USA > Washington > Thurston County > Early history of Thurston County, Washington : together with biographies and reminiscences of those identified with pioneer days > Part 20
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Albert E. Phillips was married to Miss Ellen Gillispie in 1869, and brought his bride from Whidby Island to Olympia to make their home.
Three children were the result of this union, Gertrude, afterwards Mrs. Rankin; Elizabeth. now Mrs. O. M. Mitchell of Mt. Claire, New Jersey, and Charles K. Gertrude died several years ago. Charles lives in Seattle, but claims Olympia as his home, coming here to vote at election time.
Mrs. Phillips, a native of Wisconsin, came to Whidby Island with her parents, in 1857 The journey to the West was via Panama, and was soon after the little railroad was built across the Isthmus.
Whidby Island at that time was considered to be the garden spot of Washington. A very superior class of people had settled there, who were enjoying unusual prosperity for so new a section, consequently Mrs. Phillips' recollections of the islands are very pleasant, and the reminiscences con- tributed by that lady are exceedingly interesting.
All travel, of course. was by water, and Indians were generally hired to convey the settlers to the various points, in their canoes. For a moderate charge, the natives would take a party even as far as Seattle. Among Mrs. Phillips' most
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pleasant memories is a trip to that city, taken in company with her brother-in-law and sister. The big bucks did the paddling. A camp was made at night on the beach, and the trip was comfortable and full of delight to the young people.
Another trip taken at an earlier day, which Mrs. Phillips tells about, was not so pleasant. When she was a young girl about fourteen years of age, in company with her seventeen- year-old sister, Elizabeth, they started for a day's visit with friends in Coupeville. An Indian was hired to take them there in his canoe, the fare being 50 cents for the round trip. When they were opposite a lonely place on the beach. the Indian paddled up to the shore. With his paddle in his hand. springing out of the canoe, he pushed the girls away from the shore, and, pulling a knife, which to the frightened girls looked to be two feet long, began to hack his paddle to pieces, jabbering and grimacing all the while in a perfectly demoniacal manner. The girls were paralyzed with terror and at a loss what to do, drifting there alone in a canoe without a paddle or means of landing. At this time another Indian paddled up to them and asked them the cause of their trouble. Upon their telling him, he directed them to look under the mat in the bottom of their canoe and find another paddle and reach the shore, which they did. The friendly Indian then went up to the one who had caused the trouble, ant sternly repri- manded him, and commanded him to get back in the cange and take the girls on to Coupeville. Indian No. 1 quieted down, resumed the journey and made no further disturbance, then nor on the return trip.
At one time E. C. Phillips owned a farm on Whidy Island and had a couple of men and an Indian clearing some land One of the men hung his coat upon a stump, while he worked. In the pocket of the coat was $300 in $20 gold pieces. When the day's work was over, the owner of the coat threw it over his arm and went to supper. Some time in the evening he missed his money and, naturally, accused the Indian, who had been working with him, of taking it. The Siwash strenuously denied the theft. But there was no mistake. The money had certainly been in the man's pocket. None but the Indian saw the coat hanging on the stump. The money was gone. Of course he took it. Justice was swift and impetuous in those
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days. A posse of "Boston" men soon assembled. Both sides of the story were told, and without delay the Indian was con- victed. But a conviction, however satisfying to the loser, did not repay him for his vanished dollars. So the Boston men 1ook Mr. Indian out, stood him under the forked limb of an immense tree, slipped a noose in the end of a rope over his head and began to tighten it. and told the Indian to prepare to meet his Tenanamus-God. Stoically stood the native, whose only words had been, "Me no take." It looked for a while as if the suspect would be counted among the good Indians within a few moments. But cooler judgment pre- vailed, and as the Siwash affirmed and reaffirmed his "no take," it was decided to let him go. The noose was unfastened and the Indian lost no time in fading away.
Years, to the number of twenty-five, passed on-the incident was long since forgotten. The farm on which the money dis- appeared had passed into the hands of a brother of Mrs. Phillips: John Gillispie. One day in plowing up some new land in a freshly cleared field. he caught the glitter of something bright. Picking up the object. he was amazed to find it to be a $20 gold piece. Gillispie then remembered the story of the loss of the $300 years ago, and searched till he found the entire amount. It had fallen from the man's pocket when he flung it over his arm, and had lain at the foot of a stump all these years.
