | and as they knew the snow was very deep on the river to Kalama, then took the train for Tacoma, then on to Seattle by boat.

As a 'bus drove us to the Occidental hotel (then a plain wooden structure) I remarked that it was strange that they would call so small a place a city, for it looked to us more like a coun- try village, with the streets not all cleared of the stumps, and such big stumps with notches.cut in them, which excited our curiosity. As the last letter we had received from Mr. Van Fleet's brother Luther was written from Sterling, on Skagit river, we took passage on the steamer Chehalis for that place. I was a little abashed

to find that I was the only woman on board the boat with at least forty men bound for the Ruby creek gold fields. However, I soon found that they were kindly disposed, well bred and intel- ligent men. One of them gave me a paper to read which contained glowing accounts of the gold being discovered at Ruby creek. One day and night on the steamer and we were landed at Ball's logging camp, instead of a village as we had expected to find. A man clerking in the little log store at the camp, Mr. Smith by name, soon made himself known and invited me in to meet Mrs. Welch, a daughter of Mr. Ball. She was the only white woman in camp, in fact the only white woman anywhere in the vicinity. She was very kind, and as I was quite weary after our twenty days' travel, she soon prevailed upon Mr. Van Fleet to let me stay with her until the next steamer would go up the river. The next morning Mrs. Welch showed me the two large rafts her father had made. There had been four feet of snow on the level that winter mountains they were afraid of an overflow. She also pointed out to me the high water marks that were then plainly discernible on nearly all the trees abont six feet up from the ground.

We spent the first three months with brother Luther on the place now owned by Ira Brown, then pre-empted the claim we still own and moved in our shanty which was built from split cedar. Several families of Indians were our nearest neighbors. Jerry Benson and his father Stephen Benson were our nearest white neigh- bors; next came William Woods, William Dunlap, Joseph Hart and Mr. Batey. The place where 1

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Sedro-Woolley now stands was a vast unbroken forest, owned principally by Scott Jameson. The Woolley portion was still government land.

There were no roads, no schools, no churches -in fact no white woman except Mrs. Welch in Sterling, and no white children. I lived here five years before I saw a horse. About the mid- dle of December, 1880, a Chinook wind caused the river to rise very rapidly. As we had never lived near a river before, but had read of great overflows, we concluded it best to be on the safe side, so Mr. Van Fleet built a platform up about twelve feet in a large hollow cedar stub, and split cedar boards so we could go on up 60 feet if necessary. Some of the neighbors had rafts tied to trees close by, others had a canoe securely fastened to the house. When the water was at its highest point we had a heavy earthquake shock, which was a startling experience.

People settled mainly along the banks of the river at first. The voting place for those who lived above the township line, which runs through Sedro-Woolley, was at Lyman; below this line it was at Mount Vernon.

Our only mode of travel was by canoe or steamer. The Chehalis, Josephine, Daisy and Nellie made regular trips up the river and as the river was high all through the summer of ISS0, sometimes they went as far as Portage, above Sauk, with miners and supplies.

A postoffice had just been established at Mr. Ball's camp, called Sterling, but there was no regular mail carrier. Any one that happened to be coming up from Mount Vernon brought the mail. Scott Jameson owned the logging camp farthest up the river, it being a mile above Ster- ling and in charge of Charles Harmon, foreman.

We felt fully prepared to work hard and fare poorly a few years and the reality did not fall short of our expectations, but we had not realized how lonely life would be before we had neigh- bors, schools, etc. Sundays especially were very dreary. When we grew tired of reading there was nothing to do but roam around in the forest and listen to the singing of the birds and the chatter of the squirrels. In August, Mrs. David Batey came into our midst. Two other ladies also resided in Sterling the latter part of the summer and fall, namely, Mrs. Millan and Mrs. Scott, but as they did not stay long there were but four of us white women here for some time. We used to visit each other frequently and had pleasant times. As there were four children of school age in our respective families our principal topic of conversation was how to get the old bachelors married off or families enough in the neighborhood so we could have a school. I well remember how we worried and fretted when we learned that Mr. Batey had located two more bachelors in the neighborhood, namely Charles Wicker and Will Mitchell. But soon Mr. Wicker's friends began to come from the East,

which soon convinced us that no mistake had been made in locating them here.

