FOOTNOTE:
[18] Since this meeting in June, 1904, all of the ten pioneers that comprised the party have died, prior to the writing of this note, except the author and one other.
CHAPTER XXXI.
A CHAPTER ON NAMES.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century that intrepid American traveler, Jonathan Carver, wrote these immortal words:
"From the intelligence I gained from the Naudowessie Indians, among whom I arrived on the 7th of December (1776), and whose language I perfectly acquired during a residence of five months, and also from the accounts I afterwards obtained from the Assinipoils, who speak the same tongue, being a revolted band of the Naudowessies; and from the Killistinoes, neighbors of the Assinipoils, who speak the Chipeway language and inhabit the heads of the River Bourbon; I say from these natives, together with my own observations, I have learned that the four most capital rivers on the continent of North America, viz.: the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the River Bourbon and the Oregon, or the River of the West (as I hinted in my introduction), have their sources in the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty miles of each other; the latter, however, is further west."
All students of history acknowledge this is the first mention of the word Oregon in English literature. The narrative quoted was inspired by his observations on the upper Mississippi, and particularly upon the event of reaching his farthest point, sixty miles above the Falls of St. Anthony, November 17th, 1776. This was the farthest up the Mississippi that the white man had ever penetrated, "So that we are obliged solely to the Indians for all the intelligence we are able to give relative to the more northern parts," and yet this man, seemingly with prophetic sight, discovered the great river of the West, attempted to name it, and coined a word for the purpose. While Carver missed his mark and did not succeed in affixing the new-born name to the great river he saw in his vision, yet the word became immortal through the mighty empire for which it afterwards stood. Carver made no explanation as to where the word Oregon came from, but wrote as though it was well known like the other rivers mentioned. Probably for all time the origin of this name with be a mystery.
We have a like curious phenomenon in the case of Winthrop first writing the word Tacoma, in September, 1853. None of the old settlers had heard that name, either through the Indians or otherwise, until after the publication of Winthrop's work ten years later, "The Canoe and the Saddle," when it became common knowledge and was locally applied in Olympia as early as 1866, said to have been suggested by Edward Giddings of that place.
However, as Winthrop distinctly claimed to have obtained the word from the Indians, the fact was accepted by the reading public, and the Indians soon took their cue from their white neighbors.
It is an interesting coincident that almost within a stone's throw of where Winthrop coined the name that we find it applied to the locality that has grown to be the great city of Tacoma.
On the 26th of October, 1868, John W. Ackerson located a mill site on Commencement Bay, within the present limits of the city of Tacoma, and applied the name to his mill. He said he had gotten it from Chief Spot of the Puyallup tribe, who claimed it was the Indian name for the mountain, Rainier.
The word or name Seattle was unknown when the founders of this city first began to canvass the question of selecting a site for the town, and some time elapsed before a name was coined out of the word se-alth.
Se-alth, or Seattle, as he was afterwards known, was reported to be the chief of six tribes or bands, but at best his control was like most all the chiefs on the Sound, but shadowy.
Arthur Denny says that "we (meaning himself, Boren and Bell) canvassed the question as to a name and agreed to call the place Seattle, after the old chief" (Se-alth), but we have no definite information as to when the change in the old chief's name took place. Se-alth was quite disturbed to have his name trifled with and appropriated by the whites, and was quite willing to levy a tribute by persuasion upon the good people of the embryo city.
I have another historic name to write about, Puyallup, that we know is of Indian origin—as old as the memory of the white man runs. But such a name! I consider it no honor to the man who named the town (now city) of Puyallup. I accept the odium attached to inflicting that name on suffering succeeding generations by first platting a few blocks of land into village lots and recording them under the name Puyallup. I have been ashamed of the act ever since. The first time I went East after the town was named and said to a friend in New York that our town was named Puyallup he seemed startled.
"Named what?"
"Puyallup," I said, emphasizing the word.
"That's a jaw breaker," came the response. "How do you spell it?"
"P-u-y-a-l-l-u-p," I said.
"Let me see—how did you say you pronounced it?"
