The United States government actually paid rent to this foreign company for many years for the site where Fort Steilacoom was located on account of the shadowy title of the company under the treaty of 1846.
During this lapse of time, from 1833 to the time our camp was established, many of the company's servants' time had expired and in almost every case, such had taken to themselves Indian wives and had squatted on the choice locations for grazing or small farming. Montgomery himself, near whose premises we were camping, was one of these. A few miles to the south of this place, ran the small creek "Muck," on the surface for several miles to empty into the Nisqually. Along this little creek, others of these discharged servants had settled, and all taken Indian wives. These were the settlers that were afterwards denounced by Governor Stevens, and finally arrested for alleged treason. Each of these had an abundance of stock and farm produce, and was living in affluence and comfort. One of them, reputed to be the rightful owner of thirteen cows, one summer raised thirty-three calves, the handy lasso rope having been brought into play among the company's herds in secluded places; yet, as the rule, these people were honorable, upright men, though as a class, not of high intelligence, or of sober habits.
Added to this class just mentioned, was another; the discharged United States soldiers. The men then comprising the United States army were far lower in moral worth and character than now. Many of these men had also taken Indian wives and settled where they had chosen to select. Added to these were a goodly number of the previous years' immigrants. By this recital the reader will be apprised of the motley mess our little party were destined to settle among, unless they should chose to go to other parts of the Territory. I did not myself fully realize the complications to be met until later years.
All this while, as we have said, settlers were crowding into this district, taking up donation claims until that act expired by limitation in 1854, and afterward by squatter's rights, which to all appearances, seemed as good as any. My own donation claim afterwards was involved in this controversy, in common with many others. Although our proofs of settlement were made and all requirements of the law complied with, nevertheless, our patents were held up and our title questioned for twenty years, and so, after having made the trip across the Plains, because Uncle Sam had promised to give us all a farm, and after having made the required improvements and resided on the land for the four years, then to be crowded off without title did seem a little rough on the pioneers.
I have before me one of the notices served upon the settlers by the company's agent which tells the whole story. [8] The then thriving town of Steilacoom was involved, as likewise part of the lands set apart for the Indian Reservation, and it did seem as though it would be hard to get a more thorough mix-up as to titles of the land, than these knotty questions presented.
All this while, as was natural there should be, there was constant friction between some settler and the company, and had it not been for the superior tact of such a man as Dr. Tolmie in charge of the company's affairs, there would have been serious trouble.
As it was, there finally came a show of arms when the company undertook to survey the boundary line to inclose the land claimed, although the acreage was much less than claimed on paper. But the settlers, (or some of them), rebelled, and six of them went armed to the party of surveyors at work and finally stopped them. An old-time friend, John McLeod, was one of the party (mob, the company called it), but the records do not show whether he read his chapter in the Bible that day, or whether instead, he took a double portion of whiskey to relieve his conscience.
It is doubtful whether the old man thought he was doing wrong or thought anything about it, except that he had a belief that somehow or other a survey might make against him getting a title to his own claim.
I had a similar experience at a later date with the Indians near the Muckleshute Reservation, while attempting to extend the sub-divisional lines of the township near where the reserve was located. I could not convince the Indians that the survey meant no harm to them.
The case was different in the first instance, as in fact, neither party was acting within the limits of their legal rights, and for the time being, the strongest and most belligerent prevailed, but only to be circumvented at a little later date by a secret completion of the work, sufficient to platting the whole.