CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
INDIAN WAR DAYS
One of the saddest chapters in the early history of Washington Territory was the trouble with the Indians, which led finally to open war.
On October 28, 1855, word came that all the settlers living on White River had been killed by the Indians and that the next day those in the Puyallup valley would be massacred. At the risk of his life a friendly Indian brought this news to us in the dead hours of the night.
The massacre had occurred less than twenty miles from where we lived. For all we knew the Indians might be on us at any moment. There were three men of us, and each had a gun.
The first thing we did was to harness and hitch the team to the wagon. Then we opened the gates to let the calves get to their mothers, turned the pigs loose, and opened the chicken-house door—all this without light. Then the drive for our lives began, the women and babies lying close to the bottom of the wagon, the men with guns ready for action.
We reached Fort Steilacoom unmolested. But we could not in safety stop there. The place was really no fort at all, only an encampment, and it was already filled with refugees from the surrounding settlements. So we pushed on into the town and stayed there until a blockhouse was built.
This building was about fifty feet wide and nearly a hundred feet long. It was bullet-proof, without windows, and two stories high. A heavy door swung at the front entrance to the lower story, while an inclined walk from higher ground in the rear enabled us to reach the upper story; inside, a ladder served the purpose of a stairway between the two stories.
The blockhouse proved a haven of safety during the Indian trouble, not only to our own family but to many of our neighbors besides. Seventy-five such houses were built during these troublous times. Numbers of settlers did not go back to their homes for several years.
The Indians finally came in force just across the Sound and defied the troops. They also prevented the soldiers from landing from the steamer sent against them. A few days later we heard the guns from Fort Nisqually, which, however, I have always thought was a false alarm. It was when a captive child was brought in that we began to feel the gravity of the situation.
Yet many of our fears turned out to be baseless. For instance, one day Johnny Boatman, a little boy not quite four years old, was lost. His mother was almost crazed, for word went out that the Indians had stolen him. A day later the lad was found under a tree, asleep. He had simply wandered away.
A perplexing feature of the whole affair came from the fact that there were two warring camps among the forces of both the Indians and the whites. Some of the Indians were friendly; we had ample proof of that fact. Some of the whites were against the harsh measures taken by those in charge. This dissension led to much unnecessary trouble and bloodshed.
The blockhouse, a haven of safety.
The war was brought on by the fact that the Indians had been wronged. This seems certain. They had been robbed of their lands, by the treaties made in 1854, and there had been atrocious murders of Indians by irresponsible white men. The result was suffering and trouble for all of us.
The war brought troops, many of whom were reckless men; the army then was not up to the standard of today. Besides, there came in the wake of the soldiers a trail of gamblers and other disreputable people to vex and perplex us. In the blockhouses could be seen bullet marks which we knew did not come from Indians.
I remember a little drummer boy, known as Scotty, who used frequently to come over to our home. He was a bright little fellow, and the Colonel, finding it was agreeable to us, encouraged him to make these visits, perhaps to get him away a little from the rough life of the post. Scotty had been living with a soldier there who, as report had it, used to get drunk and beat his wife. When my wife asked Scotty one day if the soldier abused his wife, he replied, "Well, I can't say exactly that he abuses her. He only cuffs and kicks her around the house sometimes." Poor boy! he had seen so much rough living that he didn't know what abuse meant.
Not all the soldiers were of this drunken cast, of course. Many brave and noble men were among the military forces. The Indians, naturally, did not discriminate between good and bad soldiers. They hated and fought the troops, while at the same time they would often protect the pioneers, with whom they had been generally friendly.
The lost child.
I had lived in peace with these Indians and they had gained my confidence. As events subsequently showed, I held their friendship and confidence. At one time, during the war, a party of Indians held me harmless within their power. They had said they would not harm those who had advocated their cause at the time the treaties were made.
Soon after the outbreak noted, I disregarded the earnest entreaties of many persons and went back to my stock and to the cabin to care for the abandoned dairy and young cattle.
I did not believe the Indians would molest me, but took the precaution of having my rifle in a convenient place. I did not need to use it. When nightfall came I did withdraw from my cabin, not from fear of war parties, but of individual outlaws.
The sole military experience of my life consisted in an expedition to the Puyallup valley with a company of seventeen settlers soon after the outbreak described. The settlers of Puyallup had left their homes the day after the massacre in such haste that they were almost destitute of clothing, bedding, and food, as well as shelter. A strong military force had penetrated the Indian country—the upper Puyallup valley and beyond. We knew of this, but did not know that the soldiers had retreated by another road, virtually driven out, the very day we went in armed with all sorts of guns and with scarcely any organization.
We had gone into the Indian stronghold not to fight Indians, but to recover property. Nevertheless, there would have been hot work if we had been attacked. The settlers knew the country as well as did the Indians and were prepared to meet them on their own ground and in their own way.
The Indians were in great force but a few miles distant. They had scouts on our tracks, but did not molest us. We visited every settler's cabin and secured the belongings not destroyed. On the sixth day we came away with great loads of "plunder." All the while we were in blissful ignorance that the troops had been withdrawn, and that no protection lay between us and the Indian forces.
After this outbreak, Indians and settlers about our neighborhood lived in peace, on the whole. To anyone who treated them fairly, the Indians became loyal friends.
Mowich Man, an Indian whom I was to know during many years, was one of our neighbors. He frequently passed our cabin with his canoe and people. He was a great hunter, a crack shot, and an all-round Indian of good parts. Many is the saddle of venison that he brought me in the course of years. Other pioneers likewise had special friends among the Indians.
Some of Mowich Man's people were fine singers. His camp, or his canoe if he was traveling, was always the center for song and merriment. It is a curious fact that one seldom can get the Indian music by asking for it, but rather must wait for its spontaneous outburst. Indian songs in those days came from nearly every nook and corner and seemed to pervade the whole country. We often could hear the songs and accompanying stroke of the paddle long before we saw the floating canoes.
Carrying a dairy to the new mining town.