A cabin was commenced and after a time, Low and Terry returned to Portland, leaving David Thomas Denny, nineteen years of age, the only white person on Elliott Bay. There were then swarms of Indians on the Sound.
For three weeks he held this outpost of civilization, a part of the time being far from well. So impressed was he with the defenselessness of the situation that he expressed himself as “sorry” when his friends landed from the schooner “Exact” at Alki Point on the 13th of November, 1851. No doubt realizing that an irretrievable step had been taken, he tried to reassure them by explaining that “the cabin was unfinished and that they would not be comfortable.” Many incidents of his early experience are recorded in this volume elsewhere.
He was married on the 23rd of January, 1853, to Miss Louisa Boren, one of the most intelligent, courageous and devoted of pioneer women. They were the first white couple married in Seattle. He was an explorer of the eastern side of Elliott Bay, but was detained at home in the cabin by lameness occasioned by a cut on his foot, when A. A. Denny, W. N. Bell and C. D. Boren took their claims, so had fourth choice.
For this reason his claim awaited the growth of the town of Seattle many years, but finally became very valuable.
It was early discovered by the settlers that he was a conscientious man; so well established was this fact that he was known by the sobriquet of “Honest Dave.”
Like all the other pioneers, he turned his hand to any useful thing that was available, cutting and hewing timber for export, clearing a farm, hauling wood, tending cattle, anything honorable; being an advocate of total abstinence and prohibition, he never kept a saloon.
He has done all in his power to discountenance the sale and use of intoxicants, the baleful effects of which were manifest among both whites and Indians.
Every movement in the early days seems to have been fraught with danger. D. T. Denny traveled in a canoe with two Indians from the Seattle settlement in July, 1852, to Bush’s Prairie, back of Olympia, to purchase cattle for A. A. Denny, carrying two hundred dollars in gold for that purpose. He risked his life in so doing, as he afterward learned that the Indians thought of killing him and taking the money, but for some unknown reason decided not to do the deed.
He was a volunteer during the Indian war of 1855-6, in Company C, and with his company was not far distant when Lieut. Slaughter was killed, with several others. Those who survived the attack were rescued by this company.
On the morning of the battle of Seattle, he was standing guard near Fort Decatur; the most thrilling moment of the day to him was probably that in which he helped his wife and child into the fort as they fled from the Indians.