Pouting out my lips like a veritable Siwash, and emphasizing every letter and syllable so as to bring out the Peuw for Puy, and the strong emphasis on the al, and cracking my lips together to cut off the lup, I finally drilled my friend so he could pronounce the word, yet fell short of the elegance of the scientific pronunciation.
Then when I crossed the Atlantic and across the old London bridge to the Borough, and there encountered the factors of the hop trade on that historic ground, the haunts of Dickens in his day; and when we were bid to be seated to partake of the viands of an elegant dinner; and when I saw the troubled look of my friend, whose lot it was to introduce me to the assembled hop merchants, and knew what was weighing on his mind, my sympathy went out to him but remained helpless to aid him.
"I say—I say—let me introduce to you my American friend—my American friend from—my American friend from—from—from—"
And when, with an imploring look he visibly appealed to me for help, and finally blurted out:
"I say, Meeker, I cawn't remember that blarsted name—what is it?"
And when the explosion of mirth came with:
"All the same, he's a jolly good fellow—a jolly good fellow."
I say, when all this had happened, and much more besides, I could yet feel resigned to my fate.
Then when at Dawson I could hear the shrill whistle from the would-be wag, and hear:
"He's all the way from Puy-al-lup," I could yet remain in composure.
Then when, at night at the theaters, the jesters would say:
"Whar was it, stranger, you said you was from?"
"Puy-al-lup!"
"Oh, you did?" followed by roars of laughter all over the house. And all this I could hear with seeming equanimity.
But when letters began to come addressed "Pew-lupe," "Polly-pup," "Pull-all-up," "Pewl-a-loop," and finally "Pay-all-up," then my cup of sorrow was full and I was ready to put on sackcloth and ashes.
The name for the town, however, came about in this way: In the early days we had a postoffice, Franklin. Sometimes it was on one side of the river and then again on the other; sometimes way to one side of the settlement and then again to the other. It was not much trouble those days to move a postoffice. One could almost carry the whole outfit in one's pocket.
We were all tired of the name Franklin, for there were so many Franklins that our mail was continually being sent astray. We agreed there never would be but one Puyallup; and in that we were unquestionably right, for surely there will never be another.
Nevertheless, people would come and settle with us. Where the big stumps and trees stood and occupied the ground, we now have brick blocks and solid streets. Where the cabins stood, now quite pretentious residences have arisen. The old log-cabin school house has given way to three large houses, where now near twelve hundred scholars are in attendance, instead of but eleven, as at first. And still the people came and built a hundred houses last year, each contributing their mite to perpetuating the name Puyallup. Puyallup has been my home for forty years, and it is but natural I should love the place, even if I cannot revere the name.
CHAPTER XXXII.
PIONEER RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES AND INCIDENTS.
If we were to confine the word religion to its strict construction as to meaning, we would cut off the pioneer actions under this heading to a great extent; but, if we will think of the definition as applied to morality, the duties of man to man, to character building—then the field is rich. Many of the pioneers, necessarily cut loose from church organizations, were not eager to enter again into their old affiliations, though their conduct showed a truly religious spirit. There were many who were outside the fold before they left their homes, and such, as a class, remained as they were; but many showed a sincere purpose to do right according to the light that was in them, and who shall say that if the spirit that prompted them was their duty to man, that such were not as truly religious as if the higher spiritual motives moved them?
We had, though, many earnest workers, whose zeal never abated, who felt it a duty to save souls, and who preached to others incessantly, in season and out of season, and whose work, be it said, exercised a good influence over the minds of the people.
One instance I have in mind—Father Weston, who came at irregular intervals to Puyallup, whose energy would make amends for his lack of eloquence, and whose example would add weight to his precepts. He was a good man. Almost everyone would go to hear him, although it was in everybody's mouth that he could not preach. He would make up in noise and fervency what he lacked in logic and eloquence. Positively, one could often hear him across a ten-acre lot when he would preach in a grove, and would pound his improvised pulpit with as much vigor as he would his weld on his anvil week days.