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BENNETT WILLSON JOHNS
The distinction of having been the youngest soldier in the volunteer company enlisted to defend Seattle in the Indian war of 1855-56, belongs to the subject of this sketch, Bennett Willson Johns. who, with his father, brothers and sisters. arrived in Seattle in 1833. Early in the spring of that year the elder Johns, Bennett Lewis, with his wife. Elizabeth Tuttles Johns, and their large family of children, started from their old home in Tennessee, for the West.
When the emigrants reached Soda Springs. in Idaho. the wife and mother, with her two weeks' old babe. were taken down with mountain fever, and died after a few days' illness. The eldest daughter. Frances, who had become the wife of Alexander Barnes in the East, but who. with her husband, was also among the emigrants, was also stricken with the same disease, and followed her mother within a few days. Mother and daughter sleep side by side in lonely graves in the wilderness.
The emigrants resumed their Western march after these bereavements, sad and discouraged, but with no alternative but to push onward.
Owing to the delays from sickness and fatigue of the cattle. snow began to fall by the time the train reached the Cascades, and before many days' travel through the mountains were accomplished, it became necessary to abandon the wagons and much of the outfit, and take pack horses with which to continue their journey. Food became so scarce that a messenger was dispatched ahead of the weary emigrants with a prayer for assistance, to the settlers of Seattle. With char- acteristic Western generosity, the appeal was responded to and food and comforts sent back along the trail to relieve the distress of the emigrants. On reaching Puget Sound. the father took up a donation claim in what is now King County.
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on the Duwamish River, nine miles from Seattle, where he engaged in farming and stock raising.
After the family had lived on the claim two years, the Indian war broke out and the elder Johns and two sons were among the first volunteers, and were engaged in the battle of 1856 when the Indians attacked Seattle.
Among B. W. Johns' most vivid remembrances, was one morning while the family were at breakfast in their home in the suburbs of the town, where they had moved from the homestead at the time of the massacre on White River, the Indians surrounded the house, driving the father and children into the town. When they returned they found the house had been ransacked by the Klootchman, and all they considered of value was taken, including the winter's supply of flour.
This was a serious matter. The father and boys had raised the wheat on their own land, the father sowing in the morn- ing as much as the boys could dig into the ground and cover during the rest of the day. Later on this wheat was harvested in the primitive way of the time, threshed with a flail and winnowed in the wind. Then the precious grain was taken by Mr. Johns and Mr. John Collins, in a flat bottomed scow, to Tumwater, where it was ground into flour.
When the family arrived in Washington-then Oregon- Mr. Bennett W. Johns was but a mere lad of fourteen. but even at that age he filled a man's part in the struggle which every pioneer had to participate in. After remaining with his father on the claim until he was twenty years of age, he started out in life for himself. When the Frazer River gold excite- ment was claiming many of the pioneers of the infant terri- tory, Mr. Johns joined the rush and mined with considerable success on Puget Sound Bar on the Frazer. Later he turned his energies to fur trading, with much financial success.
In 1869, tired of a roving life, the young man came to Olympia. where for fourteen years he was engaged in the sawmill business with his brother-in-law, William H. Mitchell.
In 1876, Mr. Johns purchased the fine farm on Bush Prairie which, although he sold it in later years. is still known as the Johns place. He also acquired considerable other valu- able property in Thurston County and in the City of Olympia.
In 1872 Mr. Johns enjoyed his greatest piece of good
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luck in his successful life-he married Miss Mary J. Vertrees. One daughter, Ruth, was born to the young couple.
Mr. B. W. Johns died at the family home in Olympia on December 27, 1905.
During Mr. Johns' life he was actively associated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having been Noble Grand in this fraternal organization, and was also a member of the auxiliary-the Rebekahs. He was also at one time Master Workman of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. Both Mr. B. W. Johns and his wife, Mary Vertrees, have been connected with the Baptist Church since the days of their early youth.
Mary Vertrees Johns was the daughter of Charles M. and Mary J. Vertrees, and was born in Pike County, Illinois. October 26. 1851. On February 25, 1872. she became the wife of Bennett Willson Johns, the wedding taking place in Olympia. at which place the young lady was a new arrival.
