Mr. Bush was a farmer, and having brought as much live stock as possible he at once broke up some of the best of the open prairie. He was so successful that in a very few years his farm was the main resource for grain, vegetables and fruit for supplying the newcomers in that region.
Let me say in passing that his memory is honored to this day among the early families for the fact that while he was at times the only man in the country with food for sale he would never take advantage by raising the price nor allow anyone to buy more than his own needs during an emergency.
In 1845 there were no mills on the Sound for grinding grain nor sawing lumber and as quick as the necessary outfit could be secured, which was about three years later, all of the Bush party, with Mr. Simmons as manager, joined in constructing a combined saw and grist mill at the foot of the lower Tumwater Fall, and where the small streams and rafts of timber could reach it at high tide.
For the grist mill, the main question was a pair of grinding stones and these were secured from a granite boulder on the shore of Mud Bay, the western branch of Budd's Inlet, at the head of which Tumwater and (two miles north) Olympia are situated. A man named Hamm, a stonecutter by trade, worked out and dressed the stones for use. I have tried to find these but am told that one was allowed to sink into the mud near the old mill site, while the other was taken out to the Bush farm, but it cracked to pieces many years ago and is now all gone.
It may be of interest to add that in the late seventies a man by the name of Horton originated the patent wood pipe industry in a mill on the site of the first mill.
In the same year of the first mill, in 1848, was loaded the first cargo of freight for export from the Upper Sound. This was on the brig Orbit, which had just come from the east around the Horn, and for this also Bush and his party made up a cargo of piles and hand-sawed shingles, etc. The vessel had brought quite a quantity of supplies and these made the first respectable stock of goods for the little store which the party had started in connection with the mill.
THE FANNING MILL.
The Bush family still possess and use an interesting relic of that first vessel. The Orbit brought out from the east two families named Rider and Moulton, and in their outfit were two fanning mills. So far as known, these were the first ever brought to the Sound and were certainly the first outside of Nisqually, the Hudson Bay station for the Sound.
As Bush was the greatest grain raiser and the new grist mill could not well get along without it, Mr. Bush secured one of these fanning mills and for some time all of the settlers who attempted to raise grain were permitted to use it.
It is singular that this old hand mill, which was such an important and hard worked factor in the first settlement, should, sixty-five years later, still be as efficient as ever and still be a necessity for the grandchildren of the old pioneer.