We had not lived here very long when an old Indian, Pawquit-zy by name, called to have an understanding with us. As he could talk neither English nor Chinook he brought a young Indian along to interpret for him. After the old man had talked and gesticulated for some time, the young Indian told us that he had said we had no right here. That all the land from the head of Sky-you slough to the mouth of the Batey slough belonged to him, had belonged to his father and his grandfather for many years. Mr. Van Fleet quietly remarked, "Oh, tell him white man cut down trees and raise potatoes to trade to Indian for fish." This pleased the old man and he went away in better humor. We learned afterward that other Indians were afraid to hunt, fish or trap on the old man's ground. The old Indian kept a fish trap in the creek near us and used frequently to bring us a nice mess of fish. In the spring of ISS1 Mr. Van Fleet and two other white men went down on the flats to buy cattle, and, on account of having to open up the trail in many places, were gone several days longer than they had expected to be. I got out of wood and one of my Indian neighbors, finding it out, brought his wife and sister up to help me in the house while he cut up a nice lot of wood for me. This was but one of the many acts of kindness shown us by them.

The cows lived on browse and did very well. We sold butter to the logging camps for a good price. In the fall we turned them upon the low ground to winter on rushes. They came out nice and fat in the spring. In June, 1992, we had quite an overflow in which we lost our cow. Then in November, 1883, came another big over- flow in which we lost six head of cattle, so we concluded it best to keep them off the low ground as much as possible. By that time we had a large enough clearing so we could raise hay enough to winter them at home.

Frequently when I was busy with my work I would hear the door open cautiously and in would walk several Indians, men, women and children. Our little daughter would entertain them by showing them pictures in her books, and after watching me work a while they would leave as unceremoniously as they had entered. One day when there was quite a crowd of them there, five or six of their dogs began playing havoc with my flower beds. We asked them if they couldn't keep the dogs off of them, whereupon the men and women called the dogs to them, held and beat every dog to death, then threw them on a log heap. We tried to expostulate but it was no use. They said the dogs were no good anyway. Doubtless you can imagine I was a little nervous when they left.

One day an Indian woman and her daughter were here, when, in looking at the pictures in a

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book, they came across the picture of the Savior on the cross. The woman knelt down and for some time seemed to be praying, then she told her daughter the story of the crucifixion. could not understand a word she said, but by the moaning of the daughter and the look of conster- nation on her face I think the mother's deserip- tion must have been very good. She showed how the nails were driven in the hands and feet, the crown of sharp thorns pressed upon the brow, the spear thrust in the side and the blood flowing away. I would liked to have talked to her to ascertain if she really understood that the par- doning blood was shed for her, but could not. There were several tribes of Indians in the Puget sound country and each tribe seemed to be at enmity with all the rest. It was a cominon occurrence for one Indian to kill another Indian. The white people never molested them in this lawlessness among themselves. When an Indian had been killed one of his friends would kill one of the murderer's friends, never being particular to get the guilty one, thus keeping all the Indians in perpetual fear for their lives. We have frequently seen an Indian "poling" his canoe up the river, sounding the death ery which would seem to echo from hill to hill, and cause every Indian's face to blanch, for he knew when he heard that cry that at least one of his friends was dead.

They lived principally on dried salmon, these Indians, which was also legal tender with them. They did not bury their dead in the ground, but built platforms upon poles and laid their dead up to decay, or else put them in old canoes and ran the boats off into the brush. One of their plat- form resting places was on Sky-you island, and a lot of their skeletons rested in old canoes at the mouth of the Batey slough. All of the old Indians had flat heads. They thought that they would not be bright if their heads were not pressed or bound to a board when they were infants. Usually a "potlatch" was held once a year. Sometimes there would be several hun- dred Indians in attendance and usually several would be killed before their jubilee broke up. At a "potlatch" the Indian who could give away the most presents would be chief the ensuing year.

One July afternoon, when I was out picking strawberries in the garden an Indian that I sup- posed to be at the Potlatch gathering called and asked for milk for his babe. He was quite excited, told me his wife was dead, had been poisoned at the gathering; how, several years before, her parents sold her to a Siwaslı she did not love. She ran away from that man and came and was his wife. How she was lying on her back at daybreak in their tent at the Potlatch when her first man came and poured something down her throat. She was soon taken with con- vulsions and died. Then the Indian said, "Me

kill him." I said, "Oh, no, I wouldn't do that." He showed me his dirk knife which he carried in his belt, and said, "Me did kill him. Siwashes all stand around in big circle: in less than an hour me had him all ent up." I gave him the milk, but as the babe had never seen milk before he would not touch it.

Wild animals were quite plentiful ; frequently the deer tracks along the trail would look like a flock of sheep had been there, and many were the venison dinners we used to have. One morning we found a fawn running with the calves in the yard. Pheasants were very numerous, often thirty or forty in a flock. When Mr. Brown used to take down the gun to kill them to fry for breakfast I would say, "Now don't kill more than five or six for you know they will waste." Bruin's tracks were all around in the cattle trails. We used to see them occasionally, but they would always run, and never did us any harm. Mr. Van Fleet killed several of them, but he can tell the bear stories better than I can.