One time the old man came to the valley, made his headquarters near where the town of Sumner now is, induced other ministers to join him, and entered on a crusade, a protracted union meeting, with the old-time mourners' bench, amen corner and shouting members. When the second Sunday came the crowd was so great that the windows were taken out of the little school house, and more than half the people sat or reclined on the ground, or wagons drawn nearby, to listen to the noisy scene inside the house.
A peculiar couple, whom I knew well, had attended from a distance, the husband, a frail, little old man, intensely and fervently religious, while the wife, who was a specimen of strong womanhood, had never been able to see her way clear to join the church. Aunt Ann (she is still living), either from excitement or to please the husband, went to the mourners' bench and made some profession that led Uncle John, the husband, to believe the wife had at last got religion. Upon their return home the good lady soon began wavering, despite the urgent appeals from the husband, and finally blurted out:
"Well, John, I don't believe there is such a place as hell, anyhow."
This was too much for the husband, who, in a fit of sheer desperation, said:
"Well, well, Ann, you wait and you'll see." And the good lady, now past eighty-four, is waiting yet, but the good little husband has long since gone to spy out the unknown land.
I have known this lady now for fifty years, and although she has never made a profession of religion or joined a church, yet there has been none more ready to help a neighbor or to minister to the sick, or open the door of genuine hospitality than this same uncouth, rough-spoken pioneer woman.
I recall one couple, man and wife, who came among us of the true and faithful, to preach and practice the Baptist Christian religion. I purposely add "Christian," for if ever in these later years two people embodied the true Christ-like spirit, Mr. and Mrs. Wickser did—lived their religion and made their professions manifest by their work.
Mrs. Wickser was a very tall lady of ordinary appearance as to features, while the husband was short and actually deformed. The disparity in their heights was so great that as they stood or walked side by side he could have gone beneath her outstretched arm. Added to this peculiar appearance, like a woman and a boy of ten years parading as man and wife, the features of the little man riveted one's attention. With a low forehead, flattened nose, and swarthy complexion, one could not determine whether he was white or part red and black, Chinaman or what not; as Dr. Weed said to me in a whisper when he first caught sight of his features: "What, is that the missing link?" In truth, the doctor was so surprised that he was only half in jest, not at the time knowing the "creature," as he said, was the Baptist minister of the place.
But, as time went on, the strangeness of his features wore off, and the beauty of his character began to shine more and more, until there were none more respected and loved than this couple, by those who had come to know them.
A small factory had been established not far from the schoolhouse, where we had our Christmas tree. Some of the men from the factory took it into their heads to play what they called a joke on Mr. and Mrs. W. by placing on the tree a large bundle purporting to be a present, but which they innocently opened and found to contain a direct insult.
The little man, it could be seen, was deeply mortified, yet made no sign of resentment, although it soon became known who the parties were, but treated them with such forbearance and kindness that they became so ashamed of themselves as to inspire better conduct, and so that night the most substantial contribution of the season was quietly deposited at the good missionary's door, and ever after that all alike treated them with the greatest respect.
I have known this couple to walk through storm as well as sunshine, on roads or on trails, for miles around, visiting the pioneers as regularly as the week came, ministering to the wants of the sick, if perchance there were such, cheering the discouraged or lending a helping hand where needed, veritable good Samaritans as they were, a credit to our race by the exhibition of the spirit within them.
Take the case of George Bush, the negro, who refused to sell his crop to speculators for cash, yet distributed it freely to the immigrants who had come later, without money and without price. Also Sidney Ford, another early, rugged settler, although neither of them church members. Who will dare say theirs were not religious acts?
In response to a letter, the following characteristic reply from one of the McAuley sisters will be read with interest, as showing "the other sort" of pioneer religious experience, and following this, the brother's response about the "mining camp brand." She writes:
"And now as to your question in a former letter, in regard to religious experiences of pioneers. Tom had written me just before your letter came, asking me if I had heard from friend Meeker and wife. I told him of your letter and asked him if he ever heard of such a thing as religious experience among pioneers. I enclose his answer, which is characteristic of him. The first church service I attended in California was in a saloon, and the congregation, comprising nearly all the inhabitants of the place, was attentive and orderly. I think the religion of the pioneers was carried in their hearts, and bore its fruit in honesty and charity rather than in outward forms and ceremonies. I remember an instance on the plains. Your brother, O. P., had a deck of cards in his vest pocket. Sister Margaret smiled and said: 'Your pocket betrays you.' 'Do you think it a betrayal?' said he. 'If I thought it was wrong I would not use them.' Here is Brother Tom's letter:
"'Why, of course, I have seen as well as heard of pioneer religious experiences. But I expect the California mining camp brand differed some from the Washington brand for agricultural use, because the mining camp was liable to lose at short notice all its inhabitants on discovery of new diggings.'