At one time Mrs. Johns owned and successfully superin- tended a book bindery in Olympia. She was also first matron of Charleston Cottage for young ladies at Ottawa, Kansas. University in 1892 and 1893. Later Mrs. Johns was assistant postmaster in Olympia for a term of seven years beginning April 16, 1898. This lady, while feminine and womanly in the truest sense of the word, is outspoken in her belief that women have an equal right with men in framing laws for the govern- ment and protection of the country, and enjoys the distinction of having been twice elected a delegate to the Republican County Convention in the 'SOs, when women were given the right to vote, and once elected as degelate to the Territorial Convention.
Besides her almost life-long affiliation with the Baptist Church, Mrs. Johns is Past Matron of the Eastern Star, has been three times president of the Woman's Club of Olympia. twice Noble Grand of the Order of Rebekahs, a member of the Ladies' Relief Society and president of the George H. Thomas Relief Corps.
Mrs. Johns has enjoyed extensive travel, not only through the United States, but Mexico and Canada, and in later years toured the European countries.
Since the death of her husband Mrs. Johns has efficiently
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managed the considerable property left her, The only child born to Mr. and Mrs. Johns, Ruth V., now Mrs. A. S. Kerfoot, arrived in their home on December 5, 1874, and now makes her home in Lemon Grove, California, with her husband and an interesting family of three boys-Bennett Johns, George Franklin and Robert Arthur.
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DR. A. H. STEELE
Dr. Alden Hatch Steele was an early pioneer of Oregon, coming to that State in 1849 with the 1st Rifle Regiment, U. S. A., crossing the plains to Vancouver.
He was born in Oswego, New York, the youngest of three sons of Orlo Steele and Fanny Abbey. The oldest brother. Elijah Steele was a prominent lawyer and for many years was Superior Judge in Siskiyou County, California.
The other brother. William, was a graduate of West Point. and served in both the Mexican and Civil wars.
Dr. Steele graduated from the Medical Department of the University of New York in 1846. At the time he reached Oregon Territory, Oregon City was the principal town, and he settled there, marrying Hannah Hooper Blackler of Marble- head. Mass., who came to Oregon as a teacher under the pro- tection of Rev. G. II. Atkinson, a Congregational clergyman, who had been to the Eastern States asking for volunteers for this work in the new country.
Dr. Steele had great influence with the Indians and set- tled many of their disputes. In 1857 he was physician in charge of the Grand Rounde Indian Reservation and again in 1870 served in the same way the Indians of Nesqually, Che- halis and Squaxon Island Reservations, then in charge of Col. Samuel Ross, U. S. A. During the Civil War. Dr. Steele was post surgeon at Fort Dalles and Fort Stevens. Oregon, and Fort Steilacoom, Wash. This last named Post was where the present Insane Asylum is now situated.
In 1869 the troops at Fort Steilacoom were ordered to Alaska and Dr. Steele, feeling he had done his share of frontier work, resigned from the army and took up his professional work in Olympia, where he built a home at the southeast cor- ner of Franklin and Tenth Streets and lived until his death, in 1902.
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During the years spent in Oregon and Washington he held many places of trust and prominence in public affairs. and was widely known as a leading physician and surgeon all through his life. In 1852 Dr. Steele used chloroform in ampu- tating a limb. the first used in surgery north of San Francisco.
He was mayor of Oregon City three terms and a mem- ber of the city council eleven years. In Olympia he was an earnest worker for all public improvements, helping to start the first Gas & Power Co., director for many years of the First National Bank, and stockholder in the railroad to Tenino. and the "Olympia" Hotel, built by the citizens by hard efforts to help keep the capital on the old historic spot. Dr. Steele was an earnest member of the Episcopal church, and was one of the committee that sent a request to New York in 1853. asking for a Bishop for the Northwest. This request was an- swered by the election of Thomas Feilding Scott, in 1854, as first Missionary Bishop for the Territory of Oregon, a terri- tory then extending over the present State of Washington. He was also a member of the first convocation called by Bishop Scott, to establish the church in this new field. He was al- ways a vestryman of St. John's Church, Olympia, and junior warden and treasurer for twenty years.
Dr. Steele was appointed by Gov. Ferry as Regent of the University, serving two terms. Also medical examiner of the territorial penitentiary for six years, medical examiner of the New York Mutual Life Insurance Company for twenty-five years, and for several other life insurance companies. He was an honorary member of both the Oregon and Washington Medical Societies.
