When the news came to the little village of Seattle that he had returned from Washington City, where he had been laboring to secure an appropriation for the Territorial University, two of his little grandchildren ran up the hill to meet him; he took off his high silk hat, his silvery hair shining in the fair sunlight and smiled a greeting, as they grasped either hand and fairly led him to their home.
A beautiful tribute from the friend before quoted closes this brief and inadequate sketch:
“He sleeps out yonder midway between the lakes (Washington and Union), where the shadows of the Cascades in the early morning fall upon the rounded mound of earth that marks his resting place, and the shadows of the Olympics in the early evening rest lovingly and caressingly on the same spot; there, where the song birds of the forest and the wild flowers and gentle zephyrs, laden with the perfume of the fir and cedar, pay a constant tribute to departed goodness and true worth.”
SARAH LATIMER DENNY.
The subject of this sketch was a Tennessean of an ancestry notable for staying qualities, religious steadfastness and solid character, as well as gracious and kindly bearing.
On her father’s side she traced descent from the martyr, Hugh Latimer, and although none of the name have been called to die at the stake in the latter days, Washington Latimer, nephew of Sarah Latimer Denny, was truly a martyr to principle, dying in Andersonville prison during the Rebellion.
The prevailing sentiment of the family was patriotic and strongly in favor of the abolition movement.
One of the granddaughters pleasurably recalls the vision of Joseph Latimer, father of Sarah, sitting in his dooryard, under the boughs of a great Balm of Gilead tree, reading his Bible.
Left to be the helper of her mother when very young, by the marriage of her elder sister, she quickly became a competent manager in household affairs, sensible of her responsibilities, being of a grave and quiet disposition.
She soon married a young Baptist minister, Richard Freeman Boren, whose conversion and call to the ministry were clear and decided. His first sermon was preached in the sitting room of a private house, where were assembled, among others, a number of his gay and pleasure-loving companions, whom he fearlessly exhorted to a holy life.