A volume of personal experiences might be written, but I will give here but a few incidents. To a number of the settlers who were about breakfasting, it was a time of breathless terror; they must flee for their lives to the fort. The bullets from unseen foes whistled over their heads and the distance traversed to the fort was the longest journey of their lives. It was remembered afterward that some very amusing things took place in the midst of fright and flight. One man, rising late and not fully attired, donned his wife’s red flannel petticoat instead of the bifurcated garment that usually graced his limbs. The “pants” were not handy and the petticoat was put on in a trice.
Louisa Boren Denny, my mother, was alone with her child about two years old, in the little frame house, a short distance from the fort. She was engaged in baking biscuits when hearing the shots and yells of the Indians she looked out to see the marines from the Decatur swarming up out of their boats onto Yesler’s wharf and concluded it was best to retire in good order. With provident foresight she snatched the pan from the oven and turned the biscuits into her apron, picked up the child, Emily Inez Denny, with her free hand and hurried out, leaving the premises to their fate. Fortunately her husband, David T. Denny, who had been standing guard, met her in the midst of the flying bullets and assisted her, speedily, into the friendly fort.
A terrible day it was for all those who were called upon to endure the anxiety and suspense that hovered within those walls; perhaps the moment that tried them most was when the report was circulated that all would be burned alive as the Indians would shoot arrows carrying fire on the roof of cedar shingles or heap combustibles against the walls near the ground and thus set fire to the building. To prevent the latter maneuver, the walls were banked with earth all around.
But the Indians kept at a respectful distance, the rifle-balls and shells were not to their taste and it is not their way to fight in the open.
A tragic incident was the death of Milton Holgate. Francis McNatt, a tall man, stood in the door of the fort with one hand up on the frame and Jim Broad beside him; Milton Holgate stood a little back of McNatt, and the bullet from a savage’s gun passed either over or under the uplifted arm of McNatt, striking the boy between the eyes.
Quite a number of women and children were taken on board the two ships in the harbor, but my mother remained in the fort.
The battle was again renewed and fiercely fought in the afternoon.
Toward evening the Indians prepared to burn the town, but a brisk dropping of shells from the big guns of the Decatur dispersed them and they departed for cooler regions, burning houses on the outskirts of the settlement as they retreated toward the Duwamish River.