Dr. Steele died at his home in Olympia, June 29th. 1902. aged 79. He left his wife and one daughter. a son having died many years before. His daughter. Fanny Orlo. married in 1878 Russell G. O'Brien of Olympia, who came to Washington in 1870 with Governor Salomon, as Assistant Collector of Internal Revenue.
He was known as the "Father of the National Guard of Washington." organizing the first company of the present militia in Olympia in 1882 and serving as Adjutant General of the State for twenty-five years. He died in Pasadena. Cali-
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fornia, in February, 1914. General and Mrs. O'Brien had three children, a daughter, Florence Blackler, died in 1883; a son, R. Lloyd, who was a prominent student and athlete at the State University, where he completed his course as a Civil Engineer, died Nov. 26, 1912. The youngest dangh- ter, Helen Steele, married George A. Aetzel, vice president of the Olympia Door Company, and resides in Olympia. One son, Charles Alden, was born in 1912 to Mr. and Mrs. Aetzel.
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THOS. M. MACLEAY
Thomas Moore Macleay was born in Willapool, on Lock Broom, in Ross and Cromarty Shires, Scotland. His family was one of the oldest and most prominent in that section and when he was a child his family moved to Richmond, Canada. In 1861, he went into business in Montreal and during the Civil War traveled through the Eastern States, buying what pro- duce he could and shipping to his partner. Hearing through his brother about California and Oregon, he decided to sell out and go there.
He then become interested in the firm of Corbett & Mac- leay Co., of Portland, who owned several large vessels and did an immense business all over the Coast and in the Hawaiian Islands.
He later visited Puget Sound and decided to cast his lot in Olympia, where he opened a wholesale and retail grocery, below Second on Main street. His stock was so heavy it caused the floor to give way so he built a new place on Main street, between Second and Third streets. His large heart was open to every new comer and he trusted them with goods for months and always had a warm corner and something to eat for everyone.
Traveling in those days was very hard and was done most- ly by row boat and horseback. He always had the good of the community at heart and was very enterprising. With Capt. J. G. Parker and Dr. Alden Steele, he built the first steamer, "The Messenger," that made daily trips between Olympia and Tacoma and Seattle. It was considered a wild and unheard of undertaking in those days and was a great event when the boat was launched and made her trial trip as far as Doffe- meyers Point.
He married Annie Frost, the youngest sister of Robert Frost, a pioneer of the fifties, and by whom he had five chil-
MR. AND MRS. THOMAS MACLEAY
LYN, LEICK AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.
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dren. Their first home was the building where Governor Stevexs opened the first Territorial Legislature, and where their only son, Lachlan Macleay, now a prominent business man of New York, was born.
Mr. Macleay died in 1897 and as his old friend, John Miller Murphy wrote of him: "His word was as good as a bond, and his name to an obligation as safe as the paper of the Bank of England." Mrs. Macleay, as a young girl, was one of a group of young people who were the life of the whole community.
In the early seventies they organized the Olympia Ama- teur Dramatic Club, whose members were Billy Neat, Robert Frost. Capt. Ballard, (who afterwards founded the town of Ballard), Joe Chilberg. George Blankenship. Sam Woodruff, James Ferry and Professor Roberts, the ladies being Nettie Horton, Gyp Shelton, Ada Woodruff, (who is now Mrs. Oliver Anderson, the . noted anthoress), Julia Shelton and Annie Frost.
They put on these amateur plays in the old Town Hall, the proceeds going for different purposes-once to paint the hall and again to build a house for a family who had been burned ont.
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JUDGE O. B. McFADDEN
A sketch of Thurston County's early history without at least a mention of Judge O. B. McFadden and his family would, indeed. be like a play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out.
Born in Pennsylvania of a sturdy and well-to-do family, Judge McFadden spent the early years of his life in that state. There he was married and there his four elder children were born. In 1853 President Franklin Pierce appointed the young lawyer, who even then was beginning to attract attention by his legal attainments and tactful statesmanship, to the posi- tion of Circuit Judge over the newly organized Territory of Oregon. Judge McFadden made the trip to his new field of labor by water. crossing the Isthmus and coming on up to San Francisco, then by boat up the Columbia to Vancouver, which was then but little more than a trading post established by the Hudson Bay people. Court was held in the Rogue River country and the Judge would make his visits from Vancouver always on horseback, with his legal books and documents packed in his saddle bags. Soon after the formation of Wash- ing Territory, and her separation from Oregon, Judge Mc- Fadden was appointed Chief Justice to succeed Edward Lan- der, who was the first Judge to enjoy that honor.