Wildcats and hawks were a constant menace to our chickens. After being bothered several months I concluded to try to shoot them myself, and have had the pleasure of seeing many a pheasant and hawk drop at the report of my shotgun, but can only boast of killing one wild- cat. The cat would come every day and take a chicken or two until half our flock was gone. Mr. Van Fleet would leave his work and watch for the cat by the hour, when, off in another direction, a chicken would squall. Finally, one morning when his patience was exhausted, he asked me to watch while he went to Mount Vernon after strychnine to poison him with. All day long in the hot sun I sat and watched a log which

spanned the creek. A large hawk came and lit

on a stub over my head, which was too big a temptation. I fired, but missed him. Quite indignant with myself I loaded the gun, thinking that I would be a great one to shoot at a wild- cat. But about sundown, happening to look toward the house, I saw the wildcat sitting par- tially behind a stump watching me. I walked up to within two rods of the stump, then paused, when the eat came slowly creeping forth from the other side of the stump. I took a step so I could see more of him and said to myself, "Mr. Wild- cat I own a few of those chickens," and fired. My little girl then came running down and cried, "Oh! mamma! you have killed the wildcat. Oh! don't he look frightful, though?" Yes, our trouble was ended. I ran with my little girl to the nearest neighbors, a half a mile away, for- getting in my excitement to leave the gun at home, which quite frightened Mrs. Benson as we rushed in. "I have killed the cat," I cried. "Oh, good!" was her reply. They came back up with us and George Benson, then a lad of 12 years of age, hauled it to the house for us. The strychnine, however, came handy to use to poison

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the cougars that came for our hogs. But for fear I am writing for the waste basket I will change the subject.

We still have an agreement paper which reads as follows :

"Dec. 2. 1554.

"We, the undersigned, do agree to give two days' work on the road between Batey's home- stead house and the Van Fleet bridge in road district No. 29 Emmett Van Fleet. Charles Wicker, Will Mitchell, George Benson, G. O. Wicker, William Woods, David Batey, W. A. Dunlap, A. Johnson, E. M. Barnes, J. Greenhagen, August Polte, G. W. Wiseman."

They did the first work on that section of the road after the surveying was done by Mr. Savage. In 1883 a school district was established at Sterling, which included the new Sedro- Woolley and Wilson districts. Mr. Batey, Mr. D. Benson and Mr. Van Fleet were appointed directors, and Mr. Smithson clerk. Miss Eva Wallace began the first school, which was fin- ished by Miss Turner. In 1556 the district was divided and the Sedro district formed, which included the Wilson district. Mrs. Ira Brown went around with a subscription paper and received one hundred and fifty dollars in a day and a half to furnish material for the new school- house. The work on the building was also donated, and Miss Fairy Cook employed as teacher. Rev. McMillan delivered the first ser- mon in Sterling, Rev. Dobbs in Sedro.

Mortimer Cook came among us in ISS4. employed Mr. Batey to build a residence and store, and made arrangements to apply for a postoffice and christen the place "Bug.

I did not like the name, so persuaded several of our neighbor women to go with me, and talk to Mr. Cook about it. We found him seated on a pile of lumber, whittling. We told him we had lived here several years in peace and quiet and had come to protest against his calling the new postoffice "Bug." After scratching his head a while he remarked, "Don't suppose you ladies will sign my petition for the postoffice then?" I replied, "Never. How our letters would look addressed to 'Bug" " He said that he had just received a letter from his wife in Santa Barbara; that she didn't like the name and was afraid it would soon be changed to "Humbug :" further, that she didn't think she would come until the place had a better name.

"Well," he said, "seeing Bug doesn't suit the ladies the name shall be changed." The next time I saw him he asked how the name Sedro would do, said it was the Spanish word for "cedar." We all thought it a very good name so our postoffice was named Sedro. I sometimes wonder if our town would now be called Bug- Woolley had the name not been changed. Mr. Cook also built and operated the first shingle mill in Skagit county. His wife and two daugh-

ters came in June, 1855, and were the first women to reside in Sedro proper. But the work done by Mr. Cook, like Mr. Ball's work in Ster- ling, is fast being obliterated.

And so methought 'twill quickly be With every mark on earth of me; A wave of dark oblivion's sea Will sweep across the place Where I have trod the sandy shore

Ot time, and been to be no more

Of me, my day. the name I bore. And leave no track or trace.

