In 1859 he removed to Seattle, and from that time on to the day of his death was a recognized leader in every enterprise calculated to promote the prosperity of the town or advance its educational and social interests. No public measure, no public meeting to consider public enterprise, was a success in which he was not a central figure, not as an assumed director, but as an earnest co-operator, who enthused others by his own undaunted spirit of enterprise, and when past eighty years of age his voice was heard stirring up the energies of the people, and by his example, no less than his precepts, he shamed the listless and selfish younger men into activity and public spirit.
When any special legislative aid was desired for this section, John Denny was certain to be selected to obtain it; by his efforts mainly the Territorial University was located at this place.
He passed his long and active life almost wholly upon the frontiers of civilization, not from any aversion to the refinements and restraints of social life, for few men possessed higher social qualities or had in any greater degree the nicer instincts of a gentleman—he held a patent of nobility under the signet of the Almighty, and his intercourse with others was ever marked by a courtesy which betokened not only self-respect but a due regard for the rights and opinions of others. He was impelled by as noble ambition as ever sought the conquest of empire or the achievement of personal glory—the subduing of the unoccupied portions of his country to the uses of man, with the patriotic purpose of extending his country’s glory and augmenting its resources.
His first care in every settlement was to establish and promote education, religion and morality as the only true foundation of social as well as individual prosperity, and with all his courage and manly strength he rarely, if ever, was drawn into a lawsuit.
John Denny was of that noble race of men, now nearly extinct, who formed the vanguard of Western civilization and were the founders of empire. Their day is over, their vocation ended, because the limit of their enterprise has been reached. Among the compeers of the same stock were Dick Johnson, Harrison, Lincoln, Harden and others famous in the history of the country, who only excelled him in historic note by biding their opportunities in waiting to reap the fruits of the harvest which they had planted. He was the peer of the best in all the elements of manhood, of heart and brain. In all circumstances and surroundings he was a recognized leader of men, and would have been so honored and so commanded that leading place in public history had he waited for the development of the social institutions which he helped to plant in the Western states, now the seat of empire. All who entered his presence were instinctively impressed by his manhood. Yet no man was less pretentious or more unostentatious in his intercourse with others.
He reverenced his manhood, and felt himself here among men his brethren under the eye of a common Father.
He felt that he was bound to work for all like a brother and like a son.
So he was brave, so he was true, so his integrity was unsullied, so not a stain dims his memory; so he rebuked vice and detested meanness and hated with a cordial hate all falsehood, all dishonesty and all trickery; so he was the chivalrous champion of the innocent and oppressed; so he was gentle and merciful, because he was working among a vast family as a brother “recognizing the Great Father, Who sits over all, Who is forever Truth and forever Love.”
Such words as these were said of him at the time of his death, when the impressions of his personality were fresh in the minds of the people.
He entered into rest July 28th, 1875.