"So, of course, large church buildings for exclusively church purposes were out of the question as impossible. And the only public buildings available were the saloons and gambling halls, whose doors, like the gates of perdition, were always open, day and night alike, to all, saint or sinner, who chose to enter, and having entered, had his rights as well as his duties well understood, and, if need be, promptly enforced."
John McLeod used to almost invariably get gloriously drunk whenever he came to Steilacoom, which was quite often, and generally would take a gallon keg home with him full of the vile stuff. And yet this man was a regular reader of his Bible, and, I am told by those who knew his habits best, read his chapter as regularly as he drank his gill of whisky, or perhaps more regularly, as the keg would at times become dry, while his Bible never failed him. I have his old, well-thumbed Gaelic Bible, with its title page of 1828, which he brought with him to this country in 1833, and used until his failing sight compelled the use of another of coarser print.
I am loth to close this (to me) interesting chapter, but my volume is full and overflowing and I am admonished not to pursue the subject further. A full volume might be written and yet not exhaust this interesting subject.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
WILD ANIMALS.
I will write this chapter for the youngsters and the elderly wise-heads who wear specs may turn over the leaves without reading it, if they choose.
Wild animals in early days were very much more plentiful than now, particularly deer and black bear. The black bear troubled us a good deal and would come near the houses and kill our pigs; but it did not take many years to thin them out. They were very cowardly and would run away from us in the thick brush except when the young cubs were with them, and then we had to be more careful.
There was one animal, the cougar, we felt might be dangerous, but I never saw but one in the woods. Before I tell you about it I will relate an adventure one of my own little girls had with one of these creatures nearby our own home in the Puyallup Valley.
I have written elsewhere about our little log cabin schoolhouse, but have not told how our children got to it. From our house to the schoolhouse the trail led through very heavy timber and very heavy underbrush—so dense that most all the way one could not see, in the summer time when the leaves were on, as far as across the kitchen of the house.
One day little Carrie, now an elderly lady (I won't say how old), now living in Seattle, started to go to school, but soon came running back out of breath.
"Mamma! Mamma! I saw a great big cat sharpening his claws on a great big tree, just like pussy does," she said as soon as she could catch her breath. Sure enough, upon examination, there were the marks as high up on the tree as I could reach. It must have been a big one to reach up the tree that far. But the incident soon dropped out of mind and the children went to school on the trail just the same as if nothing had happened.
The way I happened to see the cougar was this: Lew. McMillan bought one hundred and sixty-one cattle and drove them from Oregon to what we then used to call Upper White River, but it was the present site of Auburn. He had to swim his cattle over all the rivers, and his horses, too, and then at the last day's drive brought them on the divide between Stuck River and the Sound. The cattle were all very tame when he took them into the White River valley, for they were tired and hungry. At that time White River valley was covered with brush and timber, except here and there a small prairie. The upper part of the valley was grown up with tall, coarse rushes that remained green all winter, and so he didn't have to feed his cattle, but they got nice and fat long before spring. We bought them and agreed to take twenty head at a time. By this time the cattle were nearly as wild as deer. So Lew built a very strong corral on the bank of the river, near where Auburn is now, and then made a brush fence from one corner down river way, which made it a sort of lane, with the fence on one side and the river on the other, and gradually widened out as he got further from the corral.
