A QUINIAULT HUT
Another account which seems to cover much the same similar occurrence at the same place gives it that the tribe of the Duke of York were massacred with the exception of a very few. This took place, so it is related, when the old Duke was a small Indian about 14 years of age. The assailants were Sitkas, T’Klinkit or some other band of Alaska Indians who came by the way of Oak bay, near Ludlow, across the spit to the present site of Hadlock, caught the Clallams asleep and killed some 600 of them. It is claimed that the remains are still discoverable at that point. As the Duke was about 80 when he died some years ago, this must have taken place between 1820 and 1825.
The first raid affecting the white population of the Sound was when a crowd of T’Klinkits (or in this case probably some more southerly tribe) came to Whidby island in 1855 and murdered Colonel Ebey, then collector of customs for the Puget Sound district. They not only murdered him, but beheaded him. Several of his posterity are now living and can give full facts in this case.
CHAPTER XXIX
SEALTH AND THE ALLIED TRIBES
Sealth, second chief of the allied tribes in early days and previously of the Squamish and Duwamish, was the greatest Indian character of the country. Like the historic chief of the Mingoes, he was a friend of the white man and enemies he had none. A statesman and not a warrior he swayed the minds of his people with the magic of oratory rather than of war. Without a knowledge of the polyglot language common to all the tribes and the early white men, he was able by his superiority of mind to mould the turbulent and warlike spirits about him to his way of thinking, and to not only control them individually but to unite them into one grand peace union and to ever after maintain over them against all opposition a power as potent for good as the spirit and nature of the one who prompted it. Many chiefs who had before enjoyed chiefship without hinderance and directed and controlled his people at his own sweet will yielded to the superior power of Sealth, acted his part after the federation only as a lieutenant or sub-chief. Many old-timers yet survive who enjoyed the friendship of the old chief. Samuel F. Coombs, who probably has as intimate a knowledge of the early Indians as any one living, says of the old chief Sealth:
“The first time I ever saw Chief Sealth was in the summer of 1860, shortly after my arrival, at a council of chiefs in Seattle. At that time there was an unusually large number of Indians in town, over 1000 of them being congregated on the sandy beach. Most of the Indians were standing around talking in groups or listening to the deliberations of the council of about twenty of the oldest Indians seated in a circle on the ground. The chief figure was a venerable-looking old native, who was apparently acting as judge, as all who spoke addressed themselves to him. Matters of grave importance were evidently being discussed, and I was greatly impressed with the calm and dignified manner in which the old judge disposed of the matter in dispute and the great attention and respect shown him when speaking. From an intelligent-looking Indian who could speak English I learned that the old judge was Chief Seattle, or, as he was then known, Sealth, and that those seated about him were ex-chiefs and leading Indians of the various tribes then living about here. Among them were Seattle Curley from the mouth of the Duwamish; Tecumseh, from the Black river; Shilshole Curley, from Salmon bay; Lake John from Lake Washington, and Kitsap, from Kitsap county.
Chief SEALTH