The Indian Department, in response to Governor Stevens’s urgent letters taken to Washington by Secretary Mason, and the latter’s clear statement of the emergency, promptly remitted $27,000 to feed these Indians, and followed it with large sums for that purpose.
The northern Indians, gangs of whom persisted in visiting the Sound in their great war canoes in spite of the prohibition and warnings of both American and British authorities, caused great anxiety and apprehension. The governor urged the naval officers to keep a vessel constantly cruising the lower Sound to overawe and restrain them. On February 17 he wrote Captain Gansevoort that, from information received, he was apprehensive of a descent on the settlements by fourteen war canoes of these savages, and urged that the Active be kept cruising the whole time between Port Townsend, Bellingham Bay, and Seattle, saying:—
“These northern Indians, in daring, force, and intelligence, greatly surpass the Indians of the Sound. Their war canoes, carrying seventy-five men, can be moved through stormy seas, and with great rapidity. I deem it essential to the safety of the lower portion of the Sound that a steamer should be constantly in motion there.”
Apparently reliable reports were brought to the governor from time to time that these desperadoes were seeking to join the hostiles. Some of them actually offered their services to fight for the whites. They were attracted to the scene of war like vultures to the carrion, and were equally ready to fight and spoil either party to the conflict, or both. In July one of these unwelcome visitors was killed in a drunken brawl by a regular soldier at Steilacoom. From their well-known vindictive character, it was certain that they would avenge the death sooner or later by some act of atrocity. The governor therefore reinforced Whitby Island with fifteen men from the line of the Snohomish, and the Massachusetts and Hancock were kept diligently cruising. When, in November, another party appeared near Steilacoom, committing depredations, and had a fight with the Indians on the reservation, in which two of their number were killed, Captain Gansevoort hastened to the scene in the Massachusetts, determined to compel them to leave the Sound. They had already started down it, but he pursued and overtook them at Port Gamble, where he found them encamped on an island. After exhausting all efforts at conciliation, offering to pardon all their depredations, and even to tow their canoes to Victoria if they would only depart from the Sound, and all friendly overtures being treated with the utmost contempt and ridicule by the Indians, Captain Gansevoort opened fire upon them from his guns, and, throwing a party ashore, attacked them on land also. Their canoes were destroyed, and they were driven back into the woods, but they fought with desperate courage and determination, and continued the contest the entire day. To a message sent by a captured squaw, inviting them to surrender with the sole condition of leaving the Sound, they returned the defiant answer that they would fight as long as there was a man left alive. But being on a small island, and all their canoes and supplies destroyed, they were forced by hunger to surrender, which they did after holding out for forty-eight hours. The party consisted of one hundred and seventeen men, besides squaws and boys, and lost twenty-seven killed and twenty-one wounded. Captain Gansevoort took the survivors in his vessel to Victoria, where he purchased canoes for them and started them northward, exacting their promises never to return to the Sound. Even this severe punishment did not deter them from seeking revenge. The following year a party of them landed on Whitby Island, murdered Colonel Isaac N. Ebey, the United States collector of customs, cut off his head, plundered his house, and departed northward with their booty and ghastly trophy.
CHAPTER XLIII LEGISLATIVE CENSURE.—POPULAR VINDICATION The family remained in Olympia during this year of Indian troubles. The children attended the public school, and found kind and judicious teachers in the Rev. George F. Whitworth and his estimable wife. Mrs. Stevens, escorted by her son, frequently rode on horseback over the neighboring prairies, heedlessly running a greater peril than they knew of, for the Indians murdered two men and committed depredations quite near the town. There was not much social gayety at such an anxious time, but the little community were drawn closer together by the dangers surrounding it.
When not absent on his trips, the governor usually worked in his office till long after midnight, and his assistants and clerks were kept hard at it to dispose of the multifarious orders, reports, accounts, and other details of the war and the Indian service. He kept both the War and Indian departments in Washington constantly informed of the progress of the war and the condition of affairs by frequent detailed and graphic reports, and these, with his correspondence, made a volume of four hundred pages as published with his message of 1857. His physical labors were also extreme, involving journeys to the Columbia River, the Dalles, Walla Walla, and down the Sound, aggregating over two thousand miles. And it should be borne in mind that he was not assisted by any regularly long established and tried services, but had in a measure to create the organizations, and to make use of hastily selected and inexperienced officers. He had by this time fully adopted the rough, serviceable costume of the country,—slouch hat, woolen shirt, and heavy riding-boots,—and, indeed, no other garb was practicable for one so constantly engaged on long and arduous journeys by horseback and canoe, frequently in stormy weather.
HOMESTEAD IN OLYMPIA
In the summer and fall the governor caused his block of land No. 84, which he purchased on his first arrival, to be cleared, and the late Benjamin Harned built for him a plain, square dwelling, with a wide hall in the centre and rooms on either side, a story and a half high. A smaller building, for an office, on the northeast corner of the block, and a stable in the rear on the southwest corner were also built. The family moved into the new home in December, and found the spacious rooms, with the magnificent view of the Sound and the Coast Range, a most agreeable change from the former contracted quarters and noisy surroundings.