I used to go over from Steilacoom and stay all night so we could make a drive into the corral early, but this time I was belated and had to camp on the road, so that we did not get an early start for the next day's drive. The cattle seemed unruly that day, and when we let them out of the corral up river way, they scattered and we could do nothing with them. The upshot of the matter was that I had to go home without cattle. We had worked with the cattle so long that it was very late before I got started and had to go on foot. At that time the valley above Auburn near the Stuck River crossing was filled with a dense forest of monster fir and cedar trees, and a good deal of underbrush besides. That forest was so dense in places that it was difficult to see the road, even on a bright, sunshiny day, while on a cloudy day it seemed almost like night, though I could see well enough to keep on the crooked trail all right.
Well, just before I got to Stuck River crossing I came to a turn in the trail where it crossed the top of a big fir which had been turned up by the roots and had fallen nearly parallel with the trail. The big roots held the butt of the tree up from the ground, and I think the tree was four feet in diameter a hundred feet from the butt, and the whole body, from root to top, was eighty-four steps long, or about two hundred and fifty feet. I have seen longer trees, though, and bigger ones, but there were a great many like this one standing all around about me.
I didn't stop to step it then, but you may be sure I took some pretty long strides about that time. Just as I stepped over the fallen tree near the top I saw something move on the big body near the roots, and sure enough the thing was coming right toward me. In an instant I realized what it was. It was a tremendous, great big cougar. He was very pretty, but did not look very nice to me. I had just received a letter from a man living near the Chehalis telling me of three lank, lean cougars coming into his clearing where he was at work, and when he started to go to his cabin to get his gun the brutes started to follow him, and he just only escaped into his house, with barely time to slam the door shut. He wrote that his dogs had gotten them on the run by the time he was ready with his gun, and he finally killed all three of them. He found they were literally starving and had, he thought, recently robbed an Indian grave, or rather an Indian canoe that hung in the trees with their dead in it. That is the way the Indians used to dispose of their dead, but I haven't time to tell about that now. This man found bits of cloth, some hair, and a piece of bone in the stomach of one of them, so he felt sure he was right in his surmise, and I think he was, too. I sent this man's letter to the paper, the Olympia Transcript, and it was printed at the time, but I have forgotten his name.
Well, I didn't know what to do. I had no gun with me, and I knew perfectly well there was no use to run. I knew, too, that I could not do as Mr. Stocking did, grapple with it and kick it to death. This one confronting me was a monstrous big one—at least it looked so to me. I expect it looked bigger than it really was. Was I scared, did you say? Did you ever have creepers run up your back and right to the roots of your hair, and nearly to the top of your head? Yes, I'll warrant you have, though a good many fellows won't acknowledge it and say it's only cowards that feel that way. Maybe; but, anyway, I don't want to meet wild cougars in the timber.
Mr. Stocking, whom I spoke about, lived about ten miles from Olympia at Glasgow's place. He was walking on the prairie and had a stout young dog with him, and came suddenly upon a cougar lying in a corner of the fence. His dog tackled the brute at once, but was no match for him, and would soon have killed him if Stocking had not interfered. Mr. Stocking gathered on to a big club and struck the cougar one heavy blow over the back, but the stick broke and the cougar left the dog and attacked his master. And so it was a life and death struggle. Mr. Stocking was a very powerful man. It was said that he was double-jointed. He was full six feet high and heavy in proportion. He was a typical pioneer in health, strength and power of endurance. He said he felt as though his time had come, but there was one chance in a thousand and he was going to take that chance. As soon as the cougar let go of the dog to tackle Stocking, the cur sneaked off to let his master fight it out alone. He had had enough fight for one day. As the cougar raised on his hind legs Stocking luckily grasped him by the throat and began kicking him in the stomach. Stocking said he thought if he could get one good kick in the region of the heart he felt that he might settle him. I guess, boys, no football player ever kicked as hard as Stocking did that day. The difference was that he was literally kicking for dear life, while the player kicks only for fun. All this happened in less time that it takes to tell it. Meanwhile the cougar was not idle, but was clawing away at Stocking's arms and shoulders, and once he hit him a clip on the nose. The dog finally returned to the strife and between the two they laid Mr. Cougar low and took off his skin the next day. Mr. Stocking took it to Olympia, where it was used for a base purpose. It was stuffed and put into a saloon and kept there a long time to attract people into the saloon.