The year before his coming to Olympia, Judge McFadden had returned to his home in Pennsylvania and yielding to the entreaties of his wife, who could no longer bear separation from her husband, brought his family back with him upon his return to Oregon. Mr. Frank P. McFadden, one of the sons, relates their experiences during their first few weeks in Van- couver. The mother and children were filled with dread and apprehension of the Indians, and before coming West had been told by their friends of the dire fate which would probably await them when they reached the wilds of Oregon. One day the McFadden boys, while playing by the banks of the river,
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espied a flotilla of apparently empty canoes and small boats drifting down the Columbia. They rushed to the settlement. giving the alarm that the Indians were coming. Even some of the men who hastened to the river's edge to see the cause of the boys' scare thought they were correct, for the long string of boats were certainly approaching and it was thought that in the bottom of each eanoe was lying a savage buck with his gun pointed toward them. But when the boats came near enough for thorough investigation, they were seen to be, in- deed, empty, and it afterwards proved the craft had been made a few miles up the river and were being brought down for sale among the settlers.
Another scare the MeFaddens experienced was one dark night after they had all retired. the mother and children were awakened by the most terrible yelling and screaming. Sure now that the Indians had come and were murdering everyone in Vancouver; they cowered in their beds in the dark wonder- ing what moment their time would come. Morning broke, however, and they were surprised to find themselves still alive. Making their way to the nearest neighbors they were relieved to learn that the horrid sounds had been made by a pack of coyotes which had fallen upon the carcass of a horse lying in the brush not far from the McFadden home.
In 1873 Judge McFadden was elected a delegate to Con- gress on the Democratic ticket, defeating Selucius Garfielde on the Republican ticket. The next two busy years were spent in Washington, D. C. Judge MeFadden died in Olympia in 1875, shortly after the expiration of his term as delegate. The McFadden home, on a point of land overlooking the Sound, was for years one of the beauty spots of Olympia, but the march of progress has developed business establishments in the neighborhood and detracted from the loveliness of the view once to be obtained from the windows of what was, in its days, considered a mansion. In this home for many years after the death of her husband lived Mrs. McFadden, who finally, in 1904, sank to rest. The children of Judge and Mrs. McFadden are : Mrs. Mary Miller. of Seattle ; O. B. McFadden. Jr., Frank P. and J. Cal McFadden of Olympia, R. N. McFadden of Seward, Alaska, and Mrs. L. P. Ouelette, of Olympia.
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EDMOND AND CROWELL H. SYLVESTER
The pioneers who are the subjects of this sketch are too well known, and their pioneer experiences have been so oft related that the compiler can give but little more than a repeti- tion of facts which are already history. Fishermen bold were these brothers, descended from a long line of fishermen, who made their home at Deer Isle, Maine, the spirit and love of «langer and adventure was born with them. In 1846, the elder brother. Edmond, came to Puget Sound, locating first on a claim on what later became known as Chambers' Prairie. Syl- vester's nearest neighbor was Nathan Eaton, the first settler on this prairie. Sylvester had as partner a man named Smith. who selected for his claim the half section of ground where Olympia now stands. There was a mutual agreement that in the event of the death of either of the partners, the survivor should own the whole of both claims.
Sylvester and Smith, even then, had faith that a town would be built on the location; indeed, the partners planned to lay out a town site themselves. To this new town they planned to give the name Smithter. combining their names.
In 1848 Smith, who was subject to epilepsy, was found dead in his boat, in which he was intending to make a trip to attend the Oregon Legislature, of which he had been elected a mem- ber. By the agreement Sylvester inherited Smith's claim and from that time on for many years the town and its develop- ment became his chief interest in life. He changed the name of the settlement to Olympia and his generosity in bestowing tracts of land to the city to be used for public purposes is well known. The beautiful little park, now known as Capital Square, but for many years called Sylvester Park. a half block of land west of the Capitol Building for the location of Olym- pia's first school house, and the ten acres donated to the State in Capitol Park on which are located the executive mansion
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