Sedro-Woolley, Dec. 10, 1900.

SOME UPPER STILLAGUAMISH HISTORY

During a Fourth of July address, delivered many years ago, it was Charles Sprague who said: "Not many years ago where you now sit, surrounded by all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind. and the wild fox dug his hole unscared and the Indian lover wooed his dusky maid."

This eloquent sentiment well applies to the Stillaguamish valley so far as the dog salmon- scented Siwash amorita are concerned, but the rank thistle came with the thrifty Canadian and the wild fox was not in evidence at all.

Until the year 1SS4 the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River was called "Starve-Out- Valley," for the reason that up to that time all the settlers were bachelors, who went in with packs of blankets and provisions, and by the time that a shake shanty had been built, a few trees had been cut, the "last bit of bacon was in the pan, fried," the last batch of sour dough was baked on the coals in a cedar board fireplace, the pack-strap settler hailed a passing Siwash canoe and went to Stanwood for another pack of sup- plies. Many never returned and the places were taken by others, who in time abandoned them. And thus the hopeful bachelor came and the hungry bachelor went until a woman demon- strated that a human being could not only exist on the products of the North Fork, but could live there for eighteen years and grow stouter all the time. Historians have been too loud in their praises of what the forefathers have done, and far too silent in their hints that the foremothers were there. The womanless settlement of Jamestown was abandoned by the faint-hearted men. Some turned pirates and some wanted to burn the town; while at Plymouth, where the Pilgrims landed on a frozen shore, where but seven persons were able to nurse the sick and bury the dead, and where they dug more graves than they builded houses-not a faint-hearted Pilgrim returned with the Mayflower in the spring, because the women were there.

On the first day of March, 1554, Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood, Ed. Fisher and a Mr. Parks pitched their tents at the McEwan place, three miles up the North Fork, and took possession of an aban.

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doned bachelor cabin. They had been taken up the river in a canoe by Siwash John Friday and his kloochman and reached the place the third day after leaving Stanwood. That night a heavy snow fell and the next day the men began to cut a heavy trail to Mr. Collingwood's homestead claim, three miles to the westward, which required eleven days. Then the cabin was built, the supplies packed in and Mrs. Collingwood- the first white woman of the North Fork-took her canine body guard, "Shep," and moved into her first forest home. Mr. Parks located on the D. S. Baker place, and during the summer James McCullough took up the claim that is now occu- pied by the river a mile west of Cooper's shingle inill, and George Moore located the present Brazelton place and relinquished it to that family a year later.

On the fourth of July, ISS4, a picnic was held at Kent's place, on the prairie that bears his name. Tliose present were Mr. and Mrs. Kent, Mrs. Kent's father and mother, Ed. Lewis and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Condent who lived on the present. Armstrong place, and two fruit tree agents. The household of Collingwood was invited, but Ed. Fisher went to Stanwood to work for Chilly Pete, while the others accepted the invitation, and when they were yet a great way off, Mr. Condent, who was a Mormon preacher, went and killed the fatted calf (which in this case was a fatted lamb), and there were feasting and sack races.

During August of that year the Collingwoods commuted the homestead and moved to the place now occupied by Mrs. Collingwood, taking it as a pre-emption. Here she and "Shep" lived for a week in a half-finished house, while Mr. Colling- wood was running a threshing machine on the Stanwood Flats, and the working men were away building cabins on their claims.

The year 1884 brought a number of claim- takers. Among them were Jay Lock, who helped Mr. Collingwood clear a garden spot, and James Shields, who located the Hildebrand place. Mrs. Collingwood helped him to build his cabin, which is still standing just below the rail- road bridge, across the river from the Harmony schoolhouse.

Christ Fisher located the (Confederate) John Hamilton place; John Jerro the Fox place; Allen & Hubbard the Grant place; Timothy Ryan the Dixon place, and Dan McMillan the place where Mr. Hayton now lives. The follow- ing January Mr. McMillan was married in Seattle and while making a thirty-mile wedding tour on foot, after leaving the steamer at Stanwood, they were benighted on the island below Silvana and camped in a hollow stump. Mr. Hildebrand located on the Setzer place in 1SS6, which he soon abandoned, and bought out Jim Shields. After continuous residence and somewhat exten- sive improvement he died there in 1996.

Malachi Ryan located the place that he still owns, in May, ISS5, and the same year John Han- cock located the Frailey place, William Connors the upper Hayton place and John C. Ward the place that is now owned by Harley Aldridge. Mrs. Hancock died suddenly in the summer of 1887, and her body was taken in a canoe to Stanwood for burial.

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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 87

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