Did my cougar hurt me, did you say? I hadn't any cougar and hadn't lost one, and if I had been hurt I wouldn't have been here to tell you this story. The fun of it was that the cougar hadn't seen me yet, but just as soon as he did he scampered off like the Old Harry himself was after him, and I strode off down the trail as if old Beelzebub was after me.
Now, youngsters, before you go to bed, just bear in mind there is no danger here now from wild animals, and there was not much then, for in all the time I have been here, now over fifty years, I have known of but two persons killed by them.
And now I will tell you one more true story and then quit for this time. Aunt Abbie Sumner one evening heard Gus Johnson hallooing at the top of his voice, a little way out from the house. Her father said Gus was just driving up the cows, but Aunt Abbie said she never knew him to make such a noise as that before, and went out within speaking distance and where she could see him at times pounding vigorously on a tree for awhile and then turn and strike out toward the brush and yell so loud she said she believed he could be heard for more than a mile away. She soon saw something moving in the brush. It was a bear. Gus had suddenly come upon a bear and her cubs and run one of the cubs up a tree. He pounded on the tree to keep it there, but had to turn at times to fight the bear away from him. As soon as he could find time to speak he told her to go to the house and bring the gun, which she did, and that woman went right up to the tree and handed Gus the gun while the bear was nearby. Gus made a bad shot the first time and wounded the bear, but the next time killed her. But lo and behold! he hadn't any more bullets and the cub was still up the tree. So away went Aunt Abbie two miles to a neighbor to get lead to mold some bullets. But by this time it was dark, and Gus stayed all night at the butt of the tree and kept a fire burning, and next morning killed the cub. So he got the hides of both of them. This occurred about three miles east of Bucoda, Washington.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE MORNING SCHOOL.
Soon after the Indian war we moved to our donation claim. We had but three neighbors, the nearest nearly two miles away, and two of them kept bachelor's hall and were of no account for schools. Of course, we could not see any of our neighbors' houses, and could reach but one by a road and the others by a trail. Under such conditions we could not have a public school. I can best tell about our morning school by relating an incident that happened a few months after it was started.
One day one of our farther-off neighbors, who lived over four miles away, came to visit us. Naturally, the children flocked around him to hear his stories in Scotch brogue, and began to ply questions, to which he soon responded by asking other questions, one of which was when they expected to go to school.
"Why, we have school now," responded a chorus of voices. "We have school every day."
"And, pray, who is your teacher, and where is your schoolhouse?" came the prompt inquiry.
"Father teaches us at home every morning before breakfast. He hears the lessons then, but mother help us, too."
Peter Smith, the neighbor, never tires telling the story, and maybe has added a little as memory fails, for he is eighty-four years old now.
"Your father told me awhile ago that you had your breakfast at six o'clock. What time do you get up?"
"Why, father sets the clock for half-past four, and that gives us an hour while mother gets breakfast, you know."
You boys and girls who read this chapter may have a feeling almost akin to pity for those poor pioneer children who had to get up so early, but you may as well dismiss such thoughts from your minds, for they were happy and cheerful and healthy, worked some during the day, besides studying their lessons, but they went to bed earlier than some boys and girls do these days.
It was not long until we moved to the Puyallup Valley, where there were more neighbors—two families to the square mile, but not one of them in sight, because the timber and underbrush were so thick we could scarcely see two rods from the edge of our clearing. Now we could have a real school; but first I will tell about the schoolhouse.
Some of the neighbors took their axes to cut the logs, some their oxen to haul them, others their saws and frows to make the clapboards for the roof, while again others, more handy with tools, made the benches out of split logs, or, as we called them, puncheons. With a good many willing hands, the house soon received the finishing touches. The side walls were scarcely high enough for the door, and one was cut in the end and a door hung on wooden hinges that squeaked a good deal when the door was opened or shut; but the children did not mind that. The roof answered well for the ceiling overhead, and a log cut out on each side made two long, narrow windows for light. The larger children sat with their faces to the walls, with long shelves in front of them, while the smaller tots sat on low benches near the middle of the room. When the weather would permit the teacher left the door open to admit more light, but had no need for more fresh air as the roof was quite open and the cracks between the logs let in plenty.
Sometimes we had a lady teacher, and then her salary was smaller, as she boarded around. That meant some discomfort part of the time, where the surroundings were not pleasant.
Some of those scholars are dead, some have wandered to parts unknown, while those that are left are nearly all married and are grandfathers or grandmothers, but all living remember the old log schoolhouse with affection. This is a true picture, as I recollect, of the early school days in the Puyallup Valley, when, as the unknown poet has said:
"And children did a half day's work
Before they went to school."
Not quite so hard as that, but very near it, as we were always up early and the children did a lot of work before and after school time.
When Carrie was afterwards sent to Portland to the high school she took her place in the class just the same as if she had been taught in a grand brick schoolhouse. "Where there is a will there is a way."
You must not conclude that we had no recreation and that we were a sorrowful set devoid of enjoyment, for there never was a happier lot of people than these same hard-working pioneers and their families. I will now tell you something about their home life, their amusements as well as their labor.
Before the clearings were large we sometimes got pinched for both food and clothing, though I will not say we suffered much for either, though I know of some families at times who lived on potatoes "straight". Usually fish could be had in abundance, and considerable game—some bear and plenty of deer. The clothing gave us the most trouble, as but little money came to us for the small quantity of produce we had to spare. I remember one winter we were at our wits' end for shoes. We just could not get money to buy shoes enough to go around, but managed to get leather to make each member of the family one pair. We killed a pig to get bristles for the wax-ends, cut the pegs from green alder log and seasoned them in the oven, and made the lasts out of the same timber. Those shoes were clumsy, to be sure, but kept our feet dry and warm, and we felt thankful for the comforts vouchsafed to us and sorry for some neighbors' children, who had to go barefooted even in quite cold weather.
Music was our greatest pleasure and we never tired of it. "Uncle John," as everyone called him, the old teacher, never tired teaching the children music, and so it soon came about they could read their music as readily as they could their school books. No Christmas ever went by without a Christmas tree, in which the whole neighborhood joined, or a Fourth of July passed without a celebration. We made the presents for the tree if we could not buy them, and supplied the musicians, reader and orator for the celebration. Everybody had something to do and a voice in saying what should be done, and that very fact made all happy.
We had sixteen miles to go to our market town, Steilacoom, over the roughest kind of a road. Nobody had horse teams at the start, and so we had to go with ox teams. We could not make the trip out and back in one day, and did not have money to pay hotel bills, and so we would drive out part of the way and camp and the next morning drive into town very early, do our trading, and, if possible, reach home the same day. If not able to do this, we camped again on the road; but if the night was not too dark would reach home in the night. And oh! what an appetite we would have, and how cheery the fire would be, and how welcome the reception in the cabin home.
One of the "youngsters," sixty years old now, after reading "The Morning School," writes:
"Yes, father, your story of the morning school is just as it was. I can see in my mind's eye yet us children reciting and standing up in a row to spell, and Auntie and mother getting breakfast, and can remember the little bed room; of rising early and of reading 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' as a dessert to the work."
Near where the old log cabin schoolhouse stood our high school building now stands, large enough to accommodate four hundred pupils. In the district where we could count nineteen children of school age, with eleven in attendance, now we have twelve hundred boys and girls of school age, three large schoolhouses and seventeen teachers.
The trees and stumps are all gone and brick buildings and other good houses occupy much of the land, and as many people now live in that school district as lived both east and west of the mountains when the Territory was created in March, 1853. Instead of ox teams, and some at that with sleds, the people have buggies and carriages, or automobiles, or they can travel on any of the eighteen passenger trains that pass daily through Puyallup, or on street cars to Tacoma, and also on some of the twenty to twenty-four freight trains, some of which are a third of a mile long. Such are some of the changes wrought in fifty years since pioneer life began in the Puyallup Valley.
Now, just try your hand on this song that follows, one that our dear old teacher has sung so often for us, in company with one of those scholars of the old log cabin, Mrs. Frances Bean, now of Tacoma, who has kindly supplied the words and music:
FIFTY YEARS AGO.
How wondrous are the changes
Since fifty years ago,
When girls wore woolen dresses
And boys wore pants of tow;
And shoes were made of cowhide
And socks of homespun wool;
And children did a half-day's work
Before they went to school.
Chorus.
Some fifty years ago;
Some fifty years ago;
The men and the boys
And the girls and the toys;
The work and the play,
And the night and the day,
The world and its ways
Are all turned around
Since fifty years ago.
The girls took music lessons
Upon the spinning wheel,
And practiced late and early
On spindle swift and reel.
The boy would ride the horse to mill,
A dozen miles or so,
And hurry off before 'twas day
Some fifty years ago.
The people rode to meeting
In sleds instead of sleighs,
And wagons rode as easy
As buggies nowadays;
And oxen answered well for teams,
Though now they'd be too slow;
For people lived not half so fast
Some fifty years ago.
That Wilson's patent stove,
That father bought and paid for
In cloth our girls had wove;
And how the people wondered
When we got the thing to go,
And said 'twould burst and kill us all,
Some fifty years ago.
CHAPTER XXXV.
AN EARLY SURVEY.
On the night of the 27th of November, 1866, a party of four young men, Ransom Bonney, Jacob Woolery, Edward Ross, and Marion Meeker, none of whom were nineteen years old, together with a middle-aged man, the author, whom they called "Dad", and an Indian named "Skyuck", or Jim Meeker, camped in a small shack of a house, standing on the spot now described as the foot of Thirty-third Street, Tacoma.
We were tired and hungry when this camp was reached at dusk of evening, and drenched to the skin by the copious rainfall between times of gusts of wind such as is common on November days of a Puget Sound climate. The cabin was open, with a small fireplace with a low cat-and-clay chimney that did not reach high enough to prevent the smoke from being blown freely into the cabin.
"Golly, Dad, that's been a tough old day," said Ransom Bonney, who was the wag of the party and always cheerful (his father, a pioneer of 1853, still lives at the advanced age of 92 years), as he drew off his socks to wring them before preparing supper. [19] "Just please deliver me from surveying on tide flats," he added, as the water ran in streams from the socks in his hands. "But it's all right when one gets used to it."
"Yes, but the d—l of it is, to get used to it," came as a quick response from the lips of Jacob Woolery, who had shed most of his clothing preparatory to drying. At the same time he was doing justice to the boiled potatoes and ash cake, baked before the open fire in the frying-pan. Edward Ross, the third lad of the party, said nothing. He had been the flagman that day and frequently over boot-top deep in mud and water without any murmur, but it was plain to me that he did not want any more of such work.
Jacob, Edward and the Indian have long since passed away; Marion and Ransom, the surviving members of the lads, are yet alive. At present, only three of the whole party are left to tell the story of subdividing the land for the Government where now the great city of Tacoma is building. The day following the experience on the tide flat we ran the line between sections T. 20, N., R. 3 E. Willamette, meridian almost parallel with Pacific Avenue to a point near Seventh Street.
That day also gave a sample of what a rainy, stormy day could bring forth in the dense forest of heavy timber and underbrush charged with the accumulated raindrops in the intervals between the gusts of wind and rainfall that prevailed all day.
"Dad, I believe this is worse than the tide flats," said Jake, as he almost slid down the steep bluff just north of the Tacoma Hotel while retracing the fifth standard parallel, to search for the bearing trees in the meander line of Commencement Bay.
And so it was, the further the work progressed, the harder the task seemed, and that second night's camp in the cabin found us if possible with less comfort than the first. But we stuck to the job through thick and thin, rain or wind, till the work was finished and the township surveyed. Positively, if at that time one could have offered me the land represented by that survey in lieu of the ten dollars per mile in greenbacks (then worth seventy-five cents on the dollar) I would have taken the greenbacks instead of the land.
Now, in the near vicinity, lots with twenty-five foot front and a hundred foot depth have sold for twenty-five thousand dollars; sixteen-story buildings occupy the land not three blocks away and a city of over a hundred thousand people has grown up on the land thus surveyed, that was then a dense virgin forest